Project Summary:

Authorized Organizational Representative:

Principal Investigator/Project Director #1:

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Description of the Agricultural Communication Network Project:

1. Project Objectives:


• To improve agricultural research underlying agricultural telecommunications.
  
  
• Make optimal use of available resources for agricultural extension, resident education, and research by sharing resources between participating institutions.
  
  
• Enhance the ability of United States agriculture to respond to environmental and food safety concerns.
  
  
  
  Explain how the project relates to the Program Objective(s) and how the Project will contribute to achieving these.
  
  This project will pull together faculty and resources in agricultural extension and veterinary medicine, forge new partnerships, facilitate collaborations using resources of the University of California, and share expertise and a curriculum critical to food safety issues in the western region. The project will result in a web-based continuing education program in dairy market cattle food safety for dairy veterinarians and farm advisors. Program messages will reach dairy producers through two of their advisors, thereby providing a consistent food safety message that is relevant and practical. This multiplier effect will ensure that the veterinarian, the farm advisor, and the dairy producer who markets cattle to slaughter, will have the same information about reducing food safety risks on the farm. The types of food safety issues included in the curriculum include rational drug use to reduce residue and antibiotic resistance risks, improving herd health to provide quality animals to packers, and the new needs and concerns of packers. In addition, research into participant attitudes, knowledge and learning styles will be an important component to the project to help continuing education program providers understand what motivates participants to use distance agricultural educational programs and how best to deliver program messages.

  Specifically, the project will address three Ag Telecommunications Program objectives:
  Objective 1: Improve agricultural research underlying agricultural telecommunications. The project will assess learning styles and baseline knowledge and attitudes on dairy market cattle food safety to course participants. A post-test will assess changes in knowledge and attitudes. Information from online quizzes will reinforce learning at the end of each program segment as well as provide evidence of participant understanding of the course information.

  Anecdotes from online continuing medical education providers indicate that only 20 percent of course evaluations are completed for online courses. This project provides an opportunity to evaluate completion rates. Two different methods of course evaluation delivery will be used to compare return rates. One method will utilize Dillmans (Dillman 1978) complete mail survey method and the other will require on-line completion of the course evaluation. Questions will cover the distance learning aspects of the course and its effectiveness. Participants will be selected at random to complete their evaluation by one of the two methods. The results of this study are important to determine if course evaluation return rates are enhanced by putting them online. (see Evaluation section for details)

  Objective 2: Make optimal use of available resources for agricultural extension, resident education, and research by sharing resources between participating institutions. Effective continuing education programs require a team to successfully design, develop and deploy the program. The dairy market cattle food safety curriculum and materials were developed by UC Davis with the help of two grants. UC Davis would like to share this curriculum with our western university partners and obtain feedback and input for content and distance education design and delivery. The participating institutions are in western states with large dairy herd operations having similar food safety and quality issues with cull dairy cattle going to slaughter. Each institution has an extension education network and provides continuing education programs to veterinarians. Collaborative program marketing will help insure a broader audience. UC Davis will handle the bulk of the project for adapting the curriculum for distance design. To add value to this project UC Davis will use the design template for delivery of other educational modules of the California Dairy Quality Assurance program.

  Objective 3: Enhance the ability of the United States agriculture to respond to environmental and food safety concerns. The primary objective of this project is to deliver a program to a large audience of western dairy practitioners and farm advisors who will teach, counsel and train dairy producers in on-farm food safety for market cattle. The important component of this broad audience appeal, and a reason for distance delivery, is to provide a consistent food safety message to dairy producers and their advisors. Producers often get conflicting advice or information from their advisors and remain confused about issues and what they should do about them. This project will outline and deliver the knowledge base and tools necessary for advisors to provide science-based information and programs to their dairy clients to reduce food safety risks from market cattle.
  

  
  
  


2. Description of Agricultural Communication Network to be Developed or Utilized.

The University of California will take responsibility for adaptation and delivery of the course on-line. The knowledge-base acquisition and learner assessment will be designed to use asynchronous tools such as the World Wide Web. CD-ROMs will be provided for learner reference and later use.

Currently, the University of California (UC) School of Veterinary Medicine (see URLs below) network infrastructure and instructional computing resources (see URL below) include systems for multimedia development. The University of California, Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources Communication Services, (see URL below) can support video and on-line production. Asynchronous learning resources, including web-based instructional modules and other tools will be supported by both UC Veterinary Medicine and UC Communication Services networks. Wide area networking infrastructure can be provided by DANR Connect (see URL below) in cooperation with UCNet and CENIC (see URLs below). In addition, satellite teleconference coverage of the continental US (CONUS) can be provided by the UCTV channel which broadcasts to all direct broadcast satellite (DBS) subscribers of Direct TV. This channel could provide instructional coverage, repeat presentations, key issues updates, and additional services. In the future, ADECs DBS channel could provide an additional or primary delivery service for curriculum components.

