EH&S has recently switched to SciShield to provide safety training to research and teaching areas. The change of platform from OWL enables safety training requirements to be incorporated into the same platform that the academic community has been using for the lab assessment process for over a year now. The transition to SciShield will streamline the training compliance process for labs, shops, and studios and increase the flexibility for control over training and compliance for labs and departments. Department training managers and lab safety coordinators have been actively involved in getting labs ready to ensure a smooth transition to the new platform. If you have any questions about how to get your lab training set up in the new platform, please take a look at our resources on the SciShield landing page (https://ehs.umass.edu/scishield) and specifically, the guide on setting up trainings (https://ehs.umass.edu/setting-training-requirements-scishield#overlay-co...). You can also reach out to your department’s lab safety coordinator or training manager (the list of which can be found here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11GlzQcJDiuWLUkieN9quwtzHaFEVcssU...), or EH&S (askehs@umass.edu), for any questions you may have. We are happy to help!
Here are a few important points:
- After December 19th, all required EH&S training must be completed in SciShield.
- All users will need to have a NET ID or NENS account to access training in SciShield, which was also the case with trainings in OWL.
- All users with a NET ID or NENS will be able to automatically complete any training that is offered.
- To have training designated as required to any user, the user will need to be added to a lab group or department and training assigned through indicating the activities of that user. Training managers and lab safety coordinators have been involved in this process already. PIs for labs, and lab members or others who are designated by the PI with appropriate privileges, can also add/remove lab members and designate required trainings. Please see the training set up guide linked above for additional information.
- All training data from OWL will be migrated to SciShield. The cut-off date for training in OWL will be December 19th.
- Kuali, CORUM, and eShip Global will all interface with SciShield just as they did with OWL previously.
- Users will be able to print out certificates for completed trainings.
- Users will receive reminders if they have upcoming or expired training requirements
- PIs will have the ability to monitor training compliance for their lab groups, and lab safety coordinators, training managers, department chairs, and anyone else designated by the department will have the ability to monitor training compliance for their departments and labs at a glance.
We hope that you will find the new platform significantly easier to use, and we are confident that the flexibility afforded will greatly reduce the burden of compliance on many of you. If you have any questions or run into any issues, please let us know.
Also, as a reminder, EH&S continues to offer in-person lab and building specific training to supplement the online training. If you are interested in scheduling, please reach out to us at askehs@umass.edu.