Doug Powell

Reclaiming Dinner: Enhancing Consumer Confidence in Food Safety through Proactive Communications and Science

Public awareness of microbial food safety has increased dramatically in the past five years, coupled with new regulatory initiatives to improve the safety of the food supply. Related issues such as foot-and-mouth disease, genetically engineered foods and protracted public debates have further hightened consumer concern and media coverage of agricultural issues, from farm-to-fork.. This talk will summarize current trends and use several examples to show how agri-food risk can best be managed to ensure safe food and consumer confidence.
 

Martha Filipic, Tatyana Ukhanova or Vladislav Temnikov, and others who made the trip to Russia.

The ACE summit in Russia: Opportunities and Challenges for Communicators

A delegation of ACE members will travel to Russia May 7 - May 19, 2001, to hold a Summit with agricultural communicators there. The purpose of the Summit is to develop collaboration between Russian agricultural communicators and ACE counterparts. At this session, 4-5 Summit attendees will report on their activities, and opportunities for further involvement in Russia by those attending the convention in Toronto.

ACE president Martha Filipic will moderate the U.S. presenters. Either Tatyana Ukhanova or Vladislav Temnikov will moderate the Russia presenters. Slides and a brief videotape of key activities in Russia will be shown. (Note: Canada has a substantial investment in agricultural communication activities in Russia, and one of the reports will focus on this work).

Gary Hermance Speaker - Mary Maloney

Walk Across Africa, the Livingstone Experience

Columbus Resident Mary Maloney backpacked 1,100 miles through Zambia and Tanzania last summer as a member of, The Livingstone Expedition - A Tribute to Chuma and Susi. Her 10-member team followed the route that Africans Chuma and Susi followed in 1873 when they carried the remains of their friend, African explorer and missionary, Dr. David Livingstone from Chitambo's Village in central Zambia to the Indian Ocean coastal town of Bagamoyo, Tanzania.

The expedition members carried their own supplies as well as a mock farushi ya maiti (Kiswahili for corpse bundle) along the route. They met many Africans who have preserved the story of the 1873 funeral passage through their oral history traditions.

This is Mary's second trek in East Africa. In 1994 she backpacked and boated nearly 2000 miles through Tanzania, Lake Victoria, Kenya, and Uganda in an effort to follow Henry Morton Stanley's 1874 trek to verify the sources of the Nile and Congo Rivers.

Mary is currently the Education and Volunteer Coordinator at The Ohio State University Chadwick Arboretum in Columbus, OH.

Audio and Video for the Web

This workshop will introduce participants to the concepts and tools necessary for creating audio and video content for the Web. Video topics include: the Adobe Premiere interface, working with filters and transitions, working with motion control, titling, importing bitmaps, exporting Quicktime, AVI, and animated GIFs and an introduction to RealProducer.  Audio topics include audio file formats, sample rate and bit depth, MP3 file format, and embedding in a web page. This is an introductory level workshop.  Basic knowledge of HTML and prior experience with Adobe Premiere is recommended.

Flash 5

Create animated vector-based web content using Macromedia Flash.  This workshop will introduce participants to topics that include:  the advanced Flash interface elements, importing and exporting vector and bitmap file formats, creating motion and shape animation, importing sound, creating buttons with interactivity, Action script, and inserting flash in a web page. Some prior experience with Flash or other vector-based programs such as Adobe Illustrator would be helpful.

Graphics for the Web

Learn the basics of Adobe Photoshop, the industry standard for photo manipulation and graphic creation for the web. This workshop will cover scanning, creating website buttons, simple photo collage and graphics theory.  This is an introductory level workshop.  No prior experience with web graphics is required. (limit 24 per workshop)

Streaming Audio and Video on the Internet

Internet streaming is now considered to be a viable option for the delivery of audio and video content.  The main focus of the workshop is in the use of tools that provide a maximum degree of flexibility.

Topics covered in this workshop include: A review of the hardware and software required for Internet streaming, live streaming and post-production encoding techniques, streaming optimization that results in higher quality encoded material and a comprehensive review of the “big three” media streaming formats. Participants encode video, audio and other media using a range of encoding applications. The resulting content is placed on a streaming server, so that the process can be understood from start to finish. Basic knowledge of HTML and prior experience with Adobe Premiere is recommended.

Cheryl Austin and Linda Hillis
Virginia Tech – Virginia Cooperative Extension

A new look at “ Palm Reading”

With technology soaring in today’s high-tech world, it is getting harder to stay organized and manage time.  Our “Palm Reading” session demonstrating the far reaching capabilities of the Palm Pilot hand held computer will amaze you.  We will show how information can be stored, tracked and synchronized with your office computer.  Also, how agents are using this new technology to manage schedules and even deliver programming.  This will be a great session for those who lead busy schedules and would like to learn more about utilizing hand held devices.

Floyd Davenport and Mike Loewy
University of Illinois

A System for Marketing and Evaluating Extension Programming (A Pilot System)

The Program Impact and Reporting System pilot project at the University of Illinois Extension began as a project with two primary objectives:
   1. To improve qualitative and quantitative information reported and used in program evaluation.
   2. Facilitate impact reporting to stakeholders.

The project quickly added two more objectives:
   1. Develop an interactive web-based system for aggregating, organizing and marketing Extension Programs to include program events and resources.
   2. To create a new Portal type front-door for Extension clients to browse, search and customize Extension program information.

While this is still only a pilot project, it attempts to answer many questions of how Extension can use technology to effectively market and evaluate its programs including a future GIS component. The system is written in ASP and is currently being tested and evaluated with the assistance of a few University of Illinois Program Teams. Come and learn how staff can use this system to market their educational programs and associated resources.

For full project description: http://web.aces.uiuc.edu/sriit/view_project.asp?ID=48

Janet Rodekohr and Faith Peppers
University of Georgia

A to Z: Agriculture at the Zoo

One of the greatest challenges facing land-grant institutions is reaching fast growing
urban populations. The University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences began a long-range plan to reach the state’s urban citizens in 1998. To kick off the public awareness campaign, the college forged a new partnership with Zoo Atlanta and introduced a program called A to Z: Agriculture at the Zoo. The Zoo proved to be fertile ground of possibilities. This session will outline the long-range urban campaign, the Zoo program, and how effective the program was at educating this urban audience about agriculture.

Ricky Telg
University of Florida

Academic Programs Swap Meet

This session will be an avenue for academics leading agricultural journalism/communication programs to exchange materials, such as syllabi, texts, and course notes, and a forum for discussion of recruiting, scholarship, and tenure issues.

William M. Bomash, Rae Montgomery, Karen Matthes,
Chris Selstad,  Dorene Davick, and  Jane Leonard
University of Minnesota Extension Service

Access Minnesota Main Street: E-commerce for rural communities

(Hands-On Session)
This workshop is an abbreviated version of the Access Minnesota E-Commerce for Small Business staff development workshop that the University of Minnesota Extension Service has been offering around the country.  This program will give participants an in-depth look at the Access Minnesota Curriculum and help them prepare to teach similar workshops in their states.  This hands-on workshop is held in a computer lab.  Instruction consists of a combination of lecture, discussion and on-line exercises.  Upon completion of the workshop, participants will not only have gained a thorough understanding of e-commerce for small businesses, but will also have taken the first steps in preparing themselves to teach this highly interactive curriculum.

Access Minnesota Main Street is an electronic commerce workshop created especially for owners of small businesses.  The program is designed to give business owners the knowledge they need to make informed decisions about e-commerce for their businesses.  Among the things business owners learn:

· How to use the Internet as a business research tool to find new markets, suppliers, and resources, and to check out their competition
· How to determine if a web presence is right for their business
· How to plan and budget for an e-commerce website
· How to promote their business website effectively
· How to incorporate e-commerce into their business plan.

Tim Eggers, Elaine Edwards and Craig Chase
Iowa State University Extension

Advanced Grain Marketing using WebCT

The Advanced Grain Marketing course is an educational opportunity targeted for  agriculture professionals. Effective commodity marketing skill enhancement is challenging because of two major constraints. The first constraint is the difficulty of clients to accurately self-select appropriate courses based on their experience and understanding.  The second constraint is the inability to put together a learning group of sufficient size that will carry through a multiple module course in a traditional meeting format.

AGM will utilize a pre-test to assist potential students in determining whether the course is appropriate for them. AGM will have a core of ten on-line modules and a face-to-face marketing simulation/debriefing. WebCT will be utilized to manage the primarily asynchronous learning experience. Learning communities will be limited in size.

The presentation will focus on the methods and resources utilized to design and facilitate the AGM learning community. Non-traditional marketing methods will be evaluated. The AGM team consists of seven field and 3 state subject matter specialists and one communications specialist.

