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Workplace Safety and Insurance Board |
About WSIB Canada and Health & Safety 101
Ontario's Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) plays a key role in the province's occupational health and safety system. The WSIB administers no-fault workplace insurance for employers and their workers and is committed to the prevention of workplace injuries and illnesses. The WSIB provides disability benefits, monitors the quality of healthcare, and assists in early and safe return to work for workers who are injured on the job or contract an occupational disease. Health & Safety 101 (HS101) is a web-based health and safety course targeted specifically at Ontario youth between the ages of 14-24. It was developed entirely by staff of the WSIB.
The WSIB Challenge
As a pre-requisite for working at the WSIB, all students must complete the national Passport to Safety test. To help them prepare for the test, the WSIB wanted to provide students with health and safety awareness training. Since Ontario students (ages14-24) are dispersed across the province, classroom delivery of the training was not feasible. The WSIB was unable to locate an introductory course in health and safety that was free and did not require online registration. Also, the WSIB did not have an existing interactive learning module. Therefore, the WSIB opted to develop and deliver a health and safety awareness e-course. HS101 was built to fill a gap in health and safety training on the Internet.
Why The Oddcast VHost Characters?
WSIB chose to use VHost talking characters to help make the application more engaging and fun for the target audience. The team wanted the course to have a unique feature that would attract young people and prompt them to tell their friends. Also, they believed that animated talking characters would complement the required reading for the course.
"When the interactive tool was tested with high school students they spent the first few minutes exploring the characters and moving the mouse while they watched the hosts follow the cursor. After realizing that the characters were 'pretty cool' and not just another 'boring educational product', they were hooked, engaged and paying attention to the important information."
Lynne Love, e-Learning Manager, Workplace Safety and Insurance Board
The Program's Winning Success
With very little marketing the program is off to a great start. In less than four months over 1300 students have completed the course and the tool has been honored with four awards including:
"Oddcast has been extremely responsive to our needs; working with our time and budget constraints to offer us the best possible product to meet our objectives. They have given us very personal service and we have always felt well supported. The VHost is an impressive product and the company provides exceptional service. Mission accomplished!"
Lynne Love, e-Learning Manager, Workplace Safety and Insurance Board