UC Davis DANR Communication Services already possesses high-quality audio, video, and graphics compression software programs including MP3, AVI, Realsystem G2, Quicktime 4.0, Windows Media, MPEG and streaming media over the web, and has the ability to produce CD-ROMs. Currently, Communication Services uses Media Cleaner Pro for audio/video compression but would like to use the Media Cleaner Pro Production Bundle to handle this particular project. They would also like to use Adobe Premiere 5.1. Currently they do non-linear digital video editing with Final Cut Pro on an Apple G4/500 and use the Adobe After Effects Production Bundle for effects and animation. For live videostreaming to the web and the ability to save it for on-demand use, the project would require the use of the Sorenson Broadcaster. Standard software programs --- Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and 3D animation software --- are already in use for professional media production. At the end of the course, videos and CD-roms of all course materials will be supplied to each program participant for them to deliver the program to producers in a local setting. These items will be produced and distributed through the DANR Communication Services distribution system.

Online registration for continuing veterinary medical education programs are currently handled by the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine Office of Public Programs, on their website. This office will take responsibility for this technical aspect of the course.

New synergies will be created by the combination of unique educational resources, professionals who require lifelong continuing education, and unique network and technology resources. These interactions will occur only when the content is compelling. The fundamental purpose of this grant proposal is to enhance a curriculum to provide excellent content and develop an instructional design that will attract sustaining learners to participate. The advantages of conducting continuing education on-line are that it is timely, deliverable to rural areas, inexpensive for participants, can be easily updated, involves self-paced learning, provides for some degree of interactivity, provides immediate feedback, and can use situational cognition (contextual thinking).

URLs of supporting telecommunications network infrastructure and services.
A*DEC - http://www.adec.edu
ANR Communication Services - http://commserv.ucdavis.edu/ucce/
CE Link - http://commserv.ucdavis.edu/ucce/services/default.shtml#Distance
DANR Connect - http://commserv.ucdavis.edu/ucce/computer/default.shtml
UC Vet Med - http://www.vetmed.ucdavis.edu
UC Vet Med Computer Assisted Learning Facility - http://www.calf.vetmed.ucdavis.edu/HTML_docs/CALF.html
UC Vet Med Teaching and Research Center - http://www.vmtrc.ucdavis.edu
UC Vet Med Public Programs/Continuing Education http://www.vetmed.ucdavis.edu/CE/CE.html
UC Vet Med Extension - http://www.vetmed.ucdavis.edu/vetext/home.html
UCNet - http://nms.ucop.edu
CENIC - http://www.cenic.org
UCTV - http://www.uctvonline.org/






Describe the Cost/Benefit Analysis for purchasing (or leasing) different types of facilities, equipment, components, hardware and software, or other items. (complete only if applicable to your project).

The portable computer and printer are essential for keeping track of project communications and progress by the research assistant. In addition, Three software programs will be purchased through this grant: Media Cleaner Pro Production Bundle, Adobe Premier 5.1, and the Sorenson Broadcaster. The media software needed will upgrade the software already utilized by DANR Communication Services and will result in reduced production time and a higher quality product.


3. Agricultural Communication Network Programming:


• Agricultural Communications and Education
  
• Veterinary Medicine
  
  
  Describe the Programming and how it will contribute to achieving the Objective(s):
  
  The purpose of this project is to deliver a continuing education program in on-farm dairy market cattle food safety through distance education methods. The objectives of the project are to (1) adapt an existing curriculum for web-based delivery, (2) deliver the course to dairy veterinarians and farm advisors, and (3) assess the course and the participants taking the course. Veterinarians and farm advisors have extensive knowledge of the total farm biological system, but many lack training in food safety. The course learning objectives for these groups include: (1) understand both the issues in marketing quality cull dairy cows and new demands of packers, (2) be able to deliver producer education in market cattle food safety, (3) be able to identify resources in food safety, and (4) be able to develop on-farm programs.

  Although issues in on-farm food safety have been discussed in the veterinary profession for more than 20 years (Anon 1997;Buntain 1997;Fajt and Spire 1997;Hentschl 1992;Herrick 1997;Russell 1996;Spaulding 1974;Turner 1997), there has been no continuing education program specifically designed to address on-farm food safety services. All meat packing and slaughter establishments should have had their Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) plans in place by January 2000 for the control/reduction of food safety risks (Food Safety and Inspection Service 1996)and in 1999, the USDA Food Safety Inspection Service counseled packers to look to incoming cattle as a critical control point (http://www.fsis.usda.gov/OPPDE/ap/Presentations//district%20managers.htm).

  Yet to be developed on a broad scale are the processes and control measures for food safety risks originating on-farm to consistently provide food-safe, quality dairy cattle to slaughter. For dairy herds, techniques including HACCP plans, total quality management, continuous quality improvement, or quality assurance have been suggested for antibiotic residue risk and pathogen reduction. Veterinarians are in a key role to help develop science-based systems that meet the USDA Food Safety and Inspection Services requirements to prevent chemical, physical, and biological hazards in animal products. Education for dairy producers and their advisors about market cattle should include issues of compliance with regulations and packer or processor demands. Producers need to hear a consistent message about their role in food safety and need current information on research and government regulations to avoid confusion. The purpose of this project is to provide content and tools for on-farm food safety programs for dairy producers that will be delivered by veterinarians and farm advisors.

