Health and Safety at Work and finding trustworthy organisation websites

World Day for Safety and Health at Work

On the 28th April, it is World Day for Safety and Health at Work so we thought we would take a look at resources which may help when learning about health and safety. It is something which affects the workplace but is also relevant to the home, for example.

Most  (if not all) vocational courses at College cover this topic and everyone who works needs to know about it. You may even be asked about it in an interview. Health and Safety covers anything from use of computers and manual handling to fire safety to working with chemicals, food or specific tools.

Finding quality websites on health and safety

When using the internet to help with research, it is best to concentrate on information from trusted organisations. For example:

Government departments - identify these by the .gov at the end of the URL e.g. www.hse.gov.uk is the Health and Safety Executive website and www.food.gov deals with food hygiene. The Health and Safety Act  itself (plus other legislation) can be found at https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1974/37 .

Charities and other trusted organisations - identify these by the .org at the end of the URL e.g. e.g. http://www.safetygroupsuk.org.uk (Safety Groups UK - a  charity that promotes health and safety).
You may find a .com website useful like The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (https://www.rospa.com/) but as a rule you need to treat these sites with care as anyone can set up a .co.uk or .com website whereas organisations and government departments can only register to use the .org and .gov websites.

Hospitals and NHS websites - identify these by the .nhs.uk at the end of the URL. The NHS patient safety website has all sorts of interesting information for those of you working in/ studying Health and Social Care particularly.

Academic websites, identified by the .ac.uk web extension, can also be trusted but perhaps not so relevant here. The College's moodle site (including your course page) has .ac.uk at the end of the main URL and includes information and resources created by your Lecturers.

If you are not sure, take a look at the About Us section of the website (if there isn't one, think twice about using it). Who are they? Who writes the website? What is their experience/ qualifications?

Google tip: To restrict your search to just government websites, for example, use site:.gov.uk in your search (Others would be site:.nhs.uk or site.ac.uk or site:.org.uk). You can also do this site:.uk to just find UK sites - something that is very important with anything to do with legislation. Other countries do not have the same standards and laws for health and safety as the UK although much may be the same.

Other online resources

The Health and Safety Executive website has a list of the ten worst Health and Safety myths. They also have a collection of videos on their website and a related YouTube channel. These include case studies and examples where health and safety has gone wrong.

They also have an e-learning package Slips and Trips which is free to use.

The Jisc Hairdressing Training resource (available from our Electronic Resources page on Moodle) has an activity where hairdressing students can test their knowledge of Health and Safety when blow-drying hair. It includes particular hazards in a salon environment like turning heating tongs off and not leaving them unattended, safety with perm solutions and keeping the salon clean.

Use Infotrac to find examples in the news or in magazines which demonstrate what happens if health and safety good practice isn't followed or where accidents have happened.

Remember also, that we have books too. The general books are at 363.11 with other subjects having specialised books in their own areas (e.g. construction 692.9 or 624.0684).

Loyalty Card Event

Loyalty Card Event

On Wednesday, the LRC hosted it's annual Loyalty Card event. 

Throughout the year, students and staff have been borrowing and reading fiction and collecting a stamp each time they have finished a book. Participants were entered in to a draw for a chance to win £50 of Waterstones vouchers or a copy of Darren O'Sullivan's new book.

We were thrilled to have local author Darren O'Sullivan with us for the event. Darren used to be a Performing Arts student at Peterborough Regional College and he has just had his first book Our Little Secret published in print. It is a thriller set in Peterborough.

Author and ex-student Darren O-Sullivan with LRC Manager Louise Auckland

Darren held a question and answer session with the students who attended and presented certificates and prizes to the 3 students whose names he pulled out of the draw. Congratulations go to Leon particularly who won the Waterstones vouchers!

Student feedback after the event included:

 "I loved the feedback and advice from a real author on how to write stories".

"I really enjoyed taking part in the reading challenge and encouraging the students"

"I really enjoyed the event".

Finding different ways to revise

Finding different ways to revise for exams

It's that time of year again with lots of students both at PRC and UCP doing exams in the near future.

Over Easter one expert reported that students should have been revising for 7 hours a day during the holidays. If this is something you didn't do (and not everyone agrees that this is wise), don't despair, concentrate on what you can achieve from now on and work hard. However, it doesn't have to be boring.

Here are 3 tips from the websites mentioned later in the blog.

• Break your revision up in to manageable chunks and plan a timetable.
• Find different ways to revise - use flash cards or mind maps, watch a video or make up useful mnemonics etc
• It is important to revise actively - this means concentrating and focusing. Creating your own resources like flash cards or mind maps, for example, will involve your brain and force you to think about what you are revising and therefore be more effective than staring at words on a page.

The student room website has lots of advice and tools which you can use to help you revise. Just creating them may be a different way to revise initially. You can also access resources already created by other students (but you may want to be sure they are correct first).

For example, create your own revision timetable.
Create your own flashcards.
Create mindmaps.
Create your own crosswords and quizzes.

The site also provides revision tips and tools for university students including a Uni revision app.

You will need to sign up to use the resources but the tools are free to use otherwise.

Have a look at the following TEDx talk about  how using drawing can help you remember more - even if you don't think you can draw.

The BBC website also has lots of  revision  advice and resources (e.g. how to remain motivated). These are aimed at GCSE and A level but the principles remain the same. They also have a revision app.

Electronic resources provide revision activities.

If you are a Health and Social Care student or Hair and Beauty student, there are quizzes and videos as part of the online resources available from our Electronic Resources page. Primal also has quizzes and case studies if you need to remember human anatomy for your exams.

Box of Broadcasts

BoB - Box of Broadcasts

The LRC now has a permanent subscription to the resource Box of Broadcasts (BoB). It can be found on the LRC Moodle pages, under Electronic Resources.

