The ABET (Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology) Applied Science Accreditation Commission (ASAC) requires that graduates of accredited Baccalaureate-level and technician level safety and similarly named applied science programs must be able to "apply principles of safety and health in a non-academic setting through an intern, cooperative, or supervised experience." (ABET 2015) Quality assurance must also be maintained to ensure the continuous improvement of those programs so that mutual benefits for students, employers, and universities can be maximized.
Research and Development is an alternate to Industrial Internship, which is a required course in the ABET-accredited Occupational Safety, Health, and Environment (OSH&;E) Bachelor of Science Degree Program at Southeastern Louisiana University. For three hours credit, this honors course is devoted to research and development of selected problems. Normally the research study is completed in one semester; however, the course may be repeated for a total of six hours with no more than three hours in any one semester. Grades are assigned on a Pass/Fail basis.
Actual industrial experience is an integral part of the student's formal education, and theory is blended with practice. In addition to their regular classroom and laboratory experiences, students gain valuable experiences by working in an industrial environment. The researcher has previously conducted a study to evaluate the value of industrial internship in the OSH&;E program at Southeastern, and presented the results at the 2014 ASSE PDC Academic Forum (Yuan and Bonnette 2014). The results from that study suggested that the systematic organization of the internship class and the appropriateness of the OSH&;E major courses seem to be the key factors that promote the success of the internship, as they have helped the internship students attain the program learning outcomes and prepared them to obtain the OSH&;E-related employment.
Nevertheless, not every student is able to secure an internship due to various reasons; therefore, the Research and Development course provides a great alternate opportunity to engage the OSH&;E students to conduct practice-oriented research. It is expected that successfully completing the Research and Development course will help students attain the same student outcomes as the Industrial Internship does. It will also help ensure students graduate in a timely manner and prepare them to obtain the OSH&;E-related employment.
