Source: UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI submitted to
USING VIRTUAL REALITY TO INCREASE STUDENT UNDERSTANDING AND INTEREST IN FARM ANIMAL WELFARE
Sponsoring Institution
National Institute of Food and Agriculture
Project Status
COMPLETE
Funding Source
Reporting Frequency
Annual
Accession No.
1023521
Grant No.
2020-70003-32300
Cumulative Award Amt.
$270,117.00
Proposal No.
2020-03261
Multistate No.
(N/A)
Project Start Date
Sep 15, 2020
Project End Date
Sep 14, 2023
Grant Year
2020
Program Code
[ER]- Higher Ed Challenge
Project Director
Anderson, N. C.
Recipient Organization
UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI
(N/A)
COLUMBIA,MO 65211
Performing Department
Animal Science
Non Technical Summary
Many undergraduate and professional animal and veterinary science students in the United States come from non-rural, non-farm backgrounds. In order to gain exposure to animal production, students must primarily rely on their course and laboratory work within their degree programs. While courses often incorporate limited access to university and commercial farms, there are a number of challenges (i.e. funding, biosecurity, large class sizes) that prevent students from gaining adequate farm exposure and experience solving common animal-related challenges. The purpose of this proposal is to investigate an additional mechanism for students to gain on-farm experience through the use of virtual reality (VR) modules focusing on swine and dairy production systems and common welfare issues they would likely come across while working in the livestock industry.The objectives are as follows:Create, develop and evaluate the use of VR modules in an entry-level freshman course to increase student interest and understanding of swine and dairy production systems.Create, develop and evaluate the use of VR-based animal welfare case studies that can be introduced in upper-level animal welfare, capstone production, or first-year graduate/veterinary courses.Provide training opportunities for animal science-related faculty at other U.S. institutions to utilize and assess the success of the VR modules in their own classrooms.To accomplish these objectives, the primary investigators on this study will utilize a multi-collaborator, multi-university and private business approach to develop, utilize and evaluate whether VR could be a useful tool for preparing undergraduate students for a future in animal agriculture.
Animal Health Component
25%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
0%
Applied
25%
Developmental
75%
Classification

