Hey! I can add to my blog by email

By sending an email I can add to my blog.

Methods in Human Geography

Interesting and well written, it requires scanning to find the generally-applicable information as opposed to that specific to geographers. Introductory chapter on philosophy interesting, but I have not been able to determine its applicability to EDM research.

T802 research proposal

2nd Draft submitted.

Research diary

Applying the improvements recommended by tutor to my research proposal. Problem with finding referenced information on college funding, and demonstrating lack of funds. Cannot use internal information. Need to complete this section ASAP to submit second iteration.

Although unhappy about ethics section, but can find no specific refs to incorporate. Will review Flowerdew and Martin tomorrow.

Must read: http://www.eauc.org.uk/file_uploads/emsiu-v5_1.pdf

John Adams' book "Risk"

Starting from a point of view of general agreement with his approaches, but a personal 'myth' that peoples' risk taking can be 'improved'. Adams uses graphs indicating that people may have an optimal level of risk, but there is variation around that optimal level (bell curve) which he in part assigns to competence (missing the target: he used racing drviers as his example). Adams also says that degrees of danger (severity and consequence) are largely unknown, using big issues (OG pesticides, climate change, populations of road users) as his example.

At the humdrum end of H&S we are dealing with less complex situations (tripping, scalding, electrocuting) where the outcomes are reasonable established, the causes limited and therefore assessable. However risk compensation (and less intangible, or difficult to tange factors) make calculation relatively useless.

Adams also distinguishes between personal and transferred risk - drivers vs cyclists, which could be developed into managers vs employees.

Combining the above could produce a model whereby accurate information (of which there is a lot available, although very often not in a form usable by decision-makers) will improve the targetting of cost and benefit, i.e. individual risk-taker is approaching the position of gambler from that of victim subject to pure chance. From society't point of view no change (avoiding some lucky escapes and other unfortunate fatalities), but allows the individualist to make a choice, the egalitarian to see others able to protect and the hierarchist to be accurate. Adams appears to me to have little respect for the fatalist (including himself as fatalist in illness), and this should reduce their number by making it more apparrent that 'something can be done and achieved'.

One interpretation of Adams (probably not intended, quite possible not valid as developed through a single rapid read before the library demanded the book back) is that there is risk compensation from individual to others. My personal experience is that this is unlikely, and possibly reversed: those who are in control of their personal safety but for whom a mistake would have major consequences tend to be more careful not to put other people at risk too. My example comes from work on high TV transmitter masts where, in the 1990s, where access was normally achieved without any specialist safety equipment, and work undertaken with positionging equipment (that would prevent falling) but no safety equipment in case that failed. Workers were highly alert to their own safety, and took great care that their tools could not fall onto those below. Risk compensation was embedded within the control of the person causing and subject to the most serious risk, and my observations indicated that this extended to team risk compensation, too. Adjustments to new levels of risk are, however, slow to achieve: experienced rigger descending from high mast and suffereing head injury walking into half-open garage door that was obvious to everyone else. Twice on successive days.

By improving the knowledge and understanding of personal risk-takers concerning both sides of the balance (consequences, and benefits) we can improve their opportunity to apply their free will. But then comes a need to ensure that the pressures placed on people (do the job, or be sacked) are 'acceptable'. I dont wish to define acceptable at this juncture.

Many decisions afecting the risks that individuals are subject to are made by others, the most obvious and relevant (to me) example being managers. Using the truck driver placing cyclists at risk example, how can we 'improve' their risk analysis. Currently this is attempted by threatening penalties to compensate for the fact that the manager will not suffer the consequences but often will reap the benefits of a decision. Such a relatively fixed approach which is so different from the consequences of the accident itself inevitably lead to decisions that appear poor, in both extremes: the Director who instructs staff to break through asbestos-containing materials because the likelihood of getting caught is thought to be slimmer than the likelihood of getting ill (there are many less prosecutions for asbestos offences than cases of disease), or the risk-averse manager who will impede an important job if there is any risk of his getting blamed for any accident. All through my career I have been concerned when people say 'if there is an accident, I will be blamed, so I must do something (put out a sign, write to somebody else to transfer the responsibility to them)'. This is said much more frequently in safety circles than 'if someone dies as a result of my decision I will not be able to sleep at night for regret' which I consider a more appropriate response.

But, based on the above, my ideas seem to lean towards mixing approaches; making the worker (often fataists at work, in my experience) into an individualist; the hierarchical manager into an egaitarianist whose job is to increase the individualtiy of the worker through choice. Hear be dragons, according to Adams, and I believe him.

Enough of this ramble for now, but I need to come back to ths book in a few months time

Options Synopsis

Submitted synopsis of options to my OU forum. Submitted 4 instead of one, with apology. Copy here:

Dear David

I am working towards the EDM MSc, but am still undecided re topic; I have reviewed a variety of options, but I’m not sure which will be the most appropriate. I hope you don’t my posting 4 options – Options 1 and 2 scored equal-top in my suitability analysis. Of course I would greatly appreciate advice, or reference to somebody to work through these options with.

Option 1
Key Question: How can FE Colleges effectively manage their environmental performance? Considers application of EMS to an FE College, examining the choices to be made, accreditation, costs and benefits, pressures (stakeholders), systematic vs systemic (messy) approaches. Consider accreditation schemes (ISO 14001, EMAS, BS 8555) and implementation schemes (Acorn). Propose modifications or enhancements to the Acorn model to better suit the FE Sector (or possibly FE / HE Sectors, depending on the availability of data). Examine how formal EMS both forces decision making, and inhibits it. I am implementing EMS at work; risk that MSC and implementation will not be synchronised.

