The innovative use of open content to improve food safety in developing countries has earned a team of Michigan State University (MSU) faculty and staff an effective practice award from the Sloan Consortium (Sloan-C). The award recognizes practices that are innovative and advance the goals of access, learning effectiveness, faculty and student satisfaction and scalability. It will be presented at next month’s 17th Annual Sloan-C International Conference on Online Learning.
The project receiving recognition, the Food Safety Knowledge Network (FSKN), is part of an effort at Michigan State University to innovate ways in which to address global issues in agriculture, specifically in the area of food safety, and to increase access to markets in developing countries.
This team developed a model centered around open educational resources (OER) and the use of mainly open software tools that focuses on solving issues critical to consumers, industry, and higher education. As a result, it has provided a way to make resources and training more affordable for food safety workers in developing countries.
The award will recognize Karen Vignare, Gwyn Shelle and Sunnie Kim from MSUglobal; Dan Clay, Director of Global Programs in Sustainable Agri-food Systems; Deepa Thiagarajan, Assistant Professor in the Institute of International Agriculture; and Leslie Bourquin, Associate Professor of Food Science and Human Nutrition.
Congratulations. That’s fantastic news. Well done team.