  The project will result in a web-based continuing education course for dairy veterinarians and farm advisors in the western states. With over 25 percent of the nations dairy cattle, the participating western states cull about 800,000 head of dairy cattle to slaughter every year. Food safety issues and how to prevent meat quality problems are the major topics covered in the course. The course will utilize electronic communications focused on the agricultural sector. The curriculum will be developed, enhanced and shared among the 6 state partners and be available to participants who are often difficult to reach because of the nature of their work and their rural location.

  The market for a food safety continuing education program was identified by the PI through a formal needs assessment of western dairy veterinarians and government-employed veterinarians (Moore, Sischo, and Wilson 2000). From that assessment and a survey of packers slaughtering cull dairy cattle, the curriculum and audio-visual materials for a market cattle on-farm food safety course were developed through a grant from the USDA:Food Safety Inspection Service. The program consists of a script, two videotapes, and slide/computer presentations for each program segment. The project proposed here will enhance this curriculum by fostering collaborations among several academic institutions in western states with similar dairy and market dairy cattle systems. New curriculum content will be generated through these collaborations. The curriculum will be adapted for and delivered by distance education methods to reach a wider audience. Collaborative marketing will result in a broader reach and audience. From a study of on-line dental continuing education programs, on-line courses were difficult to locate on the Internet (Schleyer 1999). This means that better marketing is essential to recruit participants. The course will impact dairy veterinarians, farm advisors and dairy producers and will result in wider recognition and focus on food safety for market dairy cattle.
  



Detailed description of methods to be used in producing and/or delivering the programing.

Program Planning: The necessary steps in developing a continuing professional education program have been described (Bennett and LeGrand 1990). For the proposed course, we have already identified the topic themes, conducted needs assessments, identified collaborators, outlined the learning objectives, selected the teaching methodologies to use, developed most of the program content and materials, and selected a format for delivery. What we need to do with additional funding is enhance our curriculum by working with collaborators, detail the instructional design for on-line delivery, broadly recruit participants and deliver the program, and evaluate both the participants and the program.

Curriculum Changes and Instructional Design: The University of California and the California Dairy Quality Assurance program drafted a curriculum for dairy market cattle food safety at the end of 1999, after a formal needs assessment of dairy and government veterinarian learning needs for on-farm food safety and a survey of packers who slaughter cull dairy cows. Through the multi-institutional partnerships developed with the proposed project, the curriculum will be updated and made regionally relevant. Our partners will provide additional content input as well as assist with instructional design of this web-based course. Collaborators and production staff will review and evaluate the current curriculum at one face-to-face meeting, in 3 videoteleconferencing meetings, and by electronic communications and document-sharing.

The current in-residence, didactic market cattle program agenda includes: (1) Video: The Non-Fed Beef Tour with Mr. Food (14 min 30 sec - From National Cattlemans Beef Association); (2) Introduction to the next video (5 min); (3) Video: Slaughter Plant Tour (about 7 minutes -- A dairy producer narrates a tour of a slaughter plant, following one of his cows to the production of hamburger.); (4) Introduction to HACCP in the slaughter plant. (about 35 minutes -- A slide set); (5) Discussion of producer issues. (about 30 minutes -- "What do you think a producers role is in food safety?" "What kinds of things can producers do to insure quality cull cows?"; (6) Slide Set: Chemical Hazards (antibiotic residues, antimicrobial resistance, other chemical residues), plus Quiz (60 min); (7) Slide Set: Physical Hazards (including injection site lesions and blemishes), plus Quiz (20 min); (8) Slide Set: Biological Hazards (Salmonella, E. coli, etc.), plus Quiz (20 min); (8) Discussion of what producers need to do to meet packer needs and get the most from cull cows; (10) Summary, Q & A, Program Evaluation (10-15 min). The course will provide a segment on how to teach this information to producers. The teaching topics include: How to identify your audience, effective presentations, and effective group facilitation.

One important change to the curriculum will be to make it more interactive. In a recent study of physician behavior change after continuing medical education activities, Davis et al found a large and consistent effect on practice behavior change from interactive educational methods(Davis et al. 1999). Interactivity will be designed into the food safety course through the use of case-studies that provide relevance to practice. Scenarios for market cattle food safety issues can be developed whereby the participant can try to trouble-shoot a problem. This can be done on-line through the successive revelation of pertinent facts, when asked for by the participant. For example, if a residue violation of a marketed cull dairy cow has occurred, the participant can work backwards by selecting specific sets of questions to reveal the cause of the violation (e.g. poor animal identification). Working through problems in this manner will reinforce learning and provide contextual meaning to the learner. Successful adult education is learner-centered, active rather than passive, and relevant to learner needs (Candy 1991).

