Animal Welfare Science: An IFAW Workshop

This month Nat, Heather and Fritha from The Jeanne Marchig International Centre for Animal Welfare Education and Scotland's Rural College were delighted to visit Cape Cod and the headquarters of the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW).



Azzedine Downes, President and CEO of IFAW attended the workshop

JMICAWE and IFAW have already established a strong partnership through collaborative teaching initiatives on our online MSc in International Animal Welfare, Ethics and Law, and the development of an interactive foundation course on animal welfare and ethics which has now been rolled out to all IFAW staff. This course was designed to develop a consistent level of knowledge about animal welfare science, and a common understanding of IFAWs ethics. If you are interested in our Master's programme, more can be found here: http://www.ed.ac.uk/studying/postgraduate/degrees?cw_xml=details.php&id=788

 

 

Our recent visit to Boston built upon this successful initiative to bring a greater depth of analysis and evaluation to IFAWs campaigns and position statements and to emphasise the importance of a solid scientific foundation when developing animal welfare policy and campaigns. Topics covered included ‘evidence-based arguments and why they matter’, ‘good and bad science’, and ‘writing effective science-based communications’.

Additionally participants had the opportunity to explore their own personal ethics and discover the commonalities that have evolved into a cohesive ethical stance for IFAW. Feedback from IFAW staff has been very positive, recognising that the workshop allowed for critical analysis of IFAW’s positions and reaffirmation of beliefs in the work done by IFAW.

We feel very priviledged to have been able to run this workshop in collaboration with IFAW and would like to thank everyone who helped to make it such a success.

 

The Use of Online Learning as CPD within Animal Welfare Organisations

We are very proud of one of our MSc in International Animal Welfare, Ethics and Law (IAWEL) students Lee Read, who recently presented preliminary results of his MSc dissertation project at the British Society of Animal Science Annual Conference (BSAS), 'Science With Impact', at the University of Chester.

 

One of the conference themes was 'knowledge transfer and education', and 'bridging the gap between policy and research'. BSAS works to improve the understanding of animal science and the ways it can help ensure food is produced ethically and economically. As an organisation they promote accessible science and during the 2015 annual conference were keen to have a range of papers looking at innovative educational projects.

 Lee presented preliminary evaluation of the bespoke Continuing Professional Development (CPD) course that the Jeanne Marchig International Centre for Animal Welfare Education designed for the International Fund for Animal Welfare. Lee's project, titled "The use of online learning as continuing professional development within animal welfare organisations: A case study with IFAW' found that IFAW staff members had a generally positive response to the professional development program, with more IFAW staff members reporting that they felt very confident in describing IFAW's ethical position with regards to animal welfare issues, and 90% of staff members strongly agreed that animal welfare was based in science (versus 80% who felt this way prior to doing the course).

 

Lee also investigated how different learner types responded to the online format of the course, and intends to use this to inform the creation of virtual learning environments in future projects.

This work will allow animal welfare scientists to build better interventions in future, and refine the educational materials already in use. Lee's work also supports the evidence based approach to animal welfare, by demonstrating how an evidence led approach can make a measurable change in peoples' knowledge and attitudes to animal welfare, as well as providing education in an enjoyable and flexible setting.