OiRA FAQ's

Developed by the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA), OiRA (Online interactive Risk Assessment) is an easy-to-use, free web application that can help micro and small organisations to put in place a step-by-step risk assessment process — from the identification and evaluation of workplace risks, to the decision making on preventive actions and the implementation of those actions, to monitoring and reporting.

There is sufficient evidence to conclude that micro and small enterprises (MSEs), in general, have some shortcomings when it comes to risk assessment and the adoption of a preventive policy. OiRA aims to overcome this and contribute to improving occupational safety and health (OSH) in MSEs.

Risk assessment is a systematic examination of all aspects of work that considers:

• what could cause injury or harm
• if hazards can be eliminated and if not
• what preventive or protective measures should be in place to control the risks.

Only the more stable sections of this website have been translated into all EU languages, but those that are constantly updated are available only in English. This has been done in an attempt to rationalise EU-OSHA’s resources.

The OiRA community is made up of the organisations and people developing OiRA tools. It aims to facilitate the development of OiRA tools by stimulating the exchange of tools, knowledge and good practices, promoting collaborative work, reinforcing existing relationships within the community and creating new ones.

Yes. EU-OSHA allows (and welcomes) links to all the webpages (OiRA tools, OiRA promotion materials, …) of the OiRA website.

sectoral partners (employers’ and employees’ organisations) at EU and national levels and EU and national authorities (ministries, labour inspectorates, OSH institutes, etc.).

The OiRA tool is put at users’ disposal by EU-OSHA. As EU-OSHA is an EU body, Regulation (EC) No 45/2001 applies directly, guaranteeing that all data are processed fairly and lawfully, only for limited and explicit purposes, and stored in a secure way.

The following kinds of personal data are stored in the tool:

• a contact email address
• names of persons responsible for measures stated in the action plan (providing these names is not mandatory)
• other names that may be entered into free-text fields

EU-OSHA takes the following measures to protect personal data:

• personal data are inaccessible to external users
• security measures to protect against unauthorised access
• appropriate encryption of communication

The full text of the OiRA privacy policy is accessible here.

Sharing is done through Creative Commons licences.

This form of licence offers users the chance to share and adapt work under a number of specified conditions, including that the work be non-commercial and correctly attributed.

For more information, visit http://creativecommons.org/ and http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/.

OiRA is open-source software. Free and open-source software is liberally licensed to grant the right for users to use, study, change and improve its design through the availability of its source code.

OiRA is built on top of the Enterprise content management system “Plone”⁽¹⁾, and keeps its business logic in the add-on packages “Euphorie” ⁽²⁾ and “osha.oira” ⁽³⁾. The front end uses latest HTML5 technology and provides rich interactions wia the Patternslib library ⁽⁴⁾.

^{(1) https://plone.org/
(2) https://github.com/EU-OSHA/euphorie
(3) https://github.com/EU-OSHA/osha.oira
(4) http://patternslib.com/}

OiRA tools provide:

• A document recording the results of the risk assessment that can be downloaded, edited and printed. This record can be used as a basis for the information to be passed to the persons concerned; for monitoring to assess whether necessary measures have been introduced; for evidence to be produced for supervisory authorities; and for any revision if circumstances change.
• An action plan (that can also be downloaded, edited and printed) focusing on the preventive measures to be implemented, who does what by when, etc.
• An overview of all the risks. This record can be used as a basis for passing information to the people concerned and for monitoring whether or not risks identified and measures to be taken are dealt with properly.
• An overview of the preventive and protective measures to be implemented. This record can be used as a basis for passing information to the people concerned and for monitoring the measures to be implemented in the forthcoming three months.

A valid email address and a password must be provided. As soon as a user registers, they can start using the tool (there’s no need to wait for a confirmation email).

Login requires an email address and password, and the user is automatically directed to their registered account.

The assessment and login details are private and are not visible to others (see the OiRA privacy policy).

A user can start using the tool without having to register, by running a test session. Then, if the tool meets their needs and expectations, the user can register by providing an email address and password. Guest users cannot save their progress or download reports.

The user can request a password reminder, which will send login details when a valid email address is entered.

Once logged in, users can click on the small triangle in the top right-hand corner of the web page (close to their email address) and follow the link to update their password and/or email address.

Once the OiRA tool session starts, the user is able to stop before the end. They can restart the session at a later date by selecting the title of the OiRA tool session. Every time the ‘continue’ option is chosen, the information provided is stored.

Once users are logged in, clicking on the small triangle in the top left-hand corner (close to the name of the OiRA tool they are using) gives access to previous sessions and risk assessments, and users can choose the option ‘start a new session’. More than one session can be saved using the same tool and the same account, provided they have been given different titles. It is important that users record the email address, password and title given to each OiRA tool session.

It is important to make sure that the latest version of the web browser is used. For best viewing, the following web browsers are recommended: Windows Internet Explorer (IE 11), Google Chrome, Firefox and Safari.