The course will have been piloted with a farmer community from mid-January to mid-March, facilitated with a lender community from mid-April to mid-May, and nearing completion with a farmer community during the conference.

Kevin J. Gamble, American Distance Education Consortium, NCSU
Janet Poley (ADEC), Dan Cotton (University of Nebraska), Valorie McAlpin (University of Maryland), and other project participants

Advanced Internet Satellite Extension Project

This session will address the American Distance Education Consortium’s $4.2 million National Science Foundation Project to provide advanced Internet satellite services to geographically remote campuses and extension centers. Information concerning the issues to deploy, manage, and support advanced networking applications via  satellite-based IP will be discussed. Performance observations and Quality of Service (QOS) metrics developed in conjunction with Tachyon, the Cooperative Association for Internet Data Analysis (CAIDA), and the National Laboratory for Applied Network Research (NLANR) will be shared. Costs and issues regarding the deployment of network services to additional stakeholders will be addressed. Technologies using the satellite network will be demonstrated so participants can experience the technology first-hand. Project participants from eight Land-Grant universities will share their experiences in using the network to extend distance-learning opportunities to underserved audiences. Universities involved in this research project include: University of Illinois, University of Nebraska, University of California, University of Maryland Eastern Shore, University of Maryland, North Carolina A&T State University, North Carolina State University, and Washington State University.

Biotechnology - Where is it Going?

The first generation of agriculture products from biotechnology has created controversy. These have been primarily products of value to producers with little consumer value. Nevertheless, hectares of GMO crops around the world continue to increase! Importantly new markets for agriculture as producers of medicine, industrial base stock and fuels are required as world food production exceeds demand resulting in low commodity prices. Biotechnology has the opportunity to create these new markets

John Dorner, IV, NC Cooperative Extension
Mitch Owen, Ed.D, , NCSU College of Agriculture and Life Sciences

Building A Portal To Multiple Departments/County Centers

Christensen (2000) says, "Many of the most powerful innovations that disrupted other industries did so by enabling a larger population of less-skilled people to do, in a more convenient, less expensive setting, things that historically could be performed only by expensive specialists in centralized, inconvenient locations."

The use of WWW portals in providing access to information is greatly increasing among educational organizations. The increase need to distribute information online along with the a culture encouraging collaboration and partnerships is increasingly leading to teams of individuals building shared information portals. From the literature, as well as through qualitative case study investigations, there are several things we now understand about these collaborations which seek to produce effective information portals.

This session will address what issues are faced when trying to get several different college departments and more than 100 county extension centers to make their online materials accessible from world wide web portals? What are the barriers to building such portals? And what are some things that you can do to help break down those barriers?

Carolyn White and Floyd Davenport
University of Illinois

Building Interactive Decision Tools using GIS Technologies

If a "picture is worth a thousand words", an interactive map is worth a hundred pictures. Learn how the University of Illinois is enhancing Internet mapping with practical tools to empower land owners, citizens, and policy makers to make informed decisions.

Using the structure of Geographic Information Systems (GIS), we are layering landuse, soil, hydrology, transportation, demographic, and political data. The ability of users to select overlapping geospatial data layers for display is itself a powerful tool in understanding issues. For instance, seeing the geographic boundaries of a watershed within the context of political, demographic and geological factors helps identify the stakeholders and the issues in the management of a particular watershed.

We are taking Internet mapping a step further. We are building a decision support system for projects such as the Watershed Management Clearinghouse and the Agricultural Marketing site. One of the decision support tools allows stakeholders to draw a target area interactively and to zoom to a more detailed display of spatial layers in that area. Characteristics of the newly defined area can be reviewed on-line or printed, or combined with additional user-supplied data as input to an on-line calculator. The calculator tools are built based on expert knowledge and/or current government regulations.

Join us in this demonstration and discussion of GIS-based, web-delivered decision support system.

Elizabeth Gregory
Texas Agricultural Extension Service

Can You Tell the Extension Story in 9 Words or Less?: Our Search for a New Slogan

In the process of preparing Extension employees for the new long-range planning process, we asked them to submit their ideas for “telling the Extension story in 9 words or less.” We received hundreds of suggestions, from finely crafted slogans to single words to even a couple of brief essays. From these submissions, we developed seven possible new slogans, which we are testing with various audiences. But even more important was what the submissions revealed about our employees’ beliefs about the importance of Extension work. The Texas Agricultural Extension Service has about 1,400 employees and 250 county offices serving a large and diverse state—yet we all seem to share certain core values about the work we do, independent of subject matter and other variables. This session will present a discussion of the themes that emerged from the submissions, the potential slogans and responses to them, the relevance of this process in creating employee buy-in for the marketing effort, and possibly even the ways a marketing effort can help the organization understand itself.

Dr. Denise Decker,
Natural Resources Conservation Service, USDA

Communicating About and With People With Disabilities

There are a lot of myths about how to communicate about and with people with disabilities. Many times, we are uneasy and really don’t know what to do or say. More people have disabilities than we commonly realize. Many disabilities are hidden, or not apparent, such as epilepsy, arthritis, dyslexia, or diabetes. And as our population ages, it is becoming more disabled. About one in six Americans have some degree of disability. Words can hurt — the way we describe people shapes our perceptions. Positive language empowers people. When you write about people with disabilities, it is important that you put the person first. An, as more and more people with disabilities enter our workforce and become our customers, we must be prepared to make our materials available to them. Dr. Denise Decker has not been able to see since she was a baby and is an expert in how to communicate about and with people with disabilities. Quadrant, her seeing-eye dog, accompanies her everywhere. Her tips will give you what you need to make your communications programs stronger and more accessible.

Bob Huggan
Communica International

Communicating Agricultural R & D in sub-Saharan Africa

Agriculture drives the economies of most African countries. However, due to problems of heavy international debt burdens, the high cost of the continent’s several wars, and the drain on government funds to fight AIDS and feed the victims of severe famines brought on by drought, economic austerity measures implemented by many national governments in Africa have resulted in drastic reductions in financial investment for agricultural research and development. To try to survive this situation, national research institutions and non-government organizations involved in agricultural R & D, along with progressive farmers’ associations, must strive to increase the awareness of the importance of their work to their key audiences — government policy makers, funding bodies, potential partners, farmers, consumers, and the media.

The communication of technical information in lay language and in accessible media formats to non-scientific audiences is a skill and practice that is virtually unknown in most sub-Saharan African countries. This paper will describe how the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA), an organization funded by the European Union, has supported a series of public awareness workshops in several regions of Africa for leaders of research institutions, NGO’s and farmers’ associations, to help them better advocate their plight to key stakeholders. ACE member Bob Huggan, who has developed and lead these workshops, will describe how the knowledge and skills learned at the workshops can help the participants strengthen support for agricultural development in their countries. The CTA workshops have helped some organizations but many more could benefit from the acquisition of public awareness know how of this kind. It seems to this presenter that the skills of American and Canadian ACE members, combined with financial support from their countries’ aid organizations — USAID and CIDA — could help in this regard.

Tracy Irani, University of Florida

Communicating Biotechnology:  Is Information Enough?

Consumer acceptance of agricultural biotechnology is becoming a hot communication issue for agricultural communicators.  Many would argue that one of the biggest problems in communicating about agricultural biotechnology is that consumers don’t understand the science.  The response to this problem, from a communication perspective, has been to try to provide balanced, science-based information.  But what if information alone is not enough to trigger a rationale decision-making process on the part of consumers?  We’ve seen what can happen when consumers become engaged in emotional reactions to GMO’s in Europe and to nuclear power and pesticide use here in the U.S.  What are the likely correlates of consumer acceptance and critical thinking about biotechnology, and how can we employ them to better frame our messages about the value of this technology?  Further, given the relatively low salience of this issue among U.S. consumers, should agricultural communicators be taking a proactive or reactive stance on communicating about this topic?
The purpose of this breakout session is to synthesize some of the current thinking about the components of American consumer reaction to biotechnology.  The presenter will present current research looking at components of consumer perceptions and reactions, as well as present and evaluate examples of biotechnology education/communication efforts from players in this debate, including industry, the land grants and anti-biotech activists.  In addition, attendees will be encouraged to share their own experience with, and attitudes and perceptions toward, this on-going and critical debate.  The goal of this session is to develop a dialogue among communicators, researchers and interested individuals with respect to the communication process and its influence on the biotechnology debate.

Robert H. Jenson and Steven Paz,
Texas Agricultural Extension Service

Cyber Camp: 24 Hours/day for five days

Ward County in West Texas is the setting for this computer camp designed for youth from twelve to eighteen years old. Youth are dropped off just down the road from the Sandhills State Park and the Million Barrel Museum on Sunday afternoon. On Friday, the parents are invited back for a luncheon and presentations by all of the campers. In between are five days of computer and camping experiences.