Knowledge Area (KA)Subject of Investigation (SOI)Field of Science (FOS)Percent
3153410106030%
3153510106030%
9037410302040%
Goals / Objectives
The long-term goals of this project are to 1) increase student interest in pursuing and completing animal agricultural-related degrees and, 2) to improve student understanding of on-farm animal welfare by giving students opportunities to apply their knowledge and practice the critical thinking skills needed to mitigate common farm animal welfare challenges. To achieve this, we have three specific objectives:Objective 1: Create, develop and evaluate the use of VR modules in an entry-level freshman course to increase student interest and understanding of swine and dairy production systems.Objective 2: Create, develop and evaluate the use of VR-based animal welfare case studies that can be introduced in upper-level animal welfare, capstone production, or first-year graduate/veterinary courses.Objective 3: Provide training opportunities for animal science-related faculty at other U.S. institutions to utilize and assess the success of the VR modules in their own classrooms.
Project Methods
Objective 1 & 2Virtual reality-based lessons focused on swine and dairy production systems will be created to provide students an opportunity to observe U.S. production norms and solve common swine or dairy welfare challenges. The lessons will be broken down into four modules as follows:Module 1: Introductory Swine Production ExperienceModule 2: Introductory Dairy Production ExperienceModule 3: Advanced Swine Welfare Problem Solving ModuleModule 4: Advanced Dairy Welfare Problem Solving ModuleEach module will be created in collaboration with Be More Colorful, LLC, a company located in Fargo, ND that specializes in providing "real-world virtual reality solutions" for a number of industries through the development of 360° and virtual reality videos and imagery. The proposed modules will be hosted and easily accessible for users via a password protected internet platform for use with a standard VR headset, smartphone and VR mini-glasses, or a computer desktop.The proposed virtual reality modules are different from video and photo animal facility tours. Instead of watching the tour on a stationary screen, the experience allows a user to fully immerse themselves into the production facility. With the 360° image capture design of the camera, the user can rotate in any direction to view uninterrupted video and imagery, and hear the sounds occurring in the facility as if they were standing in the room. Additionally, users are given the ability to move throughout the facility at their will, which provides another level of user interaction and control compared to standard video and photo tours.Overview of the proposed VR modulesAll modules will consist of an immersible (360°) video component, which will allow the student user to observe the facilities "in action," followed by immersible key still-scenes within the facilities where student users can continue to explore the facility and interact with the informational and case study components of the modules (see descriptions below).Module 1 Intended Audience: Lower-division animal science studentsDescription of Module: The Introductory Swine Production Experience module will provide users with a fully immersible virtual tour of one commercial-type breeding facility and one wean-to-finish production facility. While the tour content will consist of two separate facilities (farrow-to-finish facilities are no longer common in U.S. commercial swine production), the tour within the module will be seamless while still noting the separate locations (i.e. it will not require loading of separate VR files for users to view all of Module 1). Within each swine facility, users will have the option to visit various rooms used during the production process. These include a farrowing room with traditional farrowing stalls and a gestation room with group-housed sows (breeding farm), a nursery used to house weaned piglets, a grow-finish room, and a loading area for loading market-ready pigs onto a truck trailer (wean-to-finish facility). Following the fully immersible video components and once users are viewing the fully immersible key still-scenes, they will have the opportunity to select "hotspot" interactive overlays that, if selected by the user, provide a description of the specific phase of production occurring in the room and a focus on the animals that are being housed. Additionally, a description of common husbandry procedures and common challenges specific to that phase of production will be provided for users. Users of this module will not be given case study interactive components like the advanced modules (see advanced module description for details).Module 2Intended Audience: Lower-division animal science studentsDescription of Module: The Introductory Dairy Production Experience module will provide users with a fully immersible, virtual tour of a commercial type dairy production system. Users will have the option to visit one dairy operation's facilities used throughout the production process. Following the fully-immersible video component of the modules and once users are viewing the fully-immersible key still-scenes, they will have the opportunity to select "hotspot" interactive overlays that, if selected by the user, provide a written description for each specific phase of production and the relevant animals being housed. Additionally, a description of common husbandry procedures and common challenges specific to that phase of production will be provided for users. Module users will not be given case study interactive components like the advanced modules (see advanced module description for details).Modules 3 &4Intended Audience: Upper-division animal science students and first year professional/ veterinary studentsDescription of Module: The Advanced Swine & Dairy Welfare Problem Solving modules will utilize the same facilities used in the introductory production experience modules (1 & 2). However, they will target upper-division animal science and first year professional or veterinary students who have previous knowledge of livestock production systems and are familiar with the various on-farm challenges faced by producers. Accordingly, these modules will incorporate a "choose your own adventure"-type design, where the video and key still-scene components within each facility will provide context and information surrounding animal welfare challenges that need to be solved by the user. After viewing the informational content, the user will be given different potential options that could be pursued to solve the animal welfare challenges in question. In addition to these specific welfare challenges within each facility or room, an additional scenario will focus on maintaining proper site biosecurity. While touring the different facilities and rooms, the user will have the opportunity to identify facility strengths and needs for maintaining efficient site biosecurity. The intent of these case studies will be to stimulate discussion between students and instructors that focus on developing realistic plans of action that could be applied in the production setting. To aid the instructors in their discussion, a "teaching guide" will be made available and will contain useful information regarding different consequences (both positive and negative) of each option presented as a potential remedy for the different welfare challenges.Following the development of modules, their effectiveness will be evaluated in undergraduate and veterinary classrooms and student focus groups at the University of Missouri-Columbia, North Dakota State University, and the Texas Tech School of Veterinary Medicine. Up to 300 undergraduate (approximately 75 lower-division and 75 upper division students per undergraduate institution) and 100 first-year veterinary students (Texas-Tech only) will be invited to participate in data collection.Objective 3 Up to 20 faculty and staff from other U.S. institutions will be recruited at national conferences to participate in training regarding how to use and implement the VR modules in their classrooms. During the training sessions, faculty will experience the VR system and will be given a teaching guide. The teaching guide will include further details related to the case study to assist with instruction including possible answers and explanations. The faculty will be asked to implement the VR modules into their own courses within 6 months of training and complete follow-up surveys regarding ease of use, how well the modules fit within their own teaching missions, likelihood of continued use, and overall student learning and engagement impressions. Faculty provided feedback will be used to make any necessary changes to the modules and will be made available in a publication. The final publication will provide a link to the modules for future use in the classroom for all faculty.

