Student RiskAssess and Staff RiskAssess

To make life easier for you, your Student and Staff RiskAssess subscriptions are now linked, so that you can log in to your Student RiskAssess subscription as a staff member and access Tools, Scheduling and PIN-protected risk assessments.

Logging in

There are two levels of logins into Student RiskAssess for security reasons, one designed for students and one for the staff.

The Student RiskAssess password is designed to be given to students. It allows the students to protect their work by use of PINs but does not allow access to Laboratory Scheduling or Tools.

The password you use for your Staff RiskAssess (normal staff subscription) allows you to have a higher level of access to Student RiskAssess, so that you can see all risk assessments, PINs and Tools.

Here's an example of log in details for a school with both Staff and Student RiskAssess:

Staff username: sls
Staff password: 2000potassium

Student username: slsstudents
Student password: scienceisgreat

Students log in to Student RiskAssess with slsstudents / scienceisgreat and use PINs to protect their work. Staff log in to Student RiskAssess with slsstudents / 2000potassium, and have access to all risk assessments without needing to enter PINs. Staff can view or change PINs on risk assessments (useful if students forget the PIN). Staff can access Laboratory Scheduling and Tools.

If your Staff RiskAssess password is easy to guess, this is the time to change it (log in to Staff RiskAssess and click the Tools cog at the top right of your home page). Never give the staff RiskAssess password to the students or allow it to be viewed during video conferencing such as when using Zoom during remote learning periods.

Multiple Prac Management

The new "Multiple Prac Management" system in Student RiskAssess helps teachers and laboratory technicians efficiently provide feedback, review and sign off on large numbers of student pracs in one go. There is a new compact screen layout for reviewing pracs and seeing where they are up to, and a way to select up to 15 risk assessments to sign in one go. There are also new options for printing and downloading to help with collating equipment requests. To access this new system, click the button "Manage Student Pracs" at the top left of your home page in Student RiskAssess (when logged in with your staff password).

Student PINs and Student RiskAssess for assessment purposes

When your students log in to Student RiskAssess, they will have the option of setting a PIN when they start a new risk assessment or edit an old one. Students can choose their own PIN. We recommend each student uses the same PIN on all the risk assessments they create. They should choose a hard-to-guess PIN (eg, 43085 not 0000). An alternative is to issue each student with a random PIN to use.

Staff can view all the student risk assessments and their PINs by logging in to Student RiskAssess using the Student RiskAssess username and their staff password. Staff can change the PIN for an individual student risk assessment by finding the relevant risk assessment and clicking "Author's Update". The PIN field can be viewed and edited by the staff member.

If you have risk assessments that do need to be PIN protected (eg, a template for students to copy from), then do not enter a PIN for it. It will be accessible by all students and staff.

Students only see current school year

By default, students only see risk assessments created this school year, to minimise copying from previous years. Staff can see Student risk assessments from previous years if they log in to Student RiskAssess using the Student username and staff password. If you want current students to see an example risk assessment from a previous year, you can log in to Student RiskAssess as a staff member and select Create Modifiable Copy to make a risk assessment visible to the students.

If you need students to see previous years' risk assessments (for example, if they started a risk assessment in the previous year and are continuing with it this year), this can be enabled in Tools. When logged in as a staff member into Student RiskAssess, click the Tools cog at the top right of your home page, and go to the "Customise Searching" section. We only recommend allowing students to access previous years temporarily, and suggest students review and Create a Modifiable Copy to continue with this year.

Tools: contact details, invoices and year group lists

When you log in as a staff member into Student RiskAssess (ie, using the Student username and staff RiskAssess password), you are able to update the contact person for Student RiskAssess, change the password, download invoices, and customise the year group list. To do so, click the Tools cog icon, located at the top right hand-side of your home page.

Same renewal date for Student and Staff RiskAssess

To simplify the renewal process, we have introduced a feature so that you can synchronise the renewal dates of your Staff and Student subscriptions. In Staff RiskAssess, click the Tools cog at the top right of your home page and under the Billing section, choose to 'Synchronise Staff and Student RiskAssess renewal dates'. This will average the due dates between your subscriptions to give you one single renewal date for both. You will still receive two invoices for renewal each year, but they will be sent on the same day and can be taken to accounts at the same time, and paid in a single transaction by your accounts team. This will make it less confusing for your accounts team and speed up the process.