University Grant
designsafe Goes to School is a grant program which offers universities the chance to use the designsafe software in the classroom. Students get practical, hands-on experience working through the risk assessment process and evaluating the safety of their designs.
How it works
Please email grants@designsafe.com with the following information:
The name of the class the software will be used in.
The number of students in each class who will be using the software.
A brief overview of the class content and how the software will be incorporated into the course work.
Any information on use of the software in future classes (if applicable.)
Upon receipt of your grant request we will evaluate the request and contact you if the grant has been accepted.
What you get
The course professor will get a fully functional version of the software for use on their computer.
Each student will have a time-limited fully functional version of the software. The length of time will be decided depending on the course length.
A letter confirming your grant has been accepted and the value of the grant.
How much does it cost?
The grant awards the software free of charge for university use. If you have any further questions please contact our office at (888) 628-8788.
Some participating schools
California Polytechnic State University (CalPoly)
Duke
Eastern Kentucky University
Ecole de technologie superieur – University of Quebec
Kyoto University (Japan)
Purdue
Rochester Institute of Technology
Tecnologico de Monterry (ITESM)
Universiti Malaysia Pahang
University of Central Missouri
University of Michigan
Vanderbilt
Washington University in St. Louis
West Virginia University
Success at Vanderbilt
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.