Australia's Science Forum

Gotta love 'em. But you did it wrong. What you should have done was said "Oh, OK then" and then half an hour later get back to him and say "here you are then, will these do". Then a) you look as if you followed his suggestion, and b) you look like Super Lab Tech!

And he thought you just like the pretty colours!!
J

We have just commenced using RiskAssess and I have a simple question for all those who use it.
As it is on-line, do you open it in the morning and leave it open all day/ Or do you have certain times that you open it.. or ...

I guess it is up to you how you prefer to use it and what system you get used to with the teachers. I have my orders emailed to me and then I do the RA and only open RiskAssess when I need to do an RA, and this can be a few times a day.
Cheers Lisa

I have recently started using RiskAssess, the teachers email the risk assessment to me, so I have my email minimised and when ever a new email is sent the computer beeps. As I am not always in the prep room, sometimes I do miss the beep, but I will check my email occassionally. RiskAssess also allows you to print out a Laboratory Schedule, after lunch I print it out for 'tomorrow' this is also a checking method for me, to ensure that the risk assessment has been emailed to me.

Vicki

Hi everyone,
At the WH&S course I attended last month we were told RA is valid for 5 years, but once MSDS that was used to create RA has expired, RA has to be re-done using new valid MSDS.
Does that make sense?
Lada

Thats interesting that they are valid for 5 years as the Risk assess has the expiry at 15months. I did one yesterday and it is valid till 14 Jun 2013.
Will we ever have clear information that just tells us what is required and not open to interpretation??

Beats me, Lorrae.
I just had a look at the RAs I did when we had riskassess and sure enough only 15 months.
When I use chemgold3 (which is free for privite schools and we are using it instead of riskassess) all RAs had expiry date 5 years away, as long as the MSDS was also updated this year.
Will we ever get one answer for a single question?
Lada

I leave RiskAssess open all day, and check it periodically. One or two (paranoid) teachers still email me as well, or, to be fair, those who might want to discuss the prac with me. I love it for a variety of reasons, not least because it "time & Dates" the pracs as they are ordered. I've already used that facility to stick up for myself to the HOD (who was alrady on my side anyway ).

I found that right down the bottom is an email link - so the teachers are going to use that - then it comes to my computer and i get that lovely little 'ping'.. aha!

Hi All
I open risk assess first thing and refer to it throughout the day, in case of very late entries. Also it allows me to start jobs for the next few days earlier than I might have before because the schedule sets things out in sequence and is so easy to use.
At first I was "creating modifiable copies" but soon found there's no need, I just sign at the bottom of teachers risk assess.
As long as teachers fill in the time and lab area, the experiment goes straight into the schedule. If I'm not sure how organised I am at the beginning of the day, I just go to the "Today" option and see to that before checking for tomorrow and rest of week.

For all the lovely ladies that started the course yesterday. We have been in touch with the lady that told you all you have to do RA for all experiments. If you are DEC schools, you must follow the CSIS to the latter, so no RA are required. I belive some of the ladies have returned to school today, believing they have to do RA for every thing. Have a great weekend.

Hi Labbie
But when might we get the updated CSIS? That's what I want to know.

Hi Labbie,

I'm interested to know what the DEC (in NSW I presume) says about this notion of acknowledging individual circumstances within a particular class. Like I said earlier in this post, we were advised that the teacher had to acknowledge any kids with specific needs, as much as an a***-covering exercise as anything. Most of the joy in using RiskAssess lies in getting the teacher to review and acknowledge risks before they do an experiment.

For all those people routinely using risk assess :
We are just starting to use this . The chem teacher has just done a risk assess for a whole heap of chemicals and we have noticed it doesn't allow you to put in the molarity of solutions eg. 0.1M Barium nitrate.
Is this correct or are we doing something wrong??

Thanks

Lorrae

That's correct. Only the acids and bases are available with molarity at this stage. It is one of the things that will eventually be updated, as I understand it. So basically it is only for the solid, which I guess is its most concentrated form and therefore 'worst case scenario'. The teachers here type the concentration required in the section designated for what the lab assistant needs to prepare.

Thanks Rosalie
Thats what I suspected. I just thought there may have been a trick to it I didn't know about.

Lorrae

Risk assess does not assess the prac you are doing - if you see the Topic 'Alligator clips and banana plugs' that I posted recently, the staff did a RA on this and it did not pick up the dangers of using nickel plated alligator clips in a conductivity experiment. Perhaps this is an area that needs attention in RiskAsess

Having had a couple of conversations with Philip Crisp, I'd say he'll respond positively to this kind of feedback. Face it, any guy who can write "may be flung ninja-style across the room" as a potential risk will probably be open to genuine risks regarding the clips.

smiley wrote:Having had a couple of conversations with Philip Crisp, I'd say he'll respond positively to this kind of feedback. Face it, any guy who can write "may be flung ninja-style across the room" as a potential risk will probably be open to genuine risks regarding the clips.

I'm curious as to what "may be flung Ninja style" though?