Curriculum Adaptation to Web-based Instruction: Online continuing medical education (CME) providers in Canada developed a hybrid distance delivery system that merges the CD-ROM with Web documents, multimedia files, and communication applications (Curran et al. 2000a). This hybrid system overcomes obstacles of bandwidth by transmitting multimedia files and HTML documents to a users computer (and Web browser) directly from a CD-ROM. The dermatology program they delivered was effectice at changing physician test perfromance, and was well-received by participants (Curran et al. 2000b). Our market cattle program design will adopt some of the effective design characteristics of this CME program. In particular, interactive multimedia tutorials, one-to-one communications, access to remote systems, asynchronous group communications, online self-assessment, and some CD-ROM-based materials.

The existing video segments will be digitized and provided online through video-streaming. A new video based on the chemical hazards slide-set segment will be scripted, shot and digitized. Some of the remaining segments will have digital audio over the slide-set visuals. The course will have on-line registration, point and click navigation, 24-hour availability of content, be updatable, will track attendees and monitor performance.

The course web-site will provide participants with access to software downloads for accomplishing course tasks (such as videostreaming). In addition, the site will provide online resources for each learning module that would be helpful for "additional study" and/or implementation of programs and services for producers. Examples include: "The Big Bad Bug Book" -- http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~mow/intro.html; and USDAs National Animal Health Monitoring Systems Food Safety Resources -- http://www.aphis.usda.gov/vs/ceah/cei/.

Formative Evaluation by the Advisory Committee: Once a draft program is online, an advisory committee of extension specialists, farm advisors and veterinarians will conduct a formative evaluation of the project, the course design, and the program content. This advisory committee will be able to test the site from personal computers, thereby eliminating the need for travel and reducing project costs. The advisory committee will consist of additional extension specialists, a member of the National Dairy Quality Assurance Program, and a few online course providers.

Program Polishing: After the formative evaluation, the course will be modified where needed. At this point, we will apply for continuing education credits for the course through the American Association of Veterinary State Boards.

Marketing and Promotion: All project collaborators have responsibility for marketing and promoting the course. Promotion will be done through email list-serves (AABP-L and Dairy-L) as well as through the different institutional websites. The course will be advertised by the continuing education course offices, promoted at meetings and advertised using direct mail.

Recruitment and Delivery: Recruitment will be done by all collaborators. Registrations will be handled by the Office of Public Programs, School of Veterinary Medicine, UC Davis. Once registered, the participant will be provided access to the site. To complete the course and obtain continuing education credits, participants must submit responses to a learning style inventory, pre-test, quizzes, and post-test. Through an email list we can facilitate collaboration among veterinarians and farm advisors from the same location so that they can provide producer training together.

Multiplying the Message: The project will result in training and educating professionals (veterinarians and farm advisors) who will multiply the message reaching dairy producers. To enhance this, part of the course will deal with techniques on facilitating producer education. We will also provide a notebook or CD-ROM containing an agenda, script, slide sets, videos and learning exercises to conduct producer meetings.

Post-Program Evaluation: (See assessment section)




4. Population to be Served and Target Audience(s):

This project targets three populations. Directly, farm advisors and dairy veterinarians will learn and understand market cattle food safety issues and be able to transfer that knowledge to dairy producers. Indirectly, dairy producers will be impacted through their advisors. In addition, continuing education providers will benefit through the development of the distance delivery template and the program evaulation. The potential participants in the west include approximately 400 dairy veterinarians and farm advisors.

The veterinarians role in food safety issues has been widely discussed. Food safety issues include public health concern for antibiotic residues in meat and milk; contamination of meat and milk by Listeria, Campylobacter, E. coli and Salmonella spp.; and the possibility of transfer of resistance to human pathogens as a result of antimicrobial use in food animals. Food animal veterinarians often find themselves in the middle of these issues because they are the livestock producers primary resource for disease control, treatment, and information for making management and health care decisions (Jordan and Fourdraine 1993; NAHMS 1996). Veterinarians are, or should be, integral in the development of management decisions about on-farm food safety. In a recent cooperative extension study of dairy producers using Total Quality Management, follow-up showed that producers found value with the program but desired continuous presence of an advisor or team to work with them and monitor their progress (Donaldson 1998).

In surveys of meat packers, dairy veterinarians, and government veterinarians conducted for this project, needs for on-farm food safety education were determined (Moore, Sischo, and Wilson 2000). Some western meat packers are considering the quality of incoming cull dairy cattle as a control point for food safety hazards. More than 50 percent of dairy veterinarians and government-employed veterinarians believed that a current market for on-farm food safety services exists and more than 85 percent believed that a potential market exists. However, the longer since veterinary school graduation, the less likely their belief in a current market. Veterinarians were more likely to express a strong interest in offering on-farm food safety services if they believed a current market existed, reported that they already offer such services, or listed residues and pathogens as the most important issues facing the dairy industry. Although perceiving a potential market for on-farm food safety services, veterinarians were somewhat unsure of their role in this area. The new demands of packers slaughtering cull dairy cows may be the motivation practitioners need to broach the subject of food safety with clients. The proposed course can provide the education and tools the participants need to develop the services to deliver. More recent graduates will likely be early adopters of the program but appropriate program marketing will attract more established practitioners.