Although some of the curriculum has changed during the five years that Cyber Camp has been held, the goal of helping the youth to acquiring useful computer skills in a fun environment has stayed the same. By the end of the week the youth are familiar with the parts of a computer, they know how to send and receive e-mail, they understand differences in graphic file formats and resolutions, they have built their own web page and designed and created a t-shirt, and they have worked with a team to create a presentation slide show.

Since they are at camp twenty-four hours a day, there is also some time to go swimming, visit the Sandhills and participate in other recreational activities to let them know that you can’t stay on the computer all the time. There is also time to learn about some of the new things happening or expected to happen in the computer industry including a trip to a computer store to see and hear about what is “hot” at the time.

On Friday, the parents return and after enjoying a nice luncheon, they get to watch as the youth have an opportunity to give presentations showing what they did and what they learned, awards are handed out and the youth head home to spend the weekend catching up on their sleep.

Donna Southard, Dee Flynn and Pat Smoker
Purdue University

Database Conversion--Oracle to Filemaker Pro

Facing a need to move from a 15-year-old Oracle database to a state-of-the art record-keeping system, Purdue Cooperative Extension Service chose Filemaker Pro. We gained flexibility, ease of conversion and data entry, search capabilities, printing options, customization, and cost-effectiveness for our over 300 personnel located at sites statewide.

The new database was a year in development, months in curriculum writing, made use of on-time data conversion (old to new), and trained users, all within a rigorous timeline. Meeting clientele's needs was of foremost concern over the development period and resultant evaluations indicate outcomes matched or exceeded expectations. In addition, ten counties spent 6-8 months pilot-testing the new Extension Database (ED), with continuous contact with the programmer.  Result—a user-friendly program with backup provided by a step-by-step training manual and web access.

Pete Flores and Ray Rippstein
Texas Agriculture Extension Service

Developing Online Templates for County Agent Web Page Publishing and Delivering Education Programs Via the Web

The objectives of this project were to develop a straight forward process and train agents to create web pages. The www has been recognized by Texas Agriculture Extension Service as a valuable tool to disseminate information. When the training for staff was being developed, the concept of keeping it simple played a major role. The computer professional developed the training materials and agendas.

The project was designed to develop a Web Branding or a Marketing scheme where the County office Web Pages had a Uniform look that identified the Texas Agriculture Extension Service

Templates were developed for agents to download and use in developing Web Pages and to provide the materials needed for publishing online Education Programs on the Web. The materials were to facilitate the process of publishing the education programs on the Web and to meet the needs of clients not able to attend education programs. The development of online education programs concept was to take the slide presentations developed by extension agents and convert the slides to online Web presentations with speaker’s notes. The concept to develop sharing of educational programs between counties to meet their clientele needs.

Fred Rodriguez
Texas Agricultural Extension Service

Developing Web-based Database-enabled Applications using Microsoft Products.

This session will explore the process of creating web-based database-enabled applications with Microsoft Software.  Specifically, Microsoft Windows NT, Microsoft Windows 2000 AS, Microsoft SQL Server 6.5, Microsoft SQL Server 7.0, Internet Information Server 4 and Internet Information Server 5 will be examined to identify the capabilities these systems have for development of applications.
The functionality and capability of Active Server Pages has been a constant in development efforts for the last several years and has been a constant in a world of changing systems software.  Although Active Server Pages has been supported in all of the versions of system software, there have been some re-development “opportunities” that had to be embraced in moving from a NT environment to a 2000 AS environment.  These “opportunities” and their associated costs will be enumerated and explored in detail.
A demonstration of a development system that we have created internally at Texas Agricultural Extension Service will be an integral part of the session.  Successes and setbacks that have occurred during the life span of this system will be discussed.  Applications that were developed with this system will be shown.
Finally, future plans for development of web-based database-enabled applications and how Microsoft may influence those plans will be discussed, if time permits.

Paul Sittler and Ray Rippstein
Texas Agricultural Extension Service

Digital Photography — Practical Tips and Traps

As the world of photography shifts from chemical to digital, new possibilities and problems arise for the photographer.

Consumer grade (< $1000 US) digital cameras are getting more of the control features that allow photographers to achieve creative images. A quick review of the latest features includes some visual results. Accessories expand creative possibilities and add convenience. Some are matched to the camera while others come from ingenious photographers. The ability to digitally manipulate images makes photos less useful for evidentiary purposes, but image editing is time and labor intensive. Printers optimized for photo printing provide realistic prints that are practically indistinguishable from wet process printing, but dyes may fade with time. Archival storage of photos and digital images may be problematic when CD/ROMs are no longer supported.

This session concludes with a question and answer session and encourages participants to share their own discoveries.

Don Hamilton, Brian Watson, Ed Brown and Julian Beckwith
University of Georgia

Distance Diagnostics: Local Impact and Success in Multiple States

A significant Distance Diagnostics system was developed and implemented in Georgia in 1997. Systems have been developed and hosted by The University of Georgia for the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Louisiana State University, Auburn University, and Texas A&M. In 2000, a survey was conducted of county agents in Georgia to determine impacts of the project. This session will be devoted to relating experiences associated with multi-state implementation and report specific results of the Georgia impact survey.

Paul Sittler and Greg Thomas
Texas Agricultural Extension Service

Distance Education using RealSlideshow

When you have thousands of digital photos, what do you do with them? Make them into slide shows--slide shows that are available on-demand, 24x7, anywhere on the Internet, even with a 28.8 modem! A cost-free package from RealNetworks called "RealSlideShow" enables the rapid drag-and-drop construction of slide shows from digital photos, integrating background music, narration, and captions. Better yet, the slideshows can be "streamed" across the Internet, and thus do not require long downloads or large amounts of disk space. As an added benefit, the slide shows may be stored on and streamed from a free server at PhotoPoint, giving them 24x7 international visibility and access!
Unlike streaming video, this technology can enable county agents and specialists to easily use a technique they have already mastered (yep, they've been doing slide shows forever, already) on machines that they already have for clientele that they already know. This session will demonstrate streaming slide shows and their construction using a Windows 98 laptop equipped with a CD-ROM drive, a microphone, and cheap external speakers. Audience volunteers will be requested to act as narrators, so bring your voice!

Gerald D. Spittle, William Richardson, Mary Ellen Pierson, and Brian Ward, Virginia Tech, AHNR IT,
Linda Burcham,
Virginia Tech Ag & Extension Communications

Dynamic Generation of Extension County Web Pages, Overview and Demonstration

Providing timely information on the web is both a high priority and a major chore.  We have developed a system that allows our field faculty and staff to publish information directly to their unit web site in real time.  The Office Web System bridges distance and time, between extension county offices and central services located at Virginia Tech.

The system has accomplished its primary goal, that of reducing the time between a user request to edit their web site to the public viewing the updated web page.  Turn around has gone from days or weeks to minutes.

Part 1 of this talk will describe development of the system from two perspectives: management and communications.  The management perspective includes politics, the development team, time frames, deployment and the compromises made when developing the product.  The second perspective will address communications and marketing aspects of the local office websites, their need to be current and up to date, and how we've tried to keep them consistent.

Part II will address implementation and evaluation of the system.  Specific features will be discussed during a live demonstration of the system, depending on network availability. Evaluation of the Office Web System consisted of a combination of surveys, user's comments, and focus groups. The evaluation centered on the usability, flexibility, and efficiency of  the system, and the public perception of the resulting web site.

Larry D. Coyle and Neil D. Anderson
University of Minnesota Extension Service

E-learning Business Plans – A Necessary Evil

What do you do when your grant runs out?  For too many experimental technology-based programs, it means that the program dies.  How do you prevent it?  Think global and start thinking like a business entrepreneur.

Business planning is an alien concept for many Extension Educators.  But the language of business is starting to creep into our lexicon…venture capital, break-even point, return on investment.  Anyone experimenting with delivering Extension programs online quickly learns the need for “seed money” or  “venture capital”.    Corporate partners and foundations and even university administrators are increasingly looking for a hard-nosed business plan that has a good chance of self-sustainability within a relatively short time (3-5 years).  In many cases, sustainability depends on national and international marketing.

Participants in this session will review and discuss several business models for online Extension programs.  A business plan model and planning tools will be shared.

Gary Kepka, Kansas State University,
Becky Koch, North Dakota State University
Dan Moser, University of Nebraska

Everything Communicates: Communications and Technology Training for New Staff

New staff comes on board with different skill sets. Often their deficits include lack of communications skills and efficient use of communications technology. For example, they may need to learn more about newsletter writing, the basic design principles for page layout, how to give a presentation and how to perform on-line research. Learn how North Dakota State University, University of Nebraska and Kansas State University assess these needs and accomplish new staff training. Come prepared to share your experience.

