Using Internet Intelligence to Manage Biosecurity Risks : A Case Study for Aquatic Animal Health

AquaticHealth.net is an online intelligence system dedicated to tracking and forecasting aquatic animal disease outbreaks. It scans the internet on a regular basis for opensource content (such as news articles, journal articles, and tweets from Twitter) related to aquatic animal health. It also allows anyone to manually submit content. The system automatically detects location information in the content so that it can be plotted on a Google Map and tags it with useful key terms. All users can browse content and generate reports and maps by search terms, filtered date ranges, tags, locations, etc., and receive RSS feeds and email updates. Authenticated users can tag, edit, and classify all reports; and they can add and refine the search terms that the system uses to find content. AquaticHealth.net also includes a wiki-blog devoted to emerging issues in aquatic animal health. Authenticated users can edit and update blog entries on diseases and other topics related to aquatic animal health. The result is an online intelligence system for aquatic animal health that is social at almost every level, and provides real-time and relevant information to decision-makers in a practical, efficient and timely manner.

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