Farm advisors / cooperative extension agents will also participate in this course. They are experienced in program delivery and serve a vital educational role in the farming community. Linking farm advisors and veterinarians through land grant universities and the Internet to locally deliver producer education together will insure a consistent message for food safety education. The program will promote the role of farm advisors and veterinarians as food safety and quality information resources.

The producer is the ultimate beneficiary of the program. Farm advisors and veterinarians will multiply the information by offering education and services to producers in on-farm food safety relating to market cattle. The "multiplier effect" was proven effective in changing dairy farm management practices in a 4-year study (Moore, Sischo, and Hutchinson 1996). Producers whose veterinarian was enrolled in a 3-year dairy production medicine course were more likely to change and improve management practices compared to producers whose veterinarian was not enrolled in the course. Ultimately, from the proposed course, producers will gain knowledge and tools to market higher quality cattle to slaughter.




5. Collaborating Institutions and Other Partners:

University of California, Davis, School of Veterinary Medicine
University of California, Division of Ag and Natural Resources
California Department of Food and Agriculture
California Dairy Quality Assurance Program
Colorado State University, College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences
Oregon State University, College of Veterinary Medicine
Washington State University, College of Agriculture and Home Economics
University of Idaho, Twin Falls
University of Arizona
Academy of Dairy Veterinary Consultants

The partners chosen for this project represent secialists from veterinary colleges, animal science departments, continuing education and communication services from 6 major western dairy states. All collaborators are necessary to enhance the current dairy market cattle food safety curriculum by providing content on residue avoidance, pathogen reduction, physical hazard reduction, and instructional design. All have expressed enthusiasm for this western regional project and will participate in program development, once funding is established. The University of California partners have not worked with these collaborators in the past and are looking forward to the new alliances. There is balance in the group by mixing animal scientists (meats specialists who can provide information on packer needs and dairy scientists), continuing education providers (who can provide input on adult learning), veterinarians (who can provide input on the profession), cooperative extension specialists (who can provide input on farm advisor learning needs), and media specialists. All project leaders are responsible for assisting with content, instructional design, and program marketing. This broad, regional approach will insure a wide audience. (See additional Rationale for Project regarding the regional aspect of this project.)

The Academy of Dairy Veterinary Consultants, a group of predominantly western dairy veterinarians, assisted with the original program needs assessment. They will be recruited to participate in the first offering of the course.

The California Department of Agriculture has been an important partner in food safety education in the state. Their contiuned participation, content expertise and understanding of western dairy issues make them vital to the project.






6. Additional Rationale for Project

Food Safety: "The ability of producers to compete in local and world markets depends on the continued production of safe food" (Turner 1997). New on-farm programs to reduce residues and pathogen loads in market cattle should be developed by the producer and his/her advisors to keep those markets open. In 1998, the Food Safety Inspection Service and the Livestock Conservation Institute conducted three educational programs for producers, veterinarians and others on "Surviving in a HACCP World" which focused on reasons to adopt quality assurance programs to meet new demands by meat packers (http://www.lcionline.org). The programs were a day of lectures which provided background and established the need for protocols to decrease residues and pathogen loads. What is needed now is education on the current tools and programs which can be implemented on the farm. The model program which utilizes the veterinarian in quality assurance is the Beef Quality Assurance program outlined by the USDA Food Safety Inspection Service and the beef industry (Fajt and Spire 1997). Since a dairy operation and the way slaughter animals are marketed is different from the beef industry, education about dairy market cattle needs to be tailored for the dairy producer / professional audience.

Other food safety / quality programs exist but have not been uniformly successful and have primarily been directed at producers. The National Milk and Dairy Beef Quality Assurance Program (MDBQAP) was sponsored by the American Veterinary Medical Association and the National Milk Producers Federation and resulted in the development of booklet materials outlining a HACCP plan for residue reduction (Hentschl 1992). The program was not implemented on a majority of farms because it did not provide the farm-specific tools to manage and monitor changes. Most producers did not see the residue problem as their own. However, when an on-farm risk-assessment tool was used along with an educator/consultant, producers made management changes to reduce their risk of antibiotic residues in milk (Sischo et al. 1997). The results of this research will be used in our market cattle program.

The need for on-farm HACCP programs for pathogen reduction has been articulated (Cullor 1995a; Noordhuizen and Welpelo 1996; Troutt, Gillespie, and Osburn 1995). An example of an HACCP program for dairy farms was outlined which could be adapted for pathogen reduction and implemented by the producer in a team effort with the herd veterinarian and others (Cullor 1995b). In a separate article, an autotutorial computer-based program was developed for HACCP training for government veterinarians for one specific pathogen (Cullor 1996). Incorporating current research findings, such as identification of risk factors for pathogen-shedding, should be the focus of the pathogen-reduction education objective for the course (Garber et al. 1995). The proposed course will enhance the previous programs, focus at the farm level and cover the spectrum of pathogens.