Carolyn Langley
North Carolina State University

Extension Education Technology Summit: An innovative approach to Technology Training

This session will focus on the Extension Education Technology Summit that was held as an innovative training conference for Extension personnel.  Information will be given on how the Summit evolved, how it was planned, the types of speakers, exhibits and sessions that were involved and how it was marketed. In addition, information will be given on how to plan your own Technology Summit.

The Extension Education Technology Summit was a day long Conference that featured group discussion, lectures and workshop sessions for over 100 Extension staff memnbers.   The goals of the Summit were to:

* To obtain a better understanding of the current technologies that could enhance Extension programming.

* To obtain a better understanding of the future technologies that could enhance the educational delivery system and impact the way in which Extension professionals serve their constituents.

* To begin a discussion of how Extension might obtain resources to purchase technology and determine the needed training.

* To help encourage Extension Professionals to develop a more open attitude toward current and future technologies.

As a result of the Summit, Cooperative Extension agents and staff are asking for additional information on new and current technologies, and requesting more in-depth information in order to determine the feasibility of using some of the new technologies available.  It has also resulted in a collaborative approach to planning for the purchase of technology for County Extension offices and a renewed interest in how technologies are used in the office to benefit Extension clientele.

Additional information on the Technology Summit can be found at : http://orange.ces.state.nc.us/techsummit2000/

Jim Segers  and Larry Lippke
Texas  Agriculture Extension Service

Fill-in-the-Blank Courses: A Structured On-line Training Development System”

The development of on-line instruction is a confusing task, particularly for faculty not well versed in web technologies. Seeking to bridge this gap, the Texas Agricultural Extension Service researched available software and possible development methods in use in at Texas A&M. We chose a system developed by a sister agency, the Texas Engineering Extension Service (TEEX), which currently provides a variety of training programs on industrial topics using both on-line and on-site methodologies.  TEEX wrote this system as a completely web based application for course developers and instructional designers to build on-line instruction. The system operates as a web served data base system and requires only internet access and a web browser for both course instructors and students.  The session will demonstrate this system, share some of the Extension training efforts developed using this system, and discuss the strengths and weaknesses of this structured approach to on-line training development.

Katherine Timm, Judy Serby and, Scott Woods
Colorado State University

Fire on the Mountain: Delivering information and education in the face of crisis

In 2000, the Western United States experienced one of the most devastating wildfire seasons in history. For years, forestry professionals have been predicting the occurrence of catastrophic fires, but public opinion and legislation have prevented broad treatment of forested lands. In addition, more and more newcomers to the West are buying land on or adjacent to forested areas. The media attention at the height of the fire season got the public's attention and persuaded Washington to invest $1.8 billion to implement the National Fire Plan. Will it be enough to influence public opinion about the risks associated with unmanaged forests? Will it change the way homeowners manage forested land on private property? Learn about the strategies the Colorado State Forest Service and collaborating agencies are implementing to get the public on board.

Krista Johansen, Larry Coyle and, Dean Herzfeld
University of Minnesota Extension Service

From a Distance: Project Development and Delivery in a Distributed Environment, Core Pesticide Applicator Training Project Case Study

As in many disciplines, pesticide applicator training (PAT) programs throughout the United States are being encouraged to provide more accessible on-demand training. At the same time, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is responding to the demands of state agencies for PAT standardization by creating a national core exam to certify private pesticide applicators. In parallel with these collaborative efforts, Extension organizations have been mandated to increase cross-state programming. The Core Pesticide Applicator Training (CPAT) project was developed to address to all of these factors.

CPAT created and is now piloting a model for a national system of technology-enhanced pesticide applicator training and education. Currently, each state is responsible for its own PAT program and training materials. The CPAT national model would offer content common to all states (the “core” content) such as basic information about pesticides and the environment, federal regulations, application equipment, basic safety precautions, and personal protective equipment. CPAT seeks to bring together experts from across the country to create definitive core training in an interactive “learning anytime, anywhere” format.

The CPAT development team includes partners from Washington State University, the University of Arizona, the University of Minnesota, and Virginia Polytechnic Institute. Not only is the content delivered as distance education, but the development was also done from a distance. The custom-designed software integrates components developed at various locations into a seamless interface, combining course management, learning modules, and self-testing utilities.

In this session, attendees will learn about the CPAT project and the lessons it offers as a case study for distance development and delivery of training and education. The session will have the following components:
· Presentation: overview of the CPAT project, distributed development and delivery model, business plan
· Demonstration: multimedia content modules
· Panel discussion: Q&A and discussion with members of the project team
· Synthesis and Wrap-Up: lessons learned, future development plans

Bryan Shipman
University of Georgia

GA Counts – A web based accountability application

After attending sessions at NETC 2000 on Maine’s and Washington State’s efforts into using the web to collect data and generate reports on accountability and visiting North Carolina for the same purpose, Georgia is on the verge of bringing their application to fruition. We will attempt, this year, the first phase in the activation of our “one-stop shopping cart” for faculty participation, not only for Extension faculty but research faculty as well. GA Counts will be the one site for faculty to visit to input and modify their two-year Program of Work, their annual activity report, update and request printouts of their Professional Continuing Education profiles and input their information regarding educational contacts and demographics. “One-stop shopping” envisions that a faculty member who enters information into one section of the application will not have to revisit the web to include that same information in another section. For reporting purposes, data entered as part of the Program of Work will be available to all sections of the reporting system. “Ad hoc” reports will be available to department heads and administration and data can be downloaded to be used in spreadsheets for individual department head use in the evaluation process.

Susan McGinley, Robert Casler and, Joanne Littlefield
University of Arizona

Getting the Word Out Statewide with a Small Staff

Educational Communications and Technologies (ECAT), at the University of Arizona College of Agriculture and Life Sciences produces and distributes news with a very small staff: one science writer, one media relations specialist, and one publications coordinator.

Through a partnership with UA News Services, the general on-campus news bureau, they distribute stories online through a brand new website, uanews.org. This site has been utilized by media outlets worldwide, and offers weekly stories through a home-page for the college. This site is not the same thing as the UA's home page. It is a separate site, featuring stories that are written for local and national media, and the general public.

 The media relations specialist, an extension professional whose job was reconfigured to assume this role, works in Phoenix, the state capitol. For increased visibility in the area, she is establishing relationships at the dean's request with reporters and editors at major newspapers including The Capitol Times, which features legislative issues.

 Impact statements submitted to the USDA have been published as an annual report, have served as a resource for uanews.org, and have furnished material for the media relations specialist to distribute to media outlets. The college science writer has conducted workshops for college faculty and staff on the preparation of impact statements and their uses in promoting college programs.

Molly Immendorf and Lisa Linfield
University of Wisconsin- Extension

Going the Distance: How to prepare for the move from face-to-face training to an online environment

Since the summer of 1999, Cooperative Extension has been offering it’s popular face-to-face web authoring training via the web.  Recently, we have been offering office productivity classes as well.  These self-paced classes with instructor support have been offered on both the WebCT and CourseInfo (Blackboard) learning environments.

Join two experienced technical trainers as we help you unlock the potential and avoid the pitfalls of moving face-to-face training to an online environment.

Topics for the session include:

- New ways to think about your audience
- Setting the tone for your online class
- Supporting your online students
- Promoting student interactivity online
- Modifying hand-outs into interactive documents
- Developing meaningful activities and assignments
- Evaluating the online experience

Kris Boone
Kansas State University

Grants: Words from the Funded

Extramural funding, or grants, is becoming a necessity in academia. They can be an important way to get special projects underway and to support operating expenses. Successful grant writers and grant reviewers will share tips and make suggestions that can help others increase their success rate with grants. Private and public sources of funds will be discussed, as will national and state levels.

Scott Gilpin and Teresa Welch
Oregon State University

Growing Your Own Flash

Put some Flash into your web site. Whether to enhance the effectiveness and marketability of an on-line publication or simply spice up your current site, Flash might be the answer.

“Growing Your Own” is an Extension tabloid for gardening in Oregon. It features a diagram on the best way to water a vegetable garden. Our goal was to add to the educational value by animating the diagram on-line. We also wanted to see whether it’s feasible and practical to add multi-media to our vast supply of publications, and, if so, develop a model for future Flash projects.

Flash is the most-widely used animation format on the web. It’s small file size and cross-platform support makes it a powerful tool. This session will cover the life cycle of designing, creating, and implementing a Flash animation for a web site. You will learn how long it will take, what software you need, and the issues to consider for growing your own flash animation.

