[Academic] PH450 Risk Assessment Forms, Literature Review Due 4pm 14/10/2016

[Daniel Oi]

To PH450 Project Supervisors,

As the general introduction of risk assessment for project students is new this year, I hope I can clarify some issues that have come up. A risk assessment is a requirement for IOP accreditation [1]. There are two aspects to this, usual health and safety considerations, but also programmatic risk.

Health and Safety:

-          For consistency and record keeping, every project student will need to submit an S20 risk assessment form. This is even in the case where the project carries minimal risk, we would like a record that this was the assessment. For theory/computational projects, it should be a simple assessment, e.g. general office work or display screen equipment use. "No Risk" does not mean "No Risk Assessment Form".

-          For experimental work, hopefully the supervisor/lab will have prior experience of risk assessment and usual procedures apply. If you have any specific questions, please contact John Gillan john.gillan at strath.ac.uk<mailto:john.gillan at strath.ac.uk>  who should be able to advise.

-          The same applies to the Safety Induction Training Record, every project student should hand one in by the 31/10/2016 if not before. Tick the N/A boxes if needed.

Programmatic Risk:

-          Identify what risks exist for the successful completion of the project. E.g. equipment breaking down, intractability of a mathematical quantity, bad weather

-          What would be the impact of these risks? E.g. can't run experiment, no closed-form solutions, can't take observations

-          How would you mitigate or manage these risks? E.g. Alternative experiment or spare components, use numerical techniques, use third-party data for analysis
I would encourage you to discuss this with your students during your next supervision and have them write a short and simple evaluation (a sentence or two for each risk, impact, mitigation) of the programmatic risks of the project.

Literature Review

-          This is not marked but it is important that the student completes this in a timely manner as it is an early indicator of how well they are doing in their project

-          Submitted reviews will be placed in a folder on the idrive

-          Provide Feedback to the student, in particular whether they understand the scope of the project, the problem addressed, context including prior work, and the methodology to be used. They should begin to develop a general understanding of the what, why, and how of their project.
Feedback at this point, and hopefully reinforced throughout the project, should help them develop the skills required to produce a well written report for the benefit of all involved.

Daniel.

[1] http://www.iop.org/education/higher_education/accreditation/file_64166.pdf
Project Work. The objectives of such project work will include most of the following:

-          investigation of a physics-based or physics-related problem

-          planning, management and operation of an investigation to test a hypothesis*

-          development of information retrieval skills

-          carrying out a health and safety assessment*

-          establishment of co-operative working practices with colleagues

-          design, assembly and testing of equipment or software

-          generation and informed analysis of data and a critical assessment of experimental (or other) uncertainties

-          formulation of appropriate conclusions and a critical comparison with relevant theory

-          production of a final written report

-          presentation and defence of the results of the project
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