Background

Understanding abattoir operations is a required day one competency for veterinarians. However, Universities face significant challenges when accessing abattoir facilities for Veterinary Public Health teaching, including

• A lack of suitable facilities within their area
• Operators’ reluctance due to biosecurity and commercial risk
• Health and Safety concerns for students visiting industrial and mechanized environments
• No guarantee of consistent teaching content on each visit.
• Students often find visits stressful resulting in reduced learning outcomes

To address these issues, three Universities joined forces to develop an industry wide solution to this growing challenge.

Solution 

Over a two-year period, a consortium comprising the University of Glasgow, the Royal Veterinary College, the University of Surrey, and industry partners Denova, developed a digital solution designed to deliver against very specific learning outcomes.

Denova’s technical expertise alongside the consortium’s expert knowledge resulted in the development of the Digital Abattoir – a novel teaching tool that combines the advantages of Virtual Reality with eLearning to complement abattoir visits for four red meat slaughterhouses and one poultry slaughterhouse and support student development of day one competencies.

Designed to replicate a physical tour, entire lines and operational procedures were captured using a 360-degree camera which were overlaid with text/audio teaching content, question banks and discussion points to encourage further study.

The Digital Abattoir is delivered as a browser-based application for the teaching tour and in virtual reality, designed to provide students with an appreciation of the physical layout and operational environment.

Outcomes

The Digital Abattoir has been well received by students and teaching staff, it compliments live visits, provides consistent teaching content and supports the development of day-one competences set by the European Association of Establishments for Veterinary Education and the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons.

Dr. Noelia Yusta DVM OV MSc DipFMS  FHEA  MRCVS, Veterinary Public Health Lecturer at University of Glasgow said, “The Digital Abattoir captures the realistic operations of an abattoir as an effective complement to abattoir visits in veterinary public health.  It is already transforming public health teaching in the academic organizations that are using it, helping overcome the many issues facing veterinary teaching. Working with Denova was easy, they really understood the challenges and continually brought each of the contributing Universities back to delivering the intended learning outcomes and focus on the final product”