Online Safety Education – Part of the Technological Innovation Making Workplaces Safe

As corporations attempt to move towards the goal of zero workplace incidents the limitation continues to be finding enough qualified safety professionals to provide the needed support.  In the last decade there has been a virtual explosion in university education programs offering occupational health and safety programs.  The number of new graduates is growing exponentially. Many of these university programs are limited to classroom-based offerings while others offer the flexibility of online learning.

Traditional classroom education is only available to people living in large urban centres. These programs are further impeded by the difficulty in finding qualified instructors in the centres where the courses are being offered. The most common and online programs are more widely available but are restricted to the fixed start and end dates typically following a fall, winter, and spring semester schedule. For today’s mobile employee working away from the major centres in resource rich areas of the world, or working staggered shifts associated with many offshore oil and gas jobs, these traditional programs don’t work.

There have been new developments in online learning and there are now more opportunities than ever before to meet the demands of employees looking for education in occupational health and safety. The emergence of these new online, more flexible educational opportunities in occupational health and safety in as little as the last ten years has been quite astounding. The application of new technologies, and the innovation of today’s safety educators, have formal education in occupational health and safety available anywhere and at any time.  Today, there are a wide variety of platforms available and tools accessible for making online education a great learning opportunity.

By far the most flexible of these online programs is the Canadian program in Occupational Health and Safety offered by the University of New Brunswick. This program allows for continuous intake, meaning you can start and finish a course at any time–no restrictions or limitations. The program includes a cluster of three courses covering fundamental subject matter including: occupational health and safety basics such as hazard assessment and control, law and ethics, and occupational health and hygiene. There is a three course cluster covering occupational health and safety management systems, management, leadership and organizational behaviour, and risk management and risk communication.  This is rounded out by a five-course specialized cluster including: accident causation, fire prevention, ergonomics, auditing and environmental management.

All course materials needed are provided online and can be downloaded allowing access anywhere and anytime you want to study. Quizzes are taken online when it is most convenient to the student. In this highly flexible learning environment, student self-motivation is maintained by allowing students to set their own deadlines.  With the self-paced programming students work best when they have time to focus on the content and study more effectively. The student-instructor interaction includes email discussion and telephone contact is available to meet the student’s needs.

Technology and innovation are helping to advance occupational health and safety by making online educational opportunities more widely available and more flexible than ever before. The goal of zero workplace incidents is possible and with increased access the occupational health and safety professional today can gain the education they need when they want it and wherever they are working.