Option 2
Key question: how to improve the application of 'risk assessment' in environmental management and health and safety. Builds on the ‘valuing and policy’ work of D831, and papers on risk (e.g. Adams). Reviews CBA approaches and considers ethics of pricing safety / environmental damage. Includes communication / consultation on risk – democratising decision making. Opportunities for more systemic processes (as opposed to the systematic normally espoused). I find this interesting, and I believe many risk assessments to produce sub-optimal results, but concerned whether too much research already done. Envisage wide use of questionnaires in research.


Option 3
Investigate the successful and unsuccessful features of travel plans in academic / FE college institutions. Opportunity to use current college / staff / students as guinea pigs. Travel plans involve decisions by many stakeholders. There appear to be some papers, and quite a lot of info from EAUC. Possible to experiment with views and monitoring changed behaviour. Relevant to all orgs considering or implementing travel plans - which nowadays is almost all orgs. It is unlikely that existing research fully covers multi-site FE colleges. Risk: my employer may not progress with its travel plan, limiting my room for experimentation.

Option 4
How to educate students in environmental (or sustainability) issues, empowering people to make decisions. Includes informal as well as formal education. Initially not too interesting idea, but potential to develop. Highly relevant as I prepare new courses and revamp old ones. This is highly likely to continue. As this influences decisions, it is relevant. Plenty of research, and there seem to be papers as well as text books (which appear to be more essays than research). Relevant throughout sector. Research competing methods.

Exploring library

I have explored various facets of the OU library website, with some frustration. Have completed the tutorials. 

Option camparison spreadsheet

I have constructed a spreadsheet to compare the options (I will need to add the most recent one tonight). 

Another Option

Develop a metric for judging the environmental performance / sustainability of supplies of goods and services (including, or particularly SMEs) for the (domestic?) (and small business?) market. 

Options revisited

Notes found on my computer at work:

 

Decision making: How to raise awareness of environmental issues and bring about changed behaviour amongst both staff and students at a multi-site FE College

 

or

 

How to calculate the advantages and costs of instituting a formal EMS in a multi-site FE College (to re-word as a decision: Whether introduction of a formal EMS into a multi-site FE College can be justified on a) economic, and b) effectiveness / efficiency grounds.

 

   

Library Practice

Over the last two days have investigated OU library, looked at Safari, found list of previous T802 dissertations (searched in 'Catalogue' on orange bar of library home page for 't802 dissertation'. The direct link on the T802 page is broken. Findings:

• No results for 'bs 8555' search
• A few investigations into combined H&S + E management systems, although none in education
• Actually, I don't think I found any referring to an educational institute in titles
• Appeared to be (I did not count) many more technical than 'management' topics

I failed to save my search (not important now, but will be useful later) as requests 'bar code' which is not available to distance students. I must be doing something wrong but unless this becomes a problem I will use my own bookmarks to track my researches. Therefore need to re-organise my bookmarks folder. 

Refworks - signed up, explored, looks good but slightly complicated so wil wait until I have some refs to store before finding out exactly what is involved. 

UPDATE: Found some BS8555 references by using 1 stop search / business & management. Saved one to Refworks, for practice as much as anything. 

Option 5: College-related travel

Investigate the successful and unsuccessful features of travel plans in academic / FE college institutions, including the ideas tried and reported; opportunity to use current college / staff / students as guinea pigs. 

Forum activity: 4/1/2010

Viewed forum - one student message re keywords; read the old advice postings by Mr Butts. 

OU LIbrary tutorial, 4/1/2010

Viewed tutorial, explored parts of the library (could not find past dissertation titles on this trawl, although that is probably for the best until I have settled on my own)  and started Info-Rate assessment. 

ACTION: Work through Section 2 of SAFARI (Unpacking information) which provides an overview of the different types of information available and how they are produced and disseminated. In particular, http://www.open.ac.uk/safari/php_pages/s02t06p040000.php" target="_blank">Section 2, Topic 6, Page 4 provides a drop-down list of different subject areas, with an overview of the most useful information sources in each area.
Look at the subject pages on the Library website, where you can explore the range of online resources available in different subject areas. If you have any queries about using information resources on the Library website contact the Library Helpdesk team.

Resources
SAFARI: http://www.open.ac.uk/safari
Library subject pages: http://library.open.ac.uk/find/eresources/index.cfm
Library Helpdesk team: http://library.open.ac.uk/about/index.cfm?id=6939

ACTION: Skim read Section 3 of SAFARI which provides an overview of the different search tools available and when you might use them. In particular, Section 3 Topic 3 provides information about bibliographic databases, Section 3 Topic 4 deals with library catalogues, and Section 3 Topic 5 covers search tools on the web (e.g. search engines and gateways).

ACTION: Develop your knowledge and skills in planning and carrying out a search
Have a look through Section 1, Topic 8 of SAFARI (Identifying Needs) to see if there are any tips about defining your information requirements that might benefit you.
SAFARI Section 3 (planning a search) covers search strategies, including the resources you will use, as well as appropriate keywords, date ranges, etc., in particular Topics 6, 7, and 8.
To further develop your search techniques you might like to look through SAFARI Section 4 (Searching for information) which introduces basic search techniques and provides opportunities for you to practice on real databases.

ACTION: Complete part 4 of the info rate questionnaire

Writing Skills booklet, 2/1/2010

Read this and completed activities (small red book, not appropriate to transer to here). Useful advice - I need to return to scan this booklet at each writing phase (will only take ~ 15 mins each time, I should think). Did not fully understand the Kano diagram, figure 1 in that book and so looked it up via google to www.changingminds.org/explanations/needs/kano_needs.htm. Understand it better now - it was the unspoken / spoken dotted lines that confused me. 

ACTION: set up filing system

ACRTION: Review 'plain english' tutprial on OU website.