Elizabeth Gregory
Texas Agricultural Extension Service

HealthTech: A 4-H Web Camp

HealthTech is a technology camp designed to teach 4-H’ers about creating Web sites. Their primary task during the week-long camp is to create a Web site to educate their peers about health issues. The camp was piloted in the summer of 2000, with a focus on skin cancer awareness and prevention. By the time of ACE/NETC 2001, the camp will have completed its second year, focusing on the health effects of smokeless tobacco. The presentation will cover the marketing issues related to developing the site and its message, the logistics of the week-long camp, the educational content for the kids and their adult chaperons/sponsors, and the lessons learned and improvements planned for future sessions. HealthTech is supported by a grant from the Texas Cancer Council.

Jane Hoffelt
Page Works

How Can You Improve YOUR Publication?

Jane will gently critique the design of your publication with lots of tips specifically tailored to help YOU. Bring your magazine or newsletter to share.

Marci Hilt
USDA Office of Communications

How to Make Your Job Vital

How can you make your job vital to your boss and to your boss’ boss? Long hours and a dedicated marketing strategy will put your agencies and your boss in the spotlight. But, who is promoting you? Does your boss really know what a great job you’re doing?  What about your boss’ boss? If you aren’t marketing yourself, you haven’t finished the job. And, you haven’t made your job vital to your agency. Marketing yourself is different from self-promotion. If you have a marketing strategy and stick to it, you won’t be accused of shameless self-promotion. This session will include tips for how to market yourself and how to make your job vital. Some of the tips include: submitting articles to outside trade magazines or writing columns for your in house publication; starting a focus group of professionals who meet periodically to help each other; collecting recent success stories; teaching an adult education class; and creating and how to use a marketing kit for you and your staff.

Bill Goodwill
Goodwill Communications

How to Produce PSA’s That Get Used

There are a lot of myths about how to produce and distribute Public Service Announcements (PSA's). To get TV, radio, and print PSA's used, you've got to know the latest PSA trends, understand media needs, and provide your materials in a flexible format. If your TV PSA is well researched, developed and distributed, you will get much better placement for your message. At this session, you'll learn how to get millions of dollars worth of free air time and column inches of print space. Bill Goodwill has worked on more than 200 national PSA campaigns over the past 26 years. He was deputy director of the "Friends Don't Let Friends Drive Drunk" campaign for the US Department of Transportation, one of the most successful social issues programs ever launched. He developed an integrated system for distributing and tracking PSA campaigns, as well as www.PSAResearch.com, an on-line information center dedicated to public service advertising.

Diana Broshar and Jeanette Drewry
Iowa State University

Hug a tree, save paper, and simplify your work: using e-surveys for data collection and reporting.

Participants will learn how to create an online submission form that flows into a ready made SPSS database using a cgi-script. The presenters will also discuss how using a team approach enabled staff to utilize current technology to simplify reporting and data gathering requirements.

CSREES initiated a national evaluation to document the current states’ abilities to reach children, youth, and families at risk. In 1997 Iowa participated in this national survey and administered it using paper copies. It took five months and had a 76% response rate. In the fall of 2000, Iowa again participated in this national survey using the electronic medium. The 2000 survey took two months and had a 92% response rate. Staff indicated that they preferred the Web survey and found it to be quicker, easier, and more convenient.

The project team included a technology specialist and two program specialists. Each contributed different knowledge and skills to make this electronic survey a success. Issues addressed will be how technical and program staff can best work together as a team; the processes, software, hardware, and systems needed to create electronic data collecting; and implications for other applications.

Robert W. Knight
West Virginia University

Implementation and Use of a RealPlayer Server for Audio Applications at West Virginia University

WVU Extension Service has worked collaboratively with our University technology unit to purchase and install RealPlayer server software.  This software has now opened the door for Extension and other units on campus to deliver audio and/or video information via the web in a simple and easy manner.  We have begun to use this software to deliver live broadcasts of organizational update information to our state distributed faculty and staff.  Something unthinkable before now.  This is being done with existing resources and has provided us with an additional mode of communications.   This communication process can be in used real time mode or archived for stored and retrieved by a user to accommodate the users needs.

This presentation will discuss the resources needed to make this communications mode work and how a user would use the production software to produce the output.  I intend to do a demonstration of this software to show the ease of use and discuss some of the problems and benefits encountered.

Rebecca R. Osborne
West Virginia University Extension Service

Implementing a Technology Training Initiative

The WVU Extension Service has embarked on assessing and developing each employee’s technology skills. Each employee completed a self-assessment of his/her skills and received an individualized training plan. This session will discuss the progress of this initiative by discussing the assessment tool used, the resulting data, and the training implemented. We plan to reassess each employee 12 months after the initial assessment to determine the progress of each employee.

Susan Bale and Nancy Peavler
Kansas State University

Increasing the Discoverability of Online Library Material by Applying Dublin Core Meta Data Schema: Kansas State Research and Extension’s Experience

Kansas State Research & Extension has approximately 2000 online publications, plus references to multimedia resources.  Although the content of these resources is superb, they are often lost in a sea of online material.  Additionally, most of the print publications are posted in PDF format, which is seldom recognized by search engines.  Our goal was to increase our material’s discoverability to both internal and external search engines, and to create a hierarchical browsing structure.

Inspired by the success of Minnesota State’s multi-agency  “Foundations Project,” we adapted the Dublin Core schema to our own materials.  Dublin Core allows the meta data describing online resources to be as structured as the information found on a catalog card in a traditional print library.

Our publications editors and technical people built a controlled vocabulary, topic hierarchy, database system, and web interface to incorporate the cataloging efforts into our workflow.  Our internal search engine, Ultraseek, was adapted to maximize our internal search benefits and provide a Yahoo-style user interface.

Meg Ashman
University of Vermont

Intellectual Property Developed at the University: Whose Property Is It Anyway?

If a faculty member at your university develops an online course, does she/he own the copyright? If money is generated from that online course, who profits? Does the answer to either or both of these questions depend upon the University resources used to develop the course? Are online courses and other technology-based materials treated differently than other intellectual property?

Until recently, the answers to these questions at the University of Vermont would have been anyone’s guess. Although policies have long existed for patentable inventions, no policies existed for copyrightable materials. And frankly, even if copyright policies had existed, they undoubtedly would have had to be re-examined in light of emerging technologies.

To address this gap, a university committee was formed in the spring of 2000. Meeting every two weeks, this committee (which I was asked by the provost and the Faculty Senate to chair) is on schedule to have its policies presented to — and approved by — the Faculty Senate, the Staff Council, and the Student Government Association and then forwarded to the Board of Trustees this spring.

This presentation will cover the process used to develop the new intellectual property policies, as well as the end product — the policies themselves.

Kathy Reiser and Rick Atterberry
University of Illinois

Introducing a New Graphic Identity

Each year, major corporations spend billions to create and maintain strong graphic identities – and to help consumers develop positive associations with corporate logos and other symbols.  Commercial firms are careful to use their graphic identities consistently, correctly, and only on products that represent them well.  If Extension expects to compete for the time and attention of potential clients, we must consider how well our marketing messages stack up against those of “name brands” like Better Homes and Gardens and HGTV.

When University of Illinois Extension changed its name and logo in the late 1990s, marketing specialists saw the need to help field staff “think like a brand” when it came to use of the new graphic identity.  The first step was to help them understand that a logo is far more than ink on a page.  Toward that end, they invented a fast-paced, interactive game and took the show on the road.  They offered in-service programs to academic and support staff throughout the state, and the reviews were overwhelmingly positive.  In this session, Illinois’ marketing staff will demonstrate the game show and answer audience questions about U of I Extension’s efforts to establish and maintain the new graphic identity.

Will Baldwin and Kris Boone
Kansas State University

It’s New and Improved! Creating Innovative Websites Through Usability Studies

Successfully implementing usability studies is critical to improving your website, computer applications and interfaces.  This session will describe strategies and overviews of several usability methodologies.  The usability work employed for the improvement of an actual web application will be presented along with tips for your own work.

Bonnie Riechert
University of Tennessee

Journal of Extension: Writing for the Online Journal”

Tips for getting published in the journal of extension will be given, and the results of a 2000 reader survey will be discussed. The Journal of Extension is the official referred electronic journal of the nationwide Cooperative Extension Service. The mission of the journal is to strengthen the knowledge base of extension professionals and others to improve their effectiveness as educators. The journal is published in electronic format and can be accessed on the web at: http://www.joe.org/

Scott Fedale
Washington State University

Making Your Communications Accessible to Disabled Audiences

More and more attention is being focused on making websites accessible to those with disabilities, such as the lack of ability to operate a mouse or those who are visually impaired. But according to the Americans with Disabilities Act, we who work in public institutions are expected to provide "reasonable accommodation" to all of our communications products and activities to anyone with a disability who requests access. Advances in technology have made it easier for us to meet this challenge.

