In my intray an invite to pay to attend a course via online training:

"Designing with health and safety in mind", apparently focused on Designer duties under the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015, aka CDM.

Designing with health and safety in mind | IOSH

The ...... course covers the main requirements of current legislation and guidance, analysis of risks and how to reduce them at design stage. 

No indication of the details of the programme, who is tutoring or what their experience is but This course is worth 7.5 hours for your IOSH CPD record so that gives an idea of the number of hours to be included in a single day.

I am struggling to imagine how a delegate could concentrate for 7.5 hours, unless those hours are interrupted by regular breaks in which case some of the hours should NOT count as "CPD", unless it is 7.5 hours within a much longer overall course day, perhaps 8am to 5pm with breaks totalling 90 minutes included in the programme.

Apparently amongst things that delegates will learn are:

• Apply practical examples of design risk managemen

So, may be building on some message that about roughly half of fatal accidents on construction sites occur as a result of falls telling the audience that if the designer includes for permanent edge protection on a new roof that will save some accidents. Will the delegate then go away and tell housebuilders that all twin pitched roofs on semi detached houses should have edge protection as a standard feature?

......and:

• Create a package of information for the pre-construction phase documentation.
• Analyse and create the health and safety information that should be included in the Health and Safety File

Both, I guess the chance to encourage the delegates into simple templated solutions that may lead to bureaucracy being the norm AND a substitute for Designers making sure that structures are inherently safer to work on both during construction and through the lifecycle of each structure.

Also to be covered the consequences of getting it wrong!

• Understand the implications for failing to design with health and safety in mind.

So, perhaps a reminder that a Designer could be PROSECUTED, but probably not with comment on how VERY, VERY rarely that has happened under three iterations of CDM and over 25 years.

Could you sit at your screen on a remote training course for 7.5 hours in a single day?

I am part of a team that delivers the IOSH Managing Safely course. One option is to do it as a teams course. I point blank refuse to delivery it that way as i believe the ordinance participation is probably the best learning outcome of the course. I feel bad enough for people having to listen to me in a classroom, but to sit staring at me and the power-point on a PC no thanks.

Thanks Holliday42333

I agree that online training courses have their place.

However, the question asked was how long can someone stay awake on such a course?

So, yes an online course lasting a couple of hours may work, perhaps even 3-4 hours (with breaks).

However, I struggle to encvisage how a full day course could be broken up to maintain delegate concentration e.g. via case studies if most or all of the delegates are in different locations.

This, in effect, leaves a programme (albeit one that isn't even published) which seems likely to be the tutor talking to the audience, which could be very small or very large (no indication of lower or upper limits on numbers), perhaps with the tutor inviting interaction from time to time. 

Such interaction could be the tutor asking the delegates a question. A good tutor will perhaps accept an response that may not align as closely to the tutor's "model answer" as the tutor wishes, but if so, that means having a debate which could very easily knock programme off course.

The interaction could also include inviting the delegates to ask questions of their own. Very often this is likely to mean a delegate's pet concern, which might be something that is of little, if any, relevance to what the other delegates are interested in - so again with risk that the course is knocked off programme.

These are risks that experienced trainers can manage relatively easily in a face to face environment as it is much easier for the tutor to assess how the WHOLE audience is engaging - meaning that the tutor can more easily guillotine debate about niche issues - e.g. by suggesting that tutor and specific delegate can chat more about THAT topic during the lunch break.

If, I see ONE DAY as being problematic for online training, then I obviously  understand why HSSnail won't play when it comes to delivering IOSH MS by such method.

I recently did a two day Laser Safety Officer course through teams and I cannot remember ever being more tired than at the end of both those days.

I think it depends on the person who is doing the course and of course the presenter and the subject being taught.  We have given all our drivers the oppportunity to do their CPC training either online of in a face to face setting.  A number of them recently attended a full day CPC module.  When I asked around how it had gone.  about 50% said that it was ok, but they wouldn't do it that way again, a number said they had suffer from sore eyes by the end and a couple fell asleep half way through. The others liked the idea of online training and didn't have any eye issues and were able to engage for the whole day.  Three of our drivers flatly refused to do it online and went to the face to face training, these said that they had been fine all the way through and had felt that they had been able to interact and benefitted from the training.  So in summary all of them got through the training around 60% of our drivers either decided prior to the training or as a result of their experience would elect for face to face.  Personally I have done both but I would restrict my online to a couple of hours, where a day long course would definately be face to face. 

The phrase “on line training” covers a multitude of sins. At its worse, you sit there while someone who you can’t see and can’t see you drones on for hours leading you through a load tedious slides.  This is just like the classic death by PowerPoint but without that human touch that can make it bearable. At its best you work through modules consisting of interactive training material, which you can work through at your own time. The second option is expensive because it requires competent trainers who understand how to deliver the information. Ideally this should be followed up by some sort of team based exercises where people can interact directly with the course leader and fellow delegates: some of the best learning comes from fellow delegates. This can also be done on-line but again will cost time and money.

As with most things in life you get what you pay for: if you pay less   you will get pointless training which might tick a box on your CPD but really does not make you a better  H&S professional or you go for a better course which costs more but might actually teach you something.  

Thanks Elfin

Of course, Covid and lockdown etc forced some changes that might have been temporary but quite often have become a norm.

If I interpret your post correctly then it seems that your provider of BOHS training only continued with online only for a limited time - may be the message got through that it was a poorer substitute for the real thing.

....and the real thing probably includes being able to assess whether the trainer has relevant experience and a breakdown of the course programme BEFORE one books. 

Thanks Elfin - for the clarification.

One of those cases of getting what you pay for.

I can envisage that someone could sail through an online assessment of how to use a sampling pump but then be absolutely useless in the field as it's not just about how the kit works and how to calibrate it (very important for the tick boxers!) but also deciding on where to set up the ktt and WHY and WHEN.

Even easier if there is commercial pressure on the trainer not to fail candidates!

+ looking at a scenario and deciding NOT to waste time (and resources) on sampling until some obvious deficiencies have been sorted out.