SciShield for Lab Management

SciShield is an online platform that enables users to easily organize and manage many high level aspects of a research laboratory; including personnel, equipment, and laboratory safety.  SciShield provides users with digital access to safety compliance and regulatory documentation and materials in a single platform. All laboratories are required to be registered in SciShield - these registrations are tied to the PI, as opposed to a specific protocol or lab space. Additionally, SciShield allows EHS to track important safety compliance trends among the research community.  This information can give individual labs a better idea of where to focus their safety compliance efforts.

SciShield provides the following lab management components:

• Receive and easily respond to lab assessments
• Access the EHS Document & Resource Library
• Inventory equipment (biosafety cabinets, lasers, x-ray devices, and more!), including attaching service/calibration reports and tracking associated due dates
• Store documents, include lab-specific protocols and chemical hygiene plans
• Manage and complete trainings
• View the chemical inventory, SDSs, and request items from the surplus inventory
• Request lab and waste supplies
• Request hazardous waste pick-up and view previous pick-up requests
• Receive notifications for emergencies and other issues that can impact research
• Manage permits for radiation use

The SciShield General Setup Wizard can assist in the proper set up of the laboratory profile. PIs should minimally include current lab group members and verification of lab spaces used by the group. Adding group members can also ensure EHS is able to contact group members in the event of emergencies, such as floods, to minimize damage to expensive equipment and operational downtime. Adding group members is also necessary to assign particular trainings.  Please see the SciShield Guide for Setting Up Trainings for more information.

Please note that to have a group member other than the PI set up the lab profile, add members or assign trainings, the PI must first add the individual as a member of the lab and ensure that group compliance liaison access is granted for the individual. 

Training Requirements

• Training requirements are triggered based on assigned job activities. Job Activities and Training Requirements lists the available job activities that can be assigned to lab members and the associated training training requirements.
• You can choose to manually set these for each group member or set it for the entire lab. If you choose to set it globally for the lab, then you will only need to add/remove members and the trainings will be automatically assigned. 

For all documents associated with SciShield, please refer to the SciSchield Document & Resource Library.

Answers to Common Questions About SciShield

I can't log in to SciShield. What should I do?

You must have a UMass Net ID or NENS account to log in to SciShield. If you do not have one, please contact your PI to get one set up for you. It takes approximately one full day from the creation of the NENS until it will sync with SciShield. If your NENS or the password to your email expires, you will also lose access to SciShield until it is renewed. Records of completed trainings will be retained. Please also ensure that your primary email in SPIRE is set to your UMass email to prevent issues.

When I log in to SciShield, I can't see any trainings. How do I complete trainings?

If you are a member of a lab group, contact your PI to be added to the lab profile and have job activities assigned to you that will trigger training requirements. Even if you are not added to a lab and assigned trainings, you can still complete any training that is offered in SciShield by selected the training tab on the left-hand side of the screen, followed by course directory. You can also visit our EHS Training Catalog which links directly to each training in SciShield.

I graduated, and left the lab, but I keep getting notifications that I have to complete trainings.  How do I make that stop?

Please contact your PI and ask them to remove you from the lab profile in SciShield.

When I try to book time on an instrument through CORUM, it's telling me that my trainings are out of date even though they are current. What can I do about this?

SciShield takes user information from SPIRE, so your primary email address listed in SPIRE must be your UMass email to ensure that information is synced properly between platforms.  Please check SPIRE to ensure this is correct.

Do I have to use the equipment module or provide an equipment list?

No, unless you have lasers. This is a feature of SciShield that may be useful to many labs to keep track of equipment and service records for these items, however, you are not required to use SciShield for this purpose. EHS will be using the equipment module to keep records for safety related lab equipment (i.e., biosafety cabinets, autoclaves, drench showers, eye washes, etc.) and also lasers. If you have lasers, please keep the list updated. EHS uses this information to provide updates to regulatory agencies that require us to report this information to them.