A Western Regional Project: The focus of this project is on the Western Region. The West has seen a tremendous growth in cow numbers and average dairy herd size in the last two decades. Food safety issues, particularly antibiotic residues and human pathogens found from western cows, have made national news. In addition, there are features unique to dairying with large herd sizes. Herds greater than 200 cows often require hired labor to get work done. With hired labor come issues in communication and training of the work-force to make sure that jobs like cow medical treatments are done correctly and food safety problems are avoided. A total quality management approach will be used in the course to address this issue.

The states represented in this collaborative project have over 25 percent of the nations dairy herd. From the 1999 US Dairy Industry Statistics, National Agricultural Statistics Service, the number of dairy cows for each state are provided below. Estimates for average herd size came from the 1997 NASS webpage, based on number of herds and number of cows (http://www.nass.usda.gov:81/ipedb/).

California, 1,466,000 head, >600 head average herd size, 70 percent of herds > 200 head;
Arizona, 134,000 head, 500 head average herd size, 44 percent of herds > 200 head;
Colorado, 83,000 head, 100 head average herd size, 15 percent of herds > 200 head;
Idaho, 318,000 head, 225 head average herd size, 27 percent of herds > 200 head;
Oregon, 89,000 head, 100 head average herd size, 17 percent of herds > 200 head;
Washington, 247,000 head, 210 head average herd size, 32 percent of herds > 200 head.

The number of dairy cattle marketed to slaughter from these states each year is over 800,000 head (estimated with a 35 percent cull rate). Without the mindset that dairy producers also produce meat, food safety and meat quality are at risk.

Educational Needs and Issues in Online Education: Although it has been predicted that "half of all learning in the 21st century will be on-line" (LERN, March 2000), there are some challenges to putting courses on-line. Internet access for our audiences could be considered a challenge, but among professionals, web-use has risen to over 50 percent (Rhonda Dix, University of Wisconsin Medical School, personal communication, April 2000). In traditional continuing education, which is likely ineffective at changing behavior and is inflexible (Davis et al. 1999), the clinician does not choose the topic, the pace, or the location of learning (Peterson et al. 1999). Online continuing education can overcome some of these problems.

Important in developing a successful educational program will be utilizing technologies that facilitate participant motivation to make a change by overcoming obstacles to participation, by enabling change, and by reinforcing that change (Green and Kreuter 1991). Online educational technologies can be used in all of these stages of behavior change. Through a series of focus groups, we determined that time, distance, and money, were barriers to participation (Moore et al. 2000). However, as important was the concern about leaving clients if participating in traditional in-residence programs. These obstacles to participation can be overcome using distance education technology.

Production costs for initiating on-line continuing medical education courses have been estimated to be $40,000 to $100,000. The funding requested will cover many of the costs associated with start-up and will provide both experience and a template for future programming. Other challenges that will be considered include: What technology do the users have? What kind of user support will be offered? Has the course been tested on many different systems? Traditional continuing education is still more popular than on-line continuing education because of the lack of professionals training to use the Internet. Most sites are not fully interactive. What are the impacts on learning and on practice? These issues and questions will be explored in the collaborator curriculum meetings.

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7. Significant Impacts:

This project will be the delivery step in the development of a program to educate veterinarians and farm advisors to provide farm-specific, reliable, and innovative management programs to provide safe, quality dairy market cattle for slaughter. The project will result in a uniform, consistent food safety message to producers about dairy market cattle food safety and quality.

The collaborations, the online template and the experience gained from the project can by used to create new courses in animal welfare and animal health for western quality assurance programs.

The continuing education program market demands that we develop the kind of product that will compete with other providers and be available when, where, and how the learner demands. Success in creating sustainable programs in professional education will provide models that can be applied to highly targeted, financially viable educational offerings to agencies, industries, businesses, schools, and individuals. Key to that process is focusing on audience needs, convenience, quality, pricing, and value. To succeed we must produce programs for the network that customers will select, evaluate, and purchase. Furthermore, we must exceed their expectations in quality, delivery, and value to be sustainable. The core concept of this project contains these elements.






8. Describe the plans for research, assessment, evaluation and dissemination as applicable to the project:

Formative evaluation: An advisory committee of veterinarians, farm advisors and other specialists from around the country will assess the draft product of the project for a formative evaluation. The program will be assessed for content and the delivery method. This formative evaluation will be accomplished over the Internet. The URL for the course will be provided to committee members and they will have the opportunity to go through the course and provide comment. The project will provide a small honorarium. The results of this evaluation will be used to restructure and make changes to the course, as needed.

Changing Behavior: If behavior change (implementation of new knowledge) is an outcome of the program, the theory of behavior change which best applies is the PRECEED model from the health education / health promotion literature (Green and Kreuter 1991). In this model, there are three major factors influencing change. First, for anyone to change behavior, they must be predisposed to change. This is where educational needs assessment plays a role. Second, they must be enabled to make the change. The course should provide the knowledge and tools to make the change. The participants also need the practice or work environment in which to make the change. Finally, participants need to be reinforced in their change. Preparing for and teaching producers will reinforce their own learning and assist with marketing and implementation of on-farm food safety services.

