The Power of Data in Farm Animal Practice

How can data be used to improve farm animal health and welfare?

This free, short, online course aims to up-skill farm animal professionals based in Scotland and the rest of world, in data science, allowing participants to utilise and interpret on-farm data and apply it to health, productivity and welfare improvements.

The course contains video lectures, data tutorials, interviews, and online reading materials (PDFs), delivered by researchers and industry experts.

This course has been made possible through funding by The Data Lab. 

License

Creative Commons License - CC-BY-NC

Introduction: Getting Started with this Course

Here you will find all the course information, and discover how to get started with the course.

Module 1: Understanding How Data Can Impact Farm Animal Productivity, Health, and Welfare

What does "Data" mean? Learn about various approaches to collecting data, and discover practical applications of data for your own farming situation.

Module 2: Data-driven Performance and Growth Monitoring

Understand how data use can benefit livestock systems, learn the importance of measuring growth and weighing livestock, and gain the skills to calculate Key Performance Indicators such as growth rate.

Module 3: Importance of Data for Breeding, Survival and Mortality

Learn how to use data for informed decision-making, use data for continuous improvement via selective breeding, understand factors affecting neonatal animal survival, and create visualisations to monitor changes over time.

Module 4: Using Data for the Early Detection of Disease/Illness

Learn how to examine the impact of management factors on animal health and disease, improve data skills for creating and interpreting data visualisations, and discover ways to monitor and enhance health using both simple and advanced methods.

Module 5: Current Research & Future Tech

Discover how data can help you achieve your individual goals, overcome obstacles to using data and technology, combine knowledge, and explore the future of farming.