Progress 09/15/20 to 06/16/21

Outputs
Target Audience:The final target audience will include undergraduate students, graduate and professional students (veterinarians), and faculty who instruct these individuals. The target audience will be those who teach or work in animal sciences, animal welfare, and/or animal behavior. Changes/Problems:No major problems to report. Changes will include moving the grant from the University of Missouri to Texas Tech University in accordance with Dr. Anderson's position change. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?So far, this project has provided Drs Anderson and Byrd opportunities to interface with a professional partner, begin understanding the software and storyboard process (new to both PIs), and for Dr. Anderson to understand the workings of a USDA-NIFA grant (this is the first she has received). The project has allowed both to understand the scope and steps to working with outside help, organizing and running a project of this magnitude, and communicating the vision to potential industry partners through the process of seeking commercial farms for the final recording process. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? Nothing Reported What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Nothing Reported

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? Thus far, all work that has occurred is focused on objectives 1 and 2, with the work entirely in developing the VR modules. This work is primarily conducted by Dr. ChrisByrd and the Be More Colorful team. Dr. Byrd reports: As of December 22, 2020, we have developed two prototype modules (1 dairy, 1 swine), each with three scenes to aid in planning and designing the final modules. The process of creating the two prototype modules included approximately 4 production meetings, storyboarding, and a full day of video and photo content collection with BMC at the NDSU swine and dairy barns. The video and photo collection days included the travel of Dr. Anderson to the NDSU facilities. Additionally, BMC spent approximately 25 hours on back-end work, processing, and post-processing imagery in order to have a prototype completed for our last meeting, which occurred on December 17th. The swine prototype includes scenes in the entryway/office area, the farrowing room, and the gestation room. The dairy prototype includes scenes in the medicine room, calf hutches, and free stalls. Each scene includes hotspot imagery incorporating photos and videos intended for student interaction with the modules as part of their course curriculum. The organization and design of these interactive components will guide our planning for the final virtual reality modules that will be used in the student evaluation and instructor training phases of the project. Work will continue between Drs Byrd and Anderson when Anderson begins her new position at Texas Tech University as an Assistant Professor in the School of Veterinary Medicine. This report is intended as part of the process of terminating the award at the University of Missouri.

Publications


    Progress 09/15/20 to 01/14/21

    Outputs
    Target Audience:The final target audience will include undergraduate students, graduate and professional students (veterinarians), and faculty who instruct these individuals. The target audience will be those who teach or work in animal sciences, animal welfare, and/or animal behavior. Changes/Problems:No major problems to report. Changes will include moving the grant from the University of Missouri to Texas Tech University in accordance with Dr. Anderson's position change. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?So far, this project has provided Drs Anderson and Byrd opportunities to interface with a professional partner, begin understanding the software and storyboard process (new to both PIs), and for Dr. Anderson to understand the workings of a USDA-NIFA grant (this is the first she has received). The project has allowed both to understand the scope and steps to working with outside help, organizing and running a project of this magnitude, and communicating the vision to potential industry partners through the process of seeking commercial farms for the final recording process. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? Nothing Reported What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Nothing Reported

    Impacts
    What was accomplished under these goals? Thus far, all work that has occurred is focused on objectives 1 and 2, with the work entirely in developing the VR modules. This work is primarily conducted by Dr. ChrisByrd and the Be More Colorful team. Dr. Byrd reports: As of December 22, 2020, we have developed two prototype modules (1 dairy, 1 swine), each with three scenes to aid in planning and designing the final modules. The process of creating the two prototype modules included approximately 4 production meetings, storyboarding, and a full day of video and photo content collection with BMC at the NDSU swine and dairy barns. The video and photo collection days included the travel of Dr. Anderson to the NDSU facilities. Additionally, BMC spent approximately 25 hours on back-end work, processing, and post-processing imagery in order to have a prototype completed for our last meeting, which occurred on December 17th. The swine prototype includes scenes in the entryway/office area, the farrowing room, and the gestation room. The dairy prototype includes scenes in the medicine room, calf hutches, and free stalls. Each scene includes hotspot imagery incorporating photos and videos intended for student interaction with the modules as part of their course curriculum. The organization and design of these interactive components will guide our planning for the final virtual reality modules that will be used in the student evaluation and instructor training phases of the project. Work will continue between Drs Byrd and Anderson when Anderson begins her new position at Texas Tech University as an Assistant Professor in the School of Veterinary Medicine. This report is intended as part of the process of terminating the award at the University of Missouri.

    Publications