OSH Information on the Internet
Today and Tomorrow
Workshop on the "Information Society - A Challenge to Health and Safety at Work"
Bilbao, Spain
January 17 - 19, 2000
Presentation by P.K. Abeytunga
The Internet is growing at a dizzying speed. Innumerable people throughout the world are able to communicate readily and instantly with one another and share information. The boundaries and dividing lines between countries, cultures, and various segments of society are getting increasingly blurred. The digital economy has made information its driving force. Globalization of trade and rapid advances in information technology are accelerating the pace of change in all aspects of life. The nature of work, labour markets, the way in which businesses and governments operate, the market-place - indeed all areas of human activity - are undergoing drastic changes. Occupational health and safety and information industries, both caught in the middle of this revolution, are undergoing a profound transition. The Internet's value to commerce and consumers is a major force behind its rapid expansion, and is promoting a knowledge-sharing culture in the global community. It presents enormous potential for serving people better with valuable information, innovative services and rich interactive relationships. OSH information on the Internet is taking shape in the context of this background.
In examining OSH information on the Internet the critical questions that need to be raised include:
What information do users find?
Is the information they find useful?
Does it satisfy the needs of the user?
Is it helpful in eliminating injuries and illnesses in workplaces?
Is it correct?
Is it up-to-date?
Is it reliable?
How much of the users' time does it take to find information they need?
What is the cost of this time (to the user)? (to the organization?)
What are the barriers and pitfalls?
OSH information is massive in volume and encompasses the vast range of topics and concerns associated with the entire spectrum of people's work activities. This information is the result of human experience and research taking place throughout the world. It is available in documents, databases and files in various formats in sources spread across the world, or as the knowledge of individuals. The Internet is making it possible for anyone anywhere in the world to instantly tap and benefit from this growing global information resource. Properly utilized, this capability should immensely facilitate every effort toward the elimination of work-related injuries and illnesses, by vastly improving the results of the work of researchers, health and safety professionals, regulators and government officials, and by promoting the commitment, active involvement and good performance of employers, managers and employees at the enterprise level.
On the Internet OSH information is abundant and growing steadily. There are many World Wide Web (WWW) sites specializing in OSH information and, an enormous variety of other sites contain information important to addressing specific OSH issues and concerns. Many OSH organizations are posting information about themselves and their products on the Web and, a large volume of OSH information is included freely on sites posted by various public and private enterprises. General-purpose directories index thousands of Web sites on all subject areas and include keyword search capability. However, those directories are not really comprehensive, and the search results on specific health and safety queries do not often accurately reflect the most relevant information accessible on the Web. For those seeking health and safety information, there are many health and safety specialty directories and resource lists that guide users to much more useful sites. Many Web sites with search engines provide several advanced search capabilities and present results based on helpful features such as relevance ranking. These search engines are becoming ever more sophisticated. However, in this case too, the results do not necessarily guide the user to the most appropriate sites on the Web.
A growing number of Web sites provide access to health and safety-related training materials and training modules. Many health and safety suppliers, consultants and service providers are on the Web advertising, promoting and marketing their wares. WWW contains a number of "virtual bookstores" that specialize in health and safety publications and more and more publishers of journals are providing subscribers with access to the journals on the Web. E-mail can be used to correspond and exchange OSH information with individuals or groups. There are a large number of e-mail-based discussion groups, also known as mailing lists, that are associated with OSH or OSH-related subjects. Personal e-mails and mailing lists are a very effective means of tapping information from individuals for addressing health and safety concerns. There are specialist e-mail newsletters and newsgroups serving wide-ranging OSH interests. Expert-moderated international electronic conferences are becoming prevalent on the Internet. Also, now we are beginning to see instant messaging linked up to voice, to become close to real-time conversation, although the audio quality tends to have problems. The avenues available to seek and benefit from the vast resource of global health and safety information seem endless.