BoB is an online shared streaming service which allows you to record, search and view extracts of programmes on over 60 digital and freesat television and radio channels. You can record programmes 7 days in advance or you can retrieve them 30 days after they have been broadcast. Programmes from BBC1, BBC2, BBC4, Radio 4, Radio 4 Extra, ITV1, channel 4, channel 5 and More 4 are automatically archived.

You can also create playlists and extracts which you can then save and use in your presentations.

If you have any problems using BoB, please come and ask us in the LRC.

Photo by Al Ibrahim CC BY-SA 2.0:   https://www.flickr.com/photos/crazysphinx/4081596290

Coming Soon - LRC Loyalty Card event

Loyalty Card Event

The Learning Resource Centre is holding a celebration event for those who have taken part in the loyalty card scheme.

The loyalty card scheme is a yearly initiative, run by the LRC, to encourage students and staff to read more fiction. The student or staff member obtains a loyalty card and gets their card stamped for every fiction book they have read. Once the student or staff member has read 6 books, they are then entered into a prize draw.

This year’s celebration event will be on the 18th April, between 3:30 and 4:30pm in the LRC. Students and staff can sign up and hand in completed cards until the 16th April.

The LRC now has a confirmed speaker for its loyalty card event.

Darren O’Sullivan is a local author and ex-PRC student. Darren has enjoyed success with his novel, ‘Our Little Secret’ and his second psychological thriller, ‘Close Your Eyes’ is out later this year. One lucky winner will receive a Waterstones voucher and three runners up will receive copies of Darren’s novel, ‘Our Little Secret’.

Darren O'Sullivan

Stephen Hawking and Finding Theses

Stephen Hawking and Finding Theses

Stephen Hawking

This week we heard the news that cosmologist and scientist Stephen Hawking died at the age of 76. He worked as a Professor at Cambridge University and became famous for his research in to cosmology - especially black holes. His book A Brief History of Time became a bestseller.

Black hole CC0 https://pixabay.com/en/black-hole-nebula-stars-space-2483571/

The BBC have put together a Stephen Hawking quiz if you want to test your knowledge of the famous scientist.

In October 2017, Cambridge University put Hawking's PhD thesis online for the first time and the demand to read it crashed the system. It was read two million times.

Theses

What is a thesis?

According to the Collins Dictionary the definition of a thesis is a long piece of writing based on your own ideas and research that you do as part of a university degree, especially a higher degree such as a PhD. 

Are they useful?

• They are valid academic sources of information and can be used as sources of background reading and research for dissertations and assignments.
• They are published sources of information with copyright restrictions and must be cited and referenced when used as part of your academic work. ARU has instructions on how to do this using the Harvard system on their website.
• Theses will have reading lists and bibliographies like books and journals which may lead you to other sources/ authors you can read.
• Looking through recent theses in your field may give you an idea of the sorts of issues currently being researched. It may help you pinpoint what you want to choose for your research topic or give you background for a job interview.
• Some research written up in theses may also be summarised in academic journals so you may want to search the author (or the Professor who supervised the research) in a journal database too to see if you can find more context or read a summary.

Where are they stored? How do I find them?

Most universities have their own repository - usually online. ARU's for example is here. These online databases/ websites give open access to a University's research. Stephen Hawking's PhD thesis is on Apollo - the name Cambridge University have given their online repository.

However, you can be forgiven for thinking that trawling through every University's online repository one by one - especially if you don't know which University to look for - is not ideal. These online resources make this easier.

EThoS (Electronic Theses Online System) is the British Library's online repository for over 475,000 doctoral theses awarded by universities across the UK. Most are available in digital format but details of how to get a copy is given if the digital copy isn't available.

NDLTD (Networked Digital Library or Theses and Dissertations) offers access to theses mainly from America and Canada but there are some from other countries.

Finally...

We leave this week's blog with a quote from Stephen Hawking

On life...
❝One, remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Two, never give up work. Work gives you meaning and purpose and life is empty without it. Three, if you are lucky enough to find love, remember it is there and don't throw it away❞ - Interview with ABC's Diane Sawyer, June 2010

Human Anatomy Online Resource

Primal Pictures Human Anatomy Resource

Are you a Health and Social Care, Sports or science student? Perhaps you have to learn about the skin as a beauty student or about health and fitness as a public services student? Do you want some different activities to help you revise the human body for your exams? 

Human Skeleton
https://www.publicdomainpictures.net/view-image.php?image=241967&picture=human-skeleton

The LRC has the ideal online learning resource for you on their Electronic Resources Moodle page. If you are a tutor and would like to put the link on your course pages, please let the LRC know and we will send you the relevant information.

Primal Pictures provides a complete and medically accurate online 3D model of the human anatomy. It is derived from genuine medical scan data that has been interpreted by a team of anatomists and then translated into 3D images by graphic specialists. Parts of the body can be seen in different layers by digitally peeling the layers back or adding them on. All text is written by medical specialists. 

In addition to graphics, there is information on

• aging (how that part of the anatomy ages), 
• clinical conditions, 
• case studies (sports, health & social care or medically related) to discuss or on which to answer questions
• module quizzes to test your knowledge.

In the top right hand area, you will  notice some pages have interactive learning activities. These can be colouring and labeling activities (a great way to mix revision and mindfulness!), 'click a structure' activities where you can click over an image to see what areas are called and also links to the module quizzes.

There is a demonstration video from YouTube below but a link to the tutorial video to help you use the resource is available on the Electronic Resources page with the link to the resource itself. If you are tutor and would like a member of LRC staff to give a demonstration (to students or staff) or take a hands-on training session for this resource, please contact the LRC. Further help is also available by just coming in and asking us! We'd be happy to help.