This session will look at what the law says we are required to do as well as technologies and techniques available to make our communications accessible to all audiences. Examples will include: Options for meeting needs of the hearing impaired for satellite broadcasts, video and audio conferencing, including remote captioning, assistive listening technologies, etc.; common problems that make web pages inaccessible, including tables for layouts, forms, PDF files, image maps and frames; equipping computer labs for handicapped used; captioning for video streaming and multi-media presentations on the web and other useful information.

Michael Chapman
Ontario Ministry of Agriculture

Mentoring Ag. Students for TV Broadcasting

Thanks to support from Canada's Agricultural Adaptation Council, agricultural journalism students at the University of Guelph are offered a mentoring program to teach them how to produce television feature and news stories for broadcast on the weekly television program, 'Town & Country Ontario'.

Dr. Pete Vergot III
University of Florida

Mentoring Information Technology in Extension Programs

University of Florida Extension began a program to provide professional development and mentoring opportunities for Extension Faculty in Information Technology (IT.)  Six County Extension Faculty are involved in an eighteen-month training and mentoring program for the 300 County Extension Faculty in the 67 Counties of Florida.

The Objective is to empower extension faculty to use IT in the effective and efficient delivery of extension programs. To achieve this, county faculty need to be conversant with a minimum and evolving set of skills that changes with the technology and as competence of extension constituents increases.  Currently, the set of skills pursued is:
1. Web site design, development and maintenance.
2. Use of communication facilities such as E-mail, List and chat servers, video conferencing, remote desktop     sharing, and personal information managers.
3. Use web facilities such as the Faculty Accountability System, Digital Diagnostics Information System, and the Extension Digital Information Source.

Making IT a part of the extension faculty culture requires a multifaceted strategy:

1. Better facilities and tools that are relevant to county faculty needs and enhance their abilities.
2. Continuous training on IT in step with current developments.
3. Peer conducted demonstrations with a successful track record.

Susan Bale and Kathy Wright
Kansas State University

Netting People: Grabbing Your Audience with Great Web Writing

You have seconds to capture a Web reader’s attention – GO! In this session, learn the secrets successful Web authors use to craft their sites. Discover how your writing style and site structure affect reader behavior: what stimulates them to read further, what causes them to move on, and what keeps them coming back.

You can’t write for the Web the same way you write for paper publication. Why? People don’t read a monitor the same way they read paper. The Web is a visual medium.  Graphics and words work together, and the reader uses both to navigate.  In addition, hypertext – at its worst – provides multiple distractions and many opportunities for your clients to leave your page.

Using research and solid information from usability and accessibility studies, we’ll guide you through writing and design techniques that will help you create useful, easy-to-read pages.

Tim Barkley and Tim Murawski
Ohio State University Extension

Network Security on an Insecure Web

Network security is a chief concern as more of our offices become hard-wired to the Internet with 24 hour a day, 7 day a week connections. Losses due to network attacks can be devastating.  The proliferation of downloadable and automated scripts make attacks on your networks easy for users with almost no knowledge other than where to locate the software needed to launch an attack.

This session will orient the attendee to the basic steps that they can take to secure their machines and networks from these attacks.  Although items covered will deal with Windows and Linux operating systems, the presentation will be generally operating system non-specific.  The presentation will cover subjects such as hardware and software solutions, “hacker” tools, intrusion detection methods and where to find the best sources of information on network security.

Roger Terry and Sandy Flores
Kansas State University

On-line Communities: Targeting Audiences with Common Interests

Online communities are web-based “meeting places” where people with common interests and/or need to collaborate can share information, work together, educate each other, and help each other. Online communities have also become places of commerce. Participants will learn what online communities are. They will also learn that setting up an online community has become relatively easy with new web hosting services and software. They will learn strategies for designing these online communities around the needs of a particular group, how to attract people and how to get them to return frequently. These tools can benefit Extension professionals working with local organizations. Initiating online communities in local areas based on topics of high interest may increase the sustainability of some community-based programs.

Ellen Varley, John Lea-Cox, David Ross and, K. Marc Teffeau
University of Maryland

Online Course Redesign: Lessons Learned in Cyberspace

An interdisciplinary team from the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources developed and taught a WebCT-based course called "Water and Nutrient Management Planning for the Nursery and Greenhouse Industry" in Fall, 1999.  Learners in this course included credit and non-credit students who collaborated throughout the course on small teams which included an academic student in nursery crop production and greenhouse management, a nursery or greenhouse professional, and an Extension professional.

Based on assessments from students, course faculty, and a national team of content, pedagogical, and technology experts, this course was redesigned and taught to a new group of students in Fall, 2000.

This presentation will emphasize pedagogical, design, time and resource issues that faculty should consider in developing a Web-based course and teaching in this electronic environment, with particular emphasis on content design, methods of encouraging student/teacher and student/student interaction in the Web environment, student assessment, and course evaluation.

Erik T. Anderson, University of Idaho
Ellen Varley, University of Maryland

Online Instruction Showcase (hands-on session)

The Online Instruction Showcase is a forum for ACE members and NETC participants to demonstrate their online courses and web-based instructional programs. The session will feature eight 20-minute demonstrations. The speakers represent the University of Florida, Iowa State University, University of Missouri, the University of Maryland, and North Carolina State University. The demonstrations will highlight the application of web-based instruction for both credit courses and extension programs. Two presentations will describe campus-wide application and support of online instruction.

The Online Instruction Showcase will take place in a computer lab at Ryerson University and the demonstrations will include opportunities for hands-on participation. There are 20 computer stations in the lab with a total seating capacity of about 40 people. Seating is limited so come early.

Chris Selstad and Karen Lilly
University of Minnesota Extension Service

Online Public Search and Registration for County/Campus Extension Programs

Since its inception, the U of MN Extension web site has been highly successful at making available the latest publications, news releases, and fact sheets.  It did not, however, provide an easy way to find Extension educational program offerings in the state. The new Extension Programs Database fills this need by quickly letting users find Extension Programs that are near them.

With a simple search, the public can see and register for Extension’s current programs anywhere in Minnesota. Decentralized registration allows the county or department to have immediate access to registration lists, monitor demand, and communicate with registrants through email or US mail. The system also integrates with the County Extension websites, showing what is available in that county.

We will demonstrate how the Programs database functions for the public user of our website. We will also show how it serves as a practical administrative tool for program facilitators. Besides generating class lists, mailing lists, etc., it can also aid in accountability by creating reports of programming activity at the local level. Reports can be sorted by location(s), topic(s), dates, or administrative groupings.

Vince Verbeke,
Penn State University

Pennsylvania’s 4-H Enrollment Database

Pennsylvania standardized on FileMaker Pro as their database engine in 1988. Since then, applications developed for statewide use include: Mailing List, Show Programs (Livestock, Horse, Dairy), Civil Rights Assessment. Office Accounting, and a 4-H Enrollment Database.

Called Clover Counter, the 4-H Enrollment database provides the capability of tracking 4-H members, volunteers, participants and the 4-H units to which they belong. The program also provides the capability of producing the numbers needed for the ES-237 USDA report and affirmative action reporting.

FileMaker Pro is Windows and Macintosh compatible. Databases developed on one platform can be easily transferred to the other. FileMaker has a number of features that make it an excellent choice for Extension use; streamlined data entry with checkboxes and pop-up lists, multiple file links to retrieve related data, data import/export with other popular software, ability to record/automate task sequences, create user buttons to perform script. A CD-ROM will be provided that includes a run-time version of the database program.

Tracy Irani , University of Florida
Ricky Telg, University of Florida

Planning for the Next Wave of Faculty Development in Distance Education

How effectively are we preparing for the “next wave” of changes in faculty course development needs?  We know that the number of faculty innovators who are on the cutting edge of using technology in the classroom has continued to grow.  According to the 1999 Campus Computing Survey, “assisting faculty efforts to ‘integrate information technology into instruction’ remains the single most important information technology (IT) issue confronting American colleges and universities”. But providing new services for instructors who want to develop more technologically sophisticated course projects, but may have limited background in the high-end technologies and instructional design expertise typically needed to do so, is a challenging and complex task.
     Agricultural institutions and the land grant system as a whole have an especially important stake in this issue, due to their emphasis on utilization of course enhancing technologies and distance education methods as efficient mechanisms to deliver formal and non-formal education. But addressing the next wave in faculty development needs will require careful institutional planning and may benefit from sharing ideas and learning based on what other agricultural institutions are currently doing.
The objective of this breakout session is to initiate and formalize a forum for the sharing of approaches and ideas of those involved in faculty development efforts at agricultural institutions around the country.  Attendees will be encouraged to bring along examples, ideas and strategies that they are using or contemplating for sharing with the group.  The presenters will attempt to synthesize learning from this effort along with the results of a survey they are conducting of current faculty development efforts in the land grant system into a decision matrix that institutions can use to determine possible approaches that fit their own circumstances as they plan to meet “the next wave.”

