Abstract
The National Ag Safety Database (NASD) is a NIOSH-funded project intended to provide an extensive compendium of educational and information resources targeted primarily to support delivery of programs in county Cooperative Extension Service (CES) offices. The first edition of the PC-based CDROM, NASD '95, was released to the public at the 1995 National Institute for Farm Safety Summer Meeting in Saratoga, New York, following extensive testing of two prototype (beta) versions of the database.
To improve the likelihood of adoption of NASD by agricultural safety and health specialists, a series of evaluation studies were conducted using mail questionnaires, phone surveys, focus group interviews, direct scientific observation, and face-to-face interviews. Data were analyzed to determine whether NASD materials are significant to the programming needs of agricultural safety and health specialists, whether specialists will adopt electronic database technology, and whether there is a difference in adoption rate as a result of familiarity with the technology.
Evaluation results indicated that materials on NASD were perceived to be significant to the programming needs of agricultural safety and health specialists, but are not yet sufficiently comprehensive to replace traditional means of obtaining safety programming materials. Agricultural safety specialists will adopt electronic database technology as long as they understand how to effectively utilize the system's available functions. A slight correlation between familiarity with technology and adoption rate was found.
Full article can be found in: Journal of Agricultural Safety and Health
Access this publication at: ASABE Technical Library
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