Effectiveness of presenting a national beef breeding management educational program via the internet.

 

K.D. Bullock*¹, Dr. Strohbehn², E.J. Pollak³, B.L. Golden⁴, J.K. Bertrand⁵ and D.E. Wilson²; ¹University of Kentucky, Lexington Kentucky, ²Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa, ³Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, ⁴Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado and ⁵University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia.

 

There is a great demand for beef cattle breeding and genetics information from cattle producers and animal sciences students, however, with shrinking budgets at many Universities there is often a void in expertise.  A national educational program was developed to provide resource materials and train Extension beef cattle specialists, other Extension personnel, beef science instructors, graduate students, breed association representatives and beef stud company representatives in all phases of beef cattle breeding management.  Seven one-hour sessions were developed that covered the following topics: basic genetic principles; using Expected Progeny Differences (EPD); future EPD; multi-breed evaluations; economically relevant traits; incorporating genomics in genetic evaluations; and applying the technologies available.  Each session was developed and presented by experts in the respective fields.  A web-based system was used to deliver the program.  The presenter and recipient participated from their remote location.  After each session the presentation and audio files were available for downloading and a CD of all sessions was distributed to participants.  Additionally, at the completion of the series a survey was administered to evaluate the content, method of delivery and impact.  Participants in 33 states enrolled and 31% of the enrolled participants returned a completed survey.  This represented 42% faculty, 6% graduate students, 36% county/area Extension agents and 17% other.  Forty-one percent planned to use the presentations to deliver educational programs to producers, 74% planned to develop their own slides from the material for producer educational programs, 32% planned to use the material to teach undergraduate courses and 68% planned to use the information for consulting clientele.  On a one to five scale from “Horrible” to “Excellent” the delivery method was rated 3.9 and the content was rated 4.1.  Sixty-six percent thought the level of the content was “About Right”.  The estimated impact was 6808 contacts, which does not reflect the 69% that did not complete the survey or those that plan to utilize the CD.  In conclusion, this genetic management series delivered via a web-based system was effective in educating a large national audience at a minimal cost.

 

Beef Cattle, Education, Breeding