Importance of Peer Reviewing

To understand the importance of peer reviewed articles, one must understand the risks involved with open source media. Open source media is any websites, blogs, etc that are freely accessed and/or free to be edited or added to without qualification. The most prominent example is Wikipedia. Though the core values of Wikipedia are well intended, the way in which they allow anyone to edit and add to their stockpile of information can lead to many falsified claims. This is an issue across all forms of open source media. This is where the importance of peer review comes into play. Oxford dictionary defines peer review as “Evaluation of scientific, academic, or professional work by others working in the same field.” (Oxford Dictionary, 2016) This statement alone does not quiet cover the full importance of this matter and is better explained by Andre Spicer and Thomas Roulet in their co-authored article for The Conversation named Explainer: what is peer review? The article clearly states that “Peer review is one of the gold standards of science. It’s a process where scientists (“peers”) evaluate the quality of other scientists’ work. By doing this, they aim to ensure the work is rigorous, coherent, uses past research and adds to what we already knew.” (Spicer A, Roulet T, 2014) This statement perfectly portrays the true definition of peer review. Given these statements, it is clear that the importance of peer review is identify and acknowledge accurate information and to acknowledge the work of the authors within their respective domain.

Spicer A, Roulet T, 2014, ‘Explainer: what is peer review?’, The Conversation, viewed 29 November 2016, https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-peer-review-27797

Oxford Dictionaries English, 2016, “peer review - definition of peer review in English’, Oxford Dictionaries, viewed 29 November 2016, https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/peer_review

Safety Science

Safety science is the study and understanding of risks and hazards. Risk being the likelihood of an event occurring and the consequence should an event occur, where hazard is the energy that caused the damage and/or harm. An example of the above statement would be a person driving on the wrong side of the road in low visibility. There is already risks involved in driving, collisions with other road users being one of the biggest. By driving on the wrong side of the road, the person has increased their chance of being involved in an incident. Add in the low visibility and the chances have increased once more. The consequence of this behavior is extremely high as these actions could lead to death. If this incident was to occur, then the hazard comes into effect. If the driver did manage to get into a collision then the energy involved, being the momentum of two vehicles colliding, would be the hazard. 

Importance of Evidence

Evidence is an invaluable tool within any domain that employs evidence based practice, whether it be the legal, medical, science of or investigative domains. Evidence is used to solidify claims and to prove validity. Oxford Dictionary defines evidence as “the available body of facts or information indicating whether a belief or proposition is true or valid.”(Oxford Dictionary, 2016) The true importance will of course vary between domains but the core statement above is still applicable in all cases. Where in the scientific domain, one may state that evidence is important in proving the validity of a hypothesis, then in the legal domain one may state that evidence is important in proving guilt or a lack there of. Both statements are different however they both essentially mean the same thing, that without evidence, the claims laid before them could not be proven or disproven.

Oxford Dictionaries English, 2016, ‘evidence - definition of evidence in English’, Oxford Dictionaries, viewed 29 November 2016, https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/evidence

Introduction to my Saftey Science Portfolio.

Welcome one and all to my OCHS12018 Safety Science Portfolio.

My name is Michael and I am a second year student in the Bachelors Degree in Accident Forensics at Central Queensland University. Not only am I a full time student but I am also a father and an archived member of the State Emergency Services of which I was an active member for roughly 10 years. I performed tasks ranging from simply sandbagging and tarping roofs, to flood boat operations during the 2012 Queensland floods and full scale land searches in co-ordination with Queensland Police Services. I am a firm believer that logic dictates and have brought this belief into my studies and have found that logical rationalisation and forensic studies go hand in hand with each other. I can be extremely controversial and perceived as rude, how ever I endeavor to keep an open mind and take all opinions on board without offending people in the process.

That is enough about me and I hope that this brief intro gives anyone reading this a better understanding of how this blog will be presented.