Request for input by OHS Educators to the OHS Core Body of Knowledge project

To all OHS Educators, 

As you may recall from the OHS Educators' Forum in Sydney earlier this year and information circulated by the OHS Education Chapter of the Safety Institute of Australia, the Health and Safety Professionals Alliance (HaSPA) has been working to develop a project to define a core body of knowledge that should be common to all generalist OHS Professionals in Australia. An information sheet and a detailed paper outlining the underpinning philosophy and approach on the project can be accessed on the SIA OHS Education web site.

Letters have been sent to each university requesting information to assist in answering the question: What do Australian universities currently teach and what are the key references, textbooks and other such resources used in this teaching? If you are a coordinator of an OHS undergraduate or post graduate program you will have received one of these letters. (If you are a course coordinator and did not receive such a letter please contact Sally Bennett at
E: sally@enhancesolutions.com.au or 0412 185 147.)

If you have completed the request for course information we would also like you to answer this request for information survey which focuses on your personal view of key OHS concepts and themes.

With this letter we are making a broader approach to all OHS educators involved in university-based professional programs. As part of identifying key themes and concepts, and the key literature underpinning these themes and concepts, we are asking all OHS educators to tell us the key references or resources that have influenced their thinking or underpin concepts that they teach. We are also interested in electronic databases that you find particularly useful.

Click here to complete the survey to provide us with the information.

We understand that completing this request/survey will take some of your valuable time. We appreciate your contribution; but it is also vital that for the resultant definition of the Body of Knowledge to be valid, we need input of people such as yourselves who are not only determining content of OHS professional education but are familiar with the research and developmental literature.

It is requested that the above information be provided by completing the attached survey by 11 October, 2009.

Following our collation and analysis of all the information, those Educators who participated by providing information will receive an invitation to attend a workshop to be held in Melbourne on the 17th and 18th of February 2010, where a summary of findings to date will be presented for discussion and further input.

Regards,

Sally Bennett
Project Manager