Both connectivity and common standards are essential for the success of the Internet. It is the rapid emergence of universal technical standards for communication that allows everybody to communicate with everybody else at essentially zero cost. For example, Internet Protocol (IP) standard applies to routing packages of information around a network. Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) adds verification to IP. HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) aggregates TCP/IP packets of information into documents. HyperText Markup Language (HTML) defines the format of documents to be displayed on a Web browser. The subsequent development of Extensible Markup Language (XML), which marks information items up on the basis of what they are rather than on what they look like, allows multiple companies in an E-commerce environment to work seamlessly together even though their application processes and data models are entirely different. A recently invented encoding standard named, Unicode, can recognize 1 million written symbols instead of the previously available 256 characters, allowing enormously flexible language management capabilities. Proprietary Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) systems are supplemented by industry-wide Extranets. Within organizations, functional information "silos" are being replaced by Intranets. The Internet, Extranets and Intranets are all built based on the same universal technical standards. Further advances in standards are paving the way for more and more seamless communications across various technical, organizational, geographical and social boundaries.
How and what users pay for information is a key issue. Traditional commercial vendors of OSH and all other types of information, whose business was based on charging for information on an annual subscription or on a pay-as-you-go basis, are facing a serious threat to their businesses. A vast range of OSH information Web sites are accessible free of charge, and more are being added. There are signs that major changes will continue to take place in the information and publishing industry, particularly through interventions by government organizations. Following the trend that began with information from U.S. government sources, many publicly funded organizations throughout the world are making their information available on the Web at no cost to the user. Many general news publishers are also publishing free information on the Internet. Huge databases containing OSH information, such as Medline, Toxline and HSDB and many others, which were previously accessible at a cost, as well as much of the OSH legislative information have been available for some time on the Web at no charge. The ground is shifting further as various participants strive to mould themselves to the model dictated by the Web. The launch of PubScience by the U.S. Department of Energy, a free-of-charge service providing a "hard science" bibliographic database complete with links to full text, is an example of how government intervention is beginning to influence the free flow of scientific and technical information. A proposal by the U.S. National Institution of Health to launch PubMed is promising to further revolutionize the publishing industry. PubMed is a Web site devoted to the publishing of full-text biomedical articles directly from authors, bypassing publishers, and accessible to users freely for search, retrieval and printing. Added to these developments, users are becoming more and more inventive in harnessing technology and information services.
This wealth of information choices and access capabilities promises unprecedented opportunities and the potential to fulfill every OSH information need of the user at little cost. This promise, while it can lead to overwhelmingly positive results, is also fraught with serious difficulties and many pitfalls for both users and information providers.
Limitless choice in the hands of the user can also lead to limitless confusion. In the attempt to get on top of things, it is becoming easy to get buried under. Information overload, meaning too much information that is not very useful and information overlook, meaning not being able to find what really matters are serious problems for the user. With the Internet gradually growing into a massive shopping mall, it is becoming increasingly difficult to differentiate between subtle marketing-related promotions and useful information. Also, today's society is characterized by the wide spread of various interest groups pushing their own interests and agendas. The Internet has become a fertile ground for sowing and growing the seeds of their biased ideas and viewpoints. Traditionally OSH has been the subject of many conflicting interests and opposing viewpoints. It is impossible for most users to separate balanced information items from those that are slanted to favour special interests. Particularly in OSH-related information, unless what is retrieved from the Internet is true, up-to-date, balanced and correctly interpreted, it could lead people and organizations to serious problems and conflicts at the expense of people's health and safety.
Today's fast-paced world has resulted in an expansion of both work and personal responsibilities. The pressure to get more things done faster is leaving people with more and more things to do than there is time to do them. As a result, for the information user, time value and customizability value have become extremely important additions to the traditional value propositions of quality and price. In information, value is the overriding criterion and customers are looking to get exactly what they need when they need it. The challenge to information providers is to deliver a service that can instantly satisfy the specific needs of individual customers. Many Internet surfers are realizing that reliable, evaluated and structured, high-quality information in a form that they can easily use is not readily available free of charge on the Internet for instant access. In spite of the vast amount of OSH information available on the Internet free of charge, fee-based services, if they provide good value and save time, are still in demand. However, OSH information vendors are increasingly challenged to continually boost added value if they are to survive and thrive as a business.
