Agrawala, a computer science professor at the University of Maryland, began development on the “V911” smart phone application for the campus 2 1/2 years ago. Now the app is finished and expected to be available for students to download in early spring. How does V911 work?

The idea is that if you needed help, instead of dialing 911, you press one button on your smart phone. … And we know whose smart phone it is, so the information that goes to the police dispatcher includes who you are and where you are. But in addition we open an audio and a video connection so the dispatcher can hear and see what’s going on [at] the incident scene. … There are various campus cameras which are deployed. … Those cameras automatically zoom down to that scene and those videos are also made available to the dispatcher.