designsafe^® goes to school

An ongoing project at Vanderbilt University has proven successful at teaching engineering students the risk assessment process as part of their design engineering education. Paul King and Wayne Christensen (2002) comment on an innovative approach to teaching safety during engineering design that has proved successful. The effort involves requiring students to complete a risk assessment using software provided a grant from the Institute for Safety Through Design (ISTD). They comment:

A major emphasis on safety begins with the introduction of the class to a risk assessment software program named designsafe®. This program is introduced early in the first semester and is used by the students at least twice – once in a homework assignment and once to validate their own design projects. designsafe® is a computer program that guides a user conduct a task-based risk assessment by virtue of the structure of the prompts and menus presented during use of the program. The program is very systematic; users can do useful documentation and risk analysis after a minimal introduction to the technique.

Finally, student term projects and papers must include a safety analysis per the stated course requirement which is posted as: “If applicable the results section must include a discussion of any safety issues regarding your project, the proper use of designsafe® will ensure this (document).” Although stated as an option, most student final reports must include this section.

To see what students at Vanderbilt are doing with designsafe® visit:

http://vubme.vuse.vanderbilt.edu/King/bme272.htm
http://vubme.vuse.vanderbilt.edu/King/bme273.htm

For more information or to get your college or university involved in this program please contact dse at (888) 628-8788.