Charel Morris , Lynn Andrews Productions

Pre-Production in a Post-Production Age

You’ve mastered AVID, Media 100 or PostBox. Your graphics add just the right touch, your segues are perfect. And yet something is missing.

It’s time to look at the basics of storytelling and the intent of your message. Oftentimes what you put together in pre-production will save you time and money on the entire project. While this is tailored to the electronic media environment, the knowledge you gain from this workshop can help in brochure, magazine or any other communication tool.

Charel Morris has 20 years of production and post production experience in Hollywood in music, television and film. Her family has farmed for generations outside of Lubbock, Texas. She is a meeting planner for and has produced a documentary video on ‘Defcon’, held in Las Vegas each year. She is a judge for the ACE C & A electronic media awards.

Either as part of this workshop or as a separate workshop, Charel will demonstrate ‘Inspiration’ software, a mind-mapping tool for pre-production.

Participants should bring or send ahead projects to be critiqued in a supportive, creative environment.

Thomas R. Hintz,
University of Florida

Privacy and the Public Internet

The Internet has become the preferred method for communications and information access and exchange. This use, however, has come at an expense that most users do not realize, a loss of privacy, increased cost of operation, hacker attacks and loss of access speed.

Depending on your Internet service provider, your mail may be monitored. Browsing the web leaves a trail of your web site visits. Posting to Usenet news and your web pages may increase the receipt of mail Spam.

Web site vendors are sharing information to build a user profile of their visitors. Have you been profiled? Do they know more about you than you think? What information do they gather? How could they use it to your disadvantage? Become aware of the problem and find out what you can do to eliminate or reduce this unwanted intrusion on you privacy?

Greg Johll
University of Wisconsin – Extension

Program Planning and Results via the Web

Since early 2000 the University of Wisconsin Cooperative Extension has been using a web-based Planning and Results system.  This system allows for a team to post a Plan of Work and Team Evaluation Plan on the web.  Faculty and staff can then post results of their programming directly related to the outcomes and impact indicators of the Plan of Work and Evaluation Plan.  Once the information is entered on-line it is available for generating reports for faculty, staff and administration.

This session will show how:

1. Teams define plans of work and evaluation plans
2. Individuals enter impact indicators, impact statements, success stores and statistics
3. Reports are generated from the data

Project Planning and Design

What you need to know to plan and design your own web site or multimedia project

Journal of Applied Communications - Editorial Team
Joyce Dolbier (Lead Editor), Ron Thomas (Reviews/JAC Online) Audrey Wynne (Graphic Design) and Chris Penko (Managing Editor)

Publishing in the Journal of Applied Communications: Building Your Professional Portfolio

The Journal of Applied Communications, a quarterly, peer-reviewed journal, offers an ideal publishing opportunity for agricultural communicators worldwide. Those who know the current and future directions of the Journal will be prepared to seize that opportunity and publish their work in 2001 and beyond. This roundtable discussion will provide an orientation for new writers and an update for already-published authors. The session will cover what types of articles the Journal considers, how authors should submit manuscripts, what happens during the review process, and what factors can help encourage acceptance versus rejection. The panel also will address future directions of the Journal, as well as the importance of publishing and the benefits it brings to researchers and applied communicators.

William W. Richardson, Linda Burcham, Mary Ellen Pierson, Brian Ward, and Jerry Spittle
Virginia Tech

Put Your Hands ON Our Office Websites (hands-on session)

This lab session will give participants the opportunity to use Virginia Cooperative Extension’s Office Websites system for real-time updates and publishing of local office information.  After logging into the test system and selecting a locality, participants will proceed with the hands-on demonstration where they will edit and update the Office Website for the locality they selected.  Office Websites includes sections for How To Reach Us (office location, directions, and contact information), Staff, Community Links, Program Offerings, Events, Newsletters, and Extension Leadership Councils.

William W. Richardson, developer of Office Websites, will lead the session. Ample time will be allowed for questions, comments, and discussion.

Kathy Sohar, University of Florida
Bob DeMattina, University of Kentucky
Ashley Wood, University of Florida

RadioSource.NET: A Portal Web-site for Land Grant University News Stories

RadioSource.NET is a portal web-site for land-grant university news stories.  RadioSource.NET was designed so that universities could share resources to post and market content online.  The site database allows content to be searched by state or topic, and programming is available in a variety of formats. Online distribution is an increasingly attractive option for many broadcasters and its utility will continue to grow. We will present a short overview and history of the project's evolution and demonstrate how to enter files remotely.  Some RadioSource members will also talk about related issues of broadcasting on the web.

Bob DeMattina, Electronic Media Specialist, University of Kentucky will discuss some of the issues involving the relationship between broadcast audio production from a land grant insitutution and local radio stations.

Will Baldwin and Rachael Springer
Kansas State University

Rapid Response Remote Diagnostics System

Implementing a distance diagnostics system to determine plant and disease problems can increase your organizations impact, improve client response times, and create additional resources for your organization.  The KSU Distance Diagnostics system will be presented featuring rapid response, request referrals, and image archiving modules.  Faculty and specialists developing teaching or learning modules can use images to enhance their products.

Mitzy Forbes and Susan Martin Gould,
Colorado State University

Reaching More Low-Income and Hispanic Persons Using La Cocina Saludable (hands-on-session)

(The) La Cocina Saludable bilingual interactive multimedia program has been developed to reach more low-income and Hispanic persons than has been possible through traditional group classes. This educational method provides consistent, convenient, and tireless education in settings where individuals and families may go for other services. In addition, assessments can be completed on the computer using narration and/or graphics rather than relying on a pencil and paper format.

The development, implementation, and evaluation of this successful program will be described in this session. Examples of how the on-line assessments have been used and the data-management system will provide insight into how this type of program can be used to meet the needs of other high-risk groups and/or people with minimal literacy skills.

Opportunities for hands-on discovery and exploration of La Cocina Saludable interactive multimedia program will be integrated within the presentation. The facilitator will be available to interact and show how the program works from the multimedia modules to the data collection and management system.

Funding for this project has been provided by:
- USDA: Special Project #93-0507;
- Food and Nutrition Services (FNS) through Colorado Department of Human Services Food Stamp Program
- Food Safety and Quality (FSQ) Initiative
- Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service (CSREES) - National Research Initiative (NRI) Grant #00-35200-9114
- Share Our Strength (SOS) Foundation
- Colorado State University Cooperative Extension

Dave King
Purdue University

Reinventing Extension from the Outside In: Who Will Step Up?

This session is designed for self-proclaimed “early adopters” to discuss what role they might play in the charting the digital future of outreach from Land-Grant universities.  The competitive marketplace is upon us.  Even the “early adopters” are late.  Can we catch up? If so, who will step up?  This interactive session provides an opportunity for those who plan to have a say in their future professional direction to start/continue the dialogue. The October 2000 Journal of Extension commentary will be the jumping off point.

Kris Boone

Research Papers
(Research papers will be presented during these times. Joan Thomson is handling the call for research papers.)

Session I - Sunday, July 29, 10:00 am - 11:45 am

• Food Safety Vs. Food Security: How the African Media Shape the GMO Debate Lulu Rodriguez, Iowa State University
• Off the Radar Screen: Examining the Effect of Critical Thinking on Perception of Low Level Environmental Risk Susan Grantham and Tracy Irani, University of Florida
• Educating Consumers on Food Safety Via the World Wide Web Daniel H. Henroid, Jr. and James J. Huss, Iowa State University
• Discussant - Ned Browning, Mississippi State Universitry

• Building It So They Will Come: Assessing Universities' Distance Education Faculty Training and Development Programs Tracy Irani and Ricky Telg, University of Florida
• Perceptions and Adoption of Information Technologies: Implications for Ohio's Produce Industry in the New Economy Stan Ernst and Mark Tucker, The Ohio State University
• The Importance of Agricultural News Sources in Framing the News Sharon B. Stringer, Lock Haven University of Pennsylvania and Joan Thomson, The Pennsylvania State University
• Discussant - Dave Krueger, Michigan State University

• Reaching Opinion Leaders on the Hill: Results from a Mixed-Methods Study Kristina M. Boone, Kansas State University, Mark Tucker, The Ohio State University, and Jackie M. McClaskey, Kansas State University
• What Kentuckians Believe About Genetically Engineered Foods Randy Weckman and Deborah Witham, University of Kentucky
• Communicating with Latino Immigrants on Safe Food Handling Kristina M. Boone, Karen Penner, and Becky Zenger, Kansas State University
• Discussant - Bonnie Riechert, University of Tennessee

Jeanne Wiebke, Iowa State University Extension
Linda Ffolliott,  University of Arizona

Review and Update of OnLine Web Site Accessibility Class

In August and early September 2000, Jeanne Wiebke and Linda Ffolliott provided a 6-week electronic class on web site accessibility for NETC and ACE members.  Over 80 people registered for the class.  Our intention was to introduce people to barriers on the web, with examples of common errors and how to fix them, provide references to tools to check and validate web pages and provide links to other resources.