The challenge for the program provider/researcher comes is to assess learning and behavior change. The pre-test/post-test method can be used to assess understanding and knowledge changes. Only through an assessment of implementation can behavior change be evaluated. Implementation can be assessed through practice visits or very specific survey questions about implementation (Moore 1999).

Pre-Program Assessment: There is very little literature on what motivates practicing veterinarians to learn. However, from the continuing medical education literature and from an in-press veterinary study, physicians and veterinarians appear to be motivated when presented with either specific problems (e.g. a patient) or general knowledge or skills gaps (Slotnick 1999; Moore et al. 2000). The gap in knowledge and skills in on-farm food safety is more general in nature, although practitioners may have had to deal with specific problems in food safety of market cattle because of client residue violations or carcass condemnation. The type of clinical problem determines a doctors self-selected learning method (McClaran, Franco, and Snell 1998). Semi-structured learning such as using journals and colleagues can solve specific problems but more formal learning is required for general skill and knowledge development. An online continuing education course is a formal learning activity and can fulfill some of the tenets of adult learning because if it is self-directed and provides for situated cognition (contextual thinking).

There are a number of gaps in continuing education provider knowledge about motivation to participate in an online course and motivation to participate in a formal program in food safety. Three gaps in provider knowledge will be filled with a pre-test of the participants: (1) Questions on what enticed participation will address some of the issues of motivation to participate in an on-line course and what enticed participation in a course covering on-farm food safety for dairy market cattle. (2) Questions on knowledge, attitudes and skills will provide baseline knowledge of participants that could be generalized to a larger, more national population of dairy veterinarians and extension agents. (3) Responses to questions about their expectations for the course will provide information for possible course adaptation. Attitudes can be assessed using ordinal changes in Likert Scale responses.

In addition to the pre-test, we will ask participants to assess their learning style through the Index of Learning Styles tool available on the Web (http://www2.ncsu.edu/unity/lockers/users/f/felder/public/ILSpage.html). Results of participant learning style inventories will be used to better identify our audience for re-evaluating our instructional design when updating the course or creating new courses.

Post-Test Assessment: On-line quizzes will provide immediate feedback to course participants. A formal post-test will (1) determine changes in attitudes and knowledge and (2) assess confidence in participants ability to implement programs on a clients farm or teach the program to producers. Post-program follow-up is essential and will be designed to assess learning, reinforce participant knowledge, sustain learner interest, enhance motivation, and "nurture integration of new skills or materials into day-to-day behavior" (Havelock 1995). A post-program assessment can also identify implementation of specific knowledge from a continuing education program (Moore 1999).

Assessment of Course Evaluation Completion Rates: Online continuing medical education program providers have reported that only about 20 percent of course evaluations are completed on-line. (Mark Gelula, University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine, personal communication, April 2000) Our post-program assessment will evaluate the online method of teaching for ease of use, the content, interaction, and structure of the course and be provided to participants one of two ways. Randomly selected participants will be solicited to complete the evaluation by mail using Dillmans complete survey method (Dillman 1978) or be solicited through the Internet to complete the evaluation on-line. Response rates will be compared to determine if completing evaluations on-line improves compliance with course evaluation completion. Response rates using Dillmans method for a dairy farmer survey was over 90 percent (Sischo et al. 1993).

Outreach Plan: Presentations at educational and veterinary conferences and peer-reviewed publications will be the primary means of outreach for the project results. The results of assessments and evaluations will be delivered at national meetings (American Association of Bovine Practitioners and American Dairy Science Association), provided as handouts to schools of veterinary medicine and agriculture, and in one or two journal publications (Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association, Journal of Veterinary Medical Education, Journal of Dairy Science, Journal of Applied Communications, American Journal of Distance Education, Journal of Extension, or Journal of Continuing Education in the Health Professions). These peer-reviewed publications will provide colleagues with the general curriculum and information on the process of program development as well as evaluation results.

Extension presentations to producers will highlight the program and value to them so that they might create a demand for advisors to participate in the course. The School of Veterinary Medicine public relations and the DANR External and Government Relations Offices will have a role in providing information to the lay press as will the project investigators. The focus will be dairy producer magazines (e.g. Dairy Herd Management, Hoards Dairyman) and veterinary magazines (Large Animal Veterinarian, Bovine Veterinarian). Direct mail and marketing expertise in DANR Communication Services will support promotion and marketing efforts for the program and educational materials.






9. Broader Impacts:

Being a web-based course, the project has the ability to reach a wide audience. In particular, food animal veterinarians and farm advisors located in rural areas will have 7-day a week, 24-hour a day availability to the course without having to travel and leave their clients. Practicing veterinarians, in a focus group study of barriers to continuing education participation, reported that time, distance and money were the three most common barriers(Moore et al. 2000). Among food animal veterinarians, leaving their clients was an important factor because there would be no one to do the work if they participated in an in-residence continuing education program. Thus, providing a curriculum on-line that is modular and readily accessible will help insure that a uniform message about on-farm food safety reaches the participants and, eventually, their rural producer-clients.

