Field Research Safety Webforms for Faculty, Graduate students and Graduate courses - Work Safe Procedures
WorksafeBC and UBC Safety and Risk Services mandates that all UBC employed individuals conducting UBC activities at non-UBC locations are required to have documentation which proves the employee is trained and authorized to conduct this work. In an attempt to make it easy for our department to conduct field work, we have created the Field Research Safety webforms submission system so the webforms can be completed, approved by the Principal Investigator (PI) and Head of the Zoology Department, and submitted before any field work is to be conducted.
These webforms are for Zoology faculty members whose “home” department is Zoology. For those cross-appointed faculty whose “home” department is not Zoology please follow your home department’s guidelines and protocols. Those graduate students who are in the Zoology graduate program but whose supervisor has another “home” department (such as Botany or IRES), will need to follow the home department guidelines as well.
How do the webforms work? There are three webforms: Leader, Participant, and Waiver webforms. For all Leader webforms, the Faculty member (Principal Investigator, PI) is the Field Safety Project Leader. As the PI is responsible for the safety for their students, and all lab members, including volunteers, it is important that the PI knows who is going, where field work will be conducted, and when their students and lab members are going into the field. It is also important for the PI to make sure that individual(s) going into the field are properly trained and informed of the risks and hazards while conducting the field work, as well as aware of what to do in case of an emergency. In addition to the Field Safety Project Leader, other lab members - Research Associates, Postdoctoral Fellows, Graduate students and Research Lab staff - can have the role of Field Safety Project Leader Designated and submit webforms to the system, always under the supervision and knowledge of the PI.
Access to the system. Before gaining access to the Field Research Safety webform submission system, the PI or another lab member needs to contact the department's communications coordinator to become registered as Field Safety Project Leader or Field Safety Project Leader Designated. Once registered, Trip Leader or Designated Trip Leader can access new and previously submitted Field Safety webforms. The Field Safety webforms are incorporated to the Zoology website and only can be accessed through the Edit My Profile link (which will require you to log in with your CWL credentials). Once logged in and on the Edit My Profile page, next to the My Account tab will be the Field Safety Forms tab.
PI and Head of Department approval steps. All Leader webforms have to be approved: first by the Trip Leader/PI and second by the Head of the Zoology Department. These approvals will happen digitally and any new status of the webforms will be informed via email and posted on the website Field Safety Dashboard. After the Head approves the Leader webform, the Participants listed in the Leader webform Participants table, will receive an automatically generated email message, notifying the trip and links to the Participant webforms and Waiver webforms. All participants need to submit a Participant webform. However, the Waiver webform is only intended for volunteers and non-UBC researchers.
Participants. While filling out the Leader webform, there is an option for the leader to include participants. The participants can be both UBC-paid individuals i.e. Research Associates, Postdoctoral Fellows, Graduate students and Research Lab staff), as well as non-UBC-paid individuals (i.e. volunteers, undergrad volunteers, non-UBC researchers). It is important that the Trip Leader fills out all parts of the Participant table fields, specially the email section (for UBC participants please use UBC/Zoology emails). Once the Leader webform is submitted and fully approved, an email will be sent to all participants indicating that they have been added as a participant.
Useful links:
Department of Zoology Field Research Safety Policy and Procedures document
UBC Student Safety Abroad Policy
Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies Student Safety Abroad