Consumers are focussing more and more on content rather than on containers. They are seeking songs and music as opposed to records, tapes or CDs. In information, they are looking to be informed as opposed to looking for books, articles, CD-ROMs, etc. With information flowing freely on the Internet, emphasis is gradually shifting away from managing documents, databases and files to managing knowledge. While the management of documents, database records and files is about storing, sorting, indexing, searching, accessing and retrieving documents and database records and files, knowledge management poses a bigger intellectual challenge. Knowledge concerns the understanding one gains from information in a way that can support one's decisions and actions. The information industry has traditionally focussed on using the advancing power of technology to further the efficiencies of managing documents, database records and files, rather than information and know-how. This has led to a situation in which people are finding that information is everywhere but insight is hard to find. OSH information services have done little to improve the situation. The huge population of Internet users, who are new to information seeking, are not likely customers for the traditional model. Proper and efficient knowledge management requires a close partnership between the information provider and the user. The information provider has to gain a thorough understanding of the needs of the user. The user needs to receive the information in a form that lends itself to customization, analysis and understanding to support decisions. Today, the Internet provides all of the capabilities needed for the two-way information exchange and communication to make this partnership thrive and produce good results. However, in the OSH information field this type of partnership and exchange between information providers and users is rare. Until OSH information vendors seek and gather much more insight into the real needs of users and mould the services accordingly, for them, there will not be much money to be made on the Internet.
For OSH information vendors, the Internet provides a mass market, which is growing very fast and is hungry for new services and products. The advent of e-mail and E-commerce has changed the economics of selling. The traditional sales' solution in the information industry, the use of direct mail, the recruitment of sales' people and distributorships, backed up by an element of exhibition attendance and some customer training and support, came at a high cost. Particularly, building a global customer base has been extremely resource-intensive. The Internet, and selling through e-mail and E-commerce with automated follow-up, changes all that. It allows customer-specific information to execute customer-specific markets. Anyone can have a digital storefront now. With millions of Internet users and a global audience, even a small business can sell to a large audience. The vendors of OSH information, who exploit the interactivity of the Web to understand the needs of the customers, provide products and services to help them succeed and achieve effective exposure on the Internet, will be the likely winners.
The primary customer base for OSH information on the Internet is fast shifting from traditional information seekers such as information specialist intermediaries, OSH professionals and subject specialists to the huge population of ultimate users whose background could be anything. The OSH-related queries from ultimate users on the Internet continue to demand much of their time and produce poor results. Usually, it is an exercise that tests one's patience and endurance. It is not helpful to place the blame on the info-illiteracy, lack of scanning acumen or plain ignorance of the info-novice user. In spite of increasingly higher transmission speeds, broader bandwidths and slicker interfaces, until the OSH content that flows down the cyber highway improves dramatically, the majority of users seeking information to address their OSH concerns are not going to realize the promise of the Internet. There is much work in store for OSH information providers to stay abreast of developments, if they are to benefit from the enormously expanded potential customer base.
The Internet is going to drive the demands of customers for greater value. The vast majority of potential institutional and individual customers are going to stay away from commercial, OSH information services until these services make the adjustments needed to serve their real needs. Users want to be able to save time, read less, and understand more, so that they can make good decisions in identifying, understanding and solving their OSH problems and addressing their OSH concerns. Most people do not want to access the universe of information or to gather knowledge to influence the world. They want to get their minds around the issues that influence their own lives, and often have individual needs for immediate access to critical information. For information providers the challenge does not necessarily come from other information providers. Consumers themselves have become the real competitors. As greater amounts of information become available on the Internet free of charge, the question is: "What can the information provider do for users that the users cannot do for themselves?" For OSH information vendors, the pricing of information that the marketplace tolerates, will be determined by the user on the basis of added value to the user. As the Internet and its user base evolve, this question of value and corresponding price has become a moving target.