This project involves the participation of specialists from 6 western states. The West is a focus of the project because of the enormous impact that large numbers of dairy cattle have on the beef supply and the unique aspects and food safety issues of large herds. However, once the course has been delivered, evaluated and improved, it can be adapted and made available to a national audience of dairy veterinarians and farm advisors.

The project will have further-reaching impacts in that the template for the on-line course can be used for other quality assurance modules. Currently being planned in California are educational modules for milk quality, animal health, and animal welfare. Charging a course fee will provide the idea that the course has value, will generate income to our units to develop new courses, and will help sustain course improvement and maintenance.

The results of the learning style inventory of participants and the course assessments will have national impact on continuing education providers. New knowledge about the audience can be used to develop programs better able to meet their needs and learning style preferences.






10. Proposed Timetable:

Month 1 -- Hire 50 percent staff person to help coordinate the project. Provide collaborators with timeline and organize first curriculum meeting. Begin scripting for chemical hazards video-tape. Send current curriculum and the results of all needs assessments to project collaborators for review.

Month 2 -- Development meeting of project collaborators - Sacramento, CA - to cover curriculum changes and instructional design; Redefine learning objectives; Identify additional members of the Advisory Committee; Discuss marketing strategies; Collate results of this meeting into document of necessary curricular changes and general structure of the instructional design. Provide information back to collaborators.

Month 3 -- Complete script for chemical hazards videotape and begin production; Contact potential Advisory Committee members to solicit assistance with the formative evaluation. Work on pre-test/post-test and evaluation study questions.

Month 4 -- Videoconference to discuss further Technical aspects of putting the course on-line with the instructional designers and producers. Finalize test and evaluation questions.

Month 5 -- Draft template of the program on-line; Fill in template with course segments; add links to Learning Style Inventory.

Month 6 -- Formative evaluation of the course by Advisory Committee; Send URL for web-site visit and place the comments form/evaluation tool on-line;

Month 7 -- Videoconference to discuss results of formative evaluation and detail marketing strategies. Make necessary changes to template and course content based on formative evaluation.

Month 8 -- Complete chemical hazards video production. Put this video on-line. Obtain continuing education credit approval through the American Association of State Veterinary Medical Boards.

Month 9 -- Videoconference to Begin Participant recruitment; Finalize course details.

Month 10 -- Begin Delivery/access on-line; Pre-tests and Learning Style Inventories; Will have post-tests completed when course is completed by participants. Recruit at least 50 participants to the course.

Month 11/12 -- Post-program Evaluation through two different methods: on-line vs. complete mail method. Final videoconference to discuss results and do post-mortem on the project.

Dissemination of Results -- September 2001 (American Association of Bovine Practitioners), July 2002 (American Dairy Science Association); Follow-up email with course participants.






11. Project Personnel and Time Commitment:



This project requires expertise in the dairy industry, veterinary profession, cooperative extension, and slaughter cattle issues. The project collaborators chosen for this project are motivated, complement each others talents and expertise, and have links to the industry and potential participants.

Dale A. Moore, Principal Investigator, Asst Prof, School of Veterinary Medicine, UC Davis, 15 percent effort.

Michael Payne, Co-Investigator, Asst Research Pharmacologist/Toxicologist, Food Animal Residue Avoidance Databank, UC Davis, 10 percent effort

John Kirk, Co-Investigator, Dairy Extension Veterinarian, School of Veterinary Medicine, UC Davis, 5 percent effort

Robert Sams, Co-Investigator, Director, Division of Ag and Natural Resources Communication Services, 5 percent effort

Donald J. Klingborg, Co-Investigator, Assistant Dean, Public Programs and Veterinary Extension, School of Veterinary Medicine, UC Davis, 5 percent effort

Dennis Wilson, Collaborator, California Department of Food and Agriculture. 3 percent effort

Franklyn Garry, Collaborator, College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, Colorado State University, 3 percent effort

Bill Wailes, Collaborator, Animal Science Department, Colorado State University, 3 percent effort

Dean Falk, Collaborator, Dairy Extension Specialist, Dept Animal and Veterinary Science, University of Idaho, Twin Falls, 5 percent effort

Donald Hansen, Collaborator, Extension Veterinarian, College of Veterinary Medicine, Oregon State University. 3 percent effort

Jan Busboom, Collaborator, Professor and Extension Meat Specialist, Washington State University, Pullman, 3 percent effort

John Marchello, Collaborator, University of Arizona, Dept Animal Science, 3 percent effort

Project Staff
Mike Poe, Principal Producer-Director, DANR Communication Services, UC Davis, 10 percent effort

Ray Lucas, Producer-Director, DANR Communication Services, UC Davis, 2 percent effort

Post Graduate Researcher-Non Student, Vet Med Teaching and Research Center, UC Davis, 50 percent effort