Virtual workshop on Data and Information Management for the Thailand National Wildlife Health Center

#01

Virtual workshop on Data and Information Management for the Thailand National Wildlife Health Center

On November 12, 2020, a virtual workshop on data and information management for the Thailand National Wildlife Health Center was held via Zoom application to demonstrate the importance and benefits of wildlife health information management. Forty-nine participants from key partners were invited to attend this workshop, including the Department of National Park and Wildlife Conservation, the Department of Livestock Development, the National Institute of Animal Health, the Department of Marine and Coastal Resource, the Zoological Park Organization of Thailand, and Veterinary Colleges. The significant topics and relevant contexts were introduced to participants by Dr. Jonathan Sleeman, center director of USGS NWHC, who served as a modulator of this workshop.

The lectures on wildlife health information management were delivered by the following speakers.

Dr. LeAnn White, the deputy director, expert from USGS NWHC; Topic: the importance of wildlife health information management and overview.
Dr. Mathieu Pruvot, Wildlife Epidemiologist from the Wildlife Conservation Society (WSC), Health Programs; Topic: Why do you need an information management system?
Dr. Kevin Brown, the information services manager of Canadian Wildlife Health Cooperative (CWHC); Topic: CWHC wildlife health intelligence platform (WHIP) and how WHIP was customizing and making an information hub.

The system called “WHISPers” (Wildlife Health Information Sharing Partnership event report system), which is a collaborative, secure portal for natural resource managers to report wildlife health events to increase situation awareness and inform disease management process was demonstrated by Dr. Neil Baertlein, technical information specialist from USGS.

In the last section, attendants had the opportunity to share their opinions through a group discussion activity. The questions: for example, how are data currently collected and stored?, is it effective?, what are the risks of data loss?, what is the ease of data use?, and what are needs regarding data security, backup, fine-tuning of access permissions, etc.?, were listed on considerations for the development of the Thailand wildlife health information management system, anticipated needs, and next steps. Finally, the overview of the activities found that participants were satisfied. Most of the respondents reflected that the instructors provided the appropriate amount of information.