The strategy for health and safety at the enterprise level is increasingly focussing on the active involvement of managers, supervisors and workers in establishing and implementing good policies, procedures, programmes, management systems and effective individual performance. The requirement is for every person to take individual responsibility and become a stakeholder in the enterprise-wide health and safety performance. OSH information that is carefully analyzed, evaluated, presented in a conveniently usable form and customizable to suit the specific needs of the ultimate user is a pre-requisite to the success of this strategy. There is increasing consensus that the role of health and safety professionals, as well as that of information professionals at the enterprise level, needs to change from centralizing the respective functions to becoming one of facilitators, trainers, coaches and mentors. They have to help organizations identify and develop core competencies and facilitate OSH performance within the enterprise by enhancing everyone's understanding, contribution and performance.
What about tomorrow? Tomorrow is always a mystery. We can only speculate on things to come as an extension of today by making projections based on trends. Any major scale breakthrough, however, can drastically alter the course. One thing that is certain is profound change. The Internet is leading the forces of this change. The coming years promise to bring OSH information users and providers more changes, greater access to global information, richer content and more innovative resources.
The exponential growth of the Internet is going to continue and along with it Web sites containing OSH information will continue to proliferate. The shape of OSH information on the Internet will be dictated by the changing profile of the user population, the behaviour patterns of the users and their evolving needs. Web technology and Internet design will move in the direction demanded by future users. For OSH, future users will include workers, managers and the general public - that is, anyone and everyone . Through self-organization and natural selection, users will seek out and patronize sites that provide real added value for them. This will be the test for sorting future winners and losers among OSH information vendors on the Internet.
As the speed and reliability of wireless communication advance further, low-cost, high-speed wireless access to the Internet will attract people from remote places lacking in fixed infrastructure and good communications. Wireless Internet access will also further enhance the delivery of the right OSH information at the right time to the right place. Developments in telephones, cable services, satellite links, cellular services, fibre optics and a range of other distribution technologies will improve persistent connectivity and create a world in which everything has an Internet address. Intranets will be a powerful influence within organizations, promoting lateral communications and bringing down silos, thus enormously helping the movement toward making occupational health and safety an integral part of organizational management.
People's skills in knowledge management in support of solving OSH-related problems will be increasingly in demand. These skills include expertise in data mining, information architecture, knowledge extraction, knowledge management and promoting institutional wisdom. OSH professionals will have the opportunity to enhance their role and influence in the organization by mastering these skills and thereby facilitating informed decisions and actions by all parties within the enterprise. Structured document technology will make all digital content more accessible, overcoming difficulties in areas such as language and non-text objects, including digital video.
In this digital economy, partnerships will provide the key to success in occupational health and safety. Within organizations, the flow of OSH information through Intranets will foster partnerships among managers, workers, health and safety professionals and others in addressing health and safety concerns. Between organizations, the Internet will encourage development of partnerships to share OSH information, including good OSH practices, which can be particularly helpful to small and medium-sized companies. Partnerships also will be the way to succeed in providing users with truly valuable OSH information products and services on the Internet. These partnerships will involve institutions generating OSH information, information suppliers, OSH professionals, Knowledge Managers, IT Managers and ultimate users.
Incredibly sophisticated search engines and highly advanced knowledge management techniques will combine to transform the Web into a single, homogeneous, seamless, searchable entity with powerful guides to direct users to relevant information. Rather than delivering the same product for everyone, successful OSH information vendors will develop, and serve their customers with more and more custom solutions and customizable solutions that leverage both content and technology. Depending on the topic, users will decide for themselves which information sources are best suited to serve their specific requirements.
At the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety (CCOHS), we are continually striving to improve the real value of our services to users. There are several significant developments presently underway. Partnerships with mutually supportive organizations from around the world play an important role in these endeavours. The advancing technologies should promote more and more institutions to work together and boost their efforts toward eliminating work-related injuries and illnesses.
