WELL-E Project Overview:
A Digital Living Lab Approach Centered on Animals and End Users
Related to our research on animal welfare management and longevity, the project commissioned by Prompt focuses on R&D for remote sensing and data acquisition (in farms); feature design and representation learning; machine learning and privacy; scalable and sustainable data-driven research; as well as decision-making support for the dairy industry.
The WELL-E digital living lab will be divided into three main projects:
- Design of infrastructure and software for integrated data
- Machine learning and multi-source knowledge integration for predictive dairy data
- Dairy data visualization and platform design
Through a collaboration with NSERC Alliance, WELL-E will research the use of remote sensing and AI to enhance our ability to detect changes in welfare and longevity before the onset of visible outcomes and generates predictions in support of on-farm decision-making.
Data sources for the WELL-E digital living lab will include:
- Two research farms yielding results that are both reproducible and credible
- An expanding network of commercial farms for research requiring longitudinal analyses
- Feedback from end users to validate the feasibility of recommendations
WELL-E Learning Community and KTT
In collaboration with Professor Helen Hambly at the University of Guelph, as well as Professor Steven Roche from ACER consulting, we will be studying the social science (capacity development, extension, and knowledge mobilization) elements of the WELL-E project. We will focus on a multi-stakeholder approach, grounding our work in the interests of producers, producer associations, industrial partners, funding agencies, researchers and their institutions, and other WELL-E members, and work to train individuals, organizations, networks, and systems.
Research will focus our stakeholders’ learning needs and develop practices to improve animal welfare, longevity and artificial intelligence-based tools to help with on-farm decision making while developing a learning community.
The WELL-E learning community and knowledge transfer project will have three main objectives:
- Discuss and engage with participants in prioritizing required learning activities;
- Assist participants in evaluating their current skills and identify future skills in line with WELL-E’s research agenda;
- Identify priority gaps that will inform the development of the learning intervention activities and, in turn, work to develop said activities.