This session will talk about the outcome of the online session and where we should go from here.

Currently, slightly altered materials used in the class are located at the Land Grant Training Alliance web site.  Url for the class materials is: http://www.lgta.org/accessibility/

Bill Harnum, Senior Vice President  and Melissa Pitts, Vice-President Order Fulfilment, University of Toronto Press

Running an Effective Publishing Operation

The University of Toronto Press Incorporated (UTP) is Canada’s oldest and largest scholarly press. Founded in 1901 as a printing operation for University of Toronto, Bill Harnum, Senior Vice-President of UTP will present a publishing operation from manuscript proposal and editorial review, to the business aspect of e-commerce, marketing, royalties and distribution  of over one million books a year.

Roberto Remirez,
University of Florida

Setting Up  an E-commerce Website

This session will cover hardware requirements and specific software packages that are available for a complete e-commerce setup. Including, the kind of machine and type of network that is recommended, backup systems, pros, cons, and pricing of various software packages, and implementation.

Several other factors that need to be considered are, speed of transactions, ease of use, and web design in general.

Besides the implementation of the web site, there is much else to think about. The actual processing of the orders. The back end of the ordering process has to be considered part of your e-commerce website, and has to function as part of it.

And to finish, customer service via electronic means and proper responses to returned items are part of a successful E-commerce website.

Chuck Denney, Margot Pantalone, Misty Anderson and, Doug Edlund
University of Tennessee

Start Spreading the News: A Case Study on Marketing Millie

On August 23, 2000, the University of Tennessee Institute of Agricultural welcomed the birth of a calf cloned from an adult cell. Two of the UTIA’s communications units (Experiment Station and Extension) coordinated efforts to tell the world about this research breakthrough. Our marketing objective was simple — to position UTIA as a leader in research by achieving widespread media coverage. The plan was to allow the story to spread like waves spread from a pebble thrown into a pond. We wanted local media to feed the story to their national networks, and plan worked. Soon after our press conference, news of the calf, Millie, was on the TV networks, CNN and the Associated Press. Millie was covered by Paul Harvey (ABC radio), the BBC and in newspapers around the world. Our job was also to alert trade publications. Our campaign used both mass media and direct contacts.

Our session will include how we released the information and how we kept it from getting out too soon. We will also discuss how we prepared the story to appeal to a global audience, how we handled things the day of the event, and lessons learned from the experience

Ricky Telg, University of Florida
Edith Chenault, Texas A& M

Starting an ACE/ACT Mentor Program

This session will focus on low to start an ACE/Agricultural Communicators of Tomorrow mentor program. In 1999 and 2000, University of Florida ACE and ACT members participated in a pilot mentoring program. Texas A&M since has started a mentor program. It is hoped that ACE/ACT mentor programs will become established at other universities across the country.

Mark W. Sumner and Val Staples
Virginia Cooperative Extension

Staying Connected with On-line Collaboration Tools

This session will provide an overview of the deployment of on-line collaboration tools to Virginia Cooperative Extension offices throughout the Commonwealth. Agents and specialists routinely use Centra Symposium to meet on-line for in-service training events and administrative meetings.  Symposium's unique on-line environment provides functions for synchronized group viewing of multimedia content, real-time audio, text chat, and shared whiteboard.  Agents do not have to travel to Virginia Tech, but can simply view program content from their own desktop computers.  When asked to rate this method (Symposium) of on-line collaboration on a scale from 1 to 6 (i.e., 1=Poor and 6=Excellent), agents said the liked it (mean = 5.09, SD = 0.82).   The session will review VCE’s deployment of Symposium and provide ideas, tools, and techniques that will help participants successfully deploy on-line coloration tools. http://centra.ext.vt.edu

John Tubbs,
University of Illinois

Streaming Slideshows, Filling the Video Void Until a Broadband World is Ready

As educators with instructional content we need to be aware of the potential of new media methods that are available to us and streaming media is ready for Extension education programming.  This assumption is based on the numerous successful endeavors by institutions across the country showcased at RadioSource.net along huge new offerings by the private sector.  Streaming audio is now a high quality reality for near real-time delivery over a 28.8 modem.  Streaming video is not at the same level of quality over real-time modem connections, but that doesn’t mean a visually void world of streaming instructional media.

Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language or SMIL is a mark up language based on XML that enables all sorts of magic inside of your media player’s window.  SMIL creates a “script” for synchronized pictures, hyperlinked text, video and audio.  Real SlideShow from RealNetworks is a tool for developing simple visually enhanced audio presentations but is limited in dealing with a variety of tasks such a postproduction of a recorded lecture.  This session will cover how to SMIL works and how to use Real Slideshow in conjunction with audio editors, Powerpoint, and image editors as a development tool in created larger integrated media projects.

Tony Wright

System Administrator Tools for Managing NT Networks

While Microsoft offers many system administrator tools within the Windows NT/2000 server environment, there are many more efficient tools available from secondary sources. Several tools will be described and demonstrated. They include STAT (vulnerability analysis), Security Explorer (ACL's and share's), SuperCACLS (ACL's), Secure Copy (copying with intact ACL's), Hyena (remote management), ELM (Event log management), and a variety of shareware software (Big Brother, inzider, and others).

Florita Stubbs Montgomery, West Virginia University
LaRae M. Donnellan, The University of Tennessee

Taking Charge of Our Future: Reshaping Communications and Information Technology

Has your technology or communications “support role” been redefined from helping set agendas to just following orders? Has your role been changed from “provider of information and education” to “marketer of institution”? After teaching communications workshops for years, are you being told that your unit should not teach? Did your unit’s research and evaluation connection disappear along with your last tenured faculty member?

Has anyone asked you what you think of these changes?

Now, someone is. Together, we can identify ways to restructure the change flooding our units. First, we’ll look to our past, when communicators—working through ACE—successfully met a similar challenge. Today, 40 years later, communicators and technologists are still reaping the benefits of Kellogg Foundation-funded programs that created or elevated our leadership, education, and research roles.

But those benefits are slipping away. Once again, the land-grant’s turmoil is flooding change through our units. However, decisions are being made without the collective guidance of agricultural communicators and technologists. So, once again, it’s time for ACE to help set the agenda for change. Join us in this discussion, and help propose suggestions for a new ACE action plan.

Becky Nibe
Iowa State 4-H

Targeting Life Skills Data on the Web

There has been an emphasis in Iowa, and other states, on collecting “impact data” rather than concentrating solely on numbers. Using the Targeting Lifeskills Model developed by Pat Hendricks, we designed and implemented a means for collecting and managing that data on the web. The project, using Access and ColdFusion, resulted in our youth specialists having a user-friendly interface to generate evaluation instruments and report results. The data from all evaluations is available for interpretation and reporting at the state level. We will describe the background of the project, share problems and concerns that were encountered, demonstrate the end result, and discuss implications and plans for future programming using this model.

Tracy Rutherford, Kansas State University
Ricky Telg, University of Florida
Jefferson Miller, Oklahoma State University

Teaching Portfolios, Promotion, and Tenure: A Holistic Evaluation Tool

Teaching responsibilities are an important component to the tenure and promotion process.  However, unlike research where articles published and grants received can be counted, teaching is an on-going process of growth and reflection.

Teaching portfolios are regaining popularity in higher education as a means for effective evaluation.  Estimates indicate that nearly 1,000 colleges and universities have introduced portfolios into their evaluation process (Seldin, 1997).  A teaching portfolio, much like those used by artists, photographers, and architects, allows faculty members to provide factual evidence of teaching strengths and accomplishments.  It also creates a concrete structure for self-reflection.

This session will discuss what a teaching portfolio is, the essential components of a portfolio, electronic portfolios, and the use of a portfolio in the tenure and promotion process.

Portfolios are effective evaluation tools for administrators, committees, and faculty.  They may also be used in other forms of evaluation, such as student progress, annual performance appraisal, program development, or admission criteria.

Garry Gibbons
The Ohio State University

Teamwork: Understanding Ourselves - Understanding Others

A team is a group of people who feel energized by their ability to work together, who are fully committed to a high level of output and who care about how each member feels during the work process.

How do you and your work colleagues measure up to this definition?

During this session, participants will discover was to create a synergy among those in their work groups by identifying the different thinking processes and preference patterns we all utilize. Recognizing and understanding this diversity of thinking styles will be accomplished by using a fun and non-threatening technique that is easily applied in work situations.

In addition, proven ways to create a team climate where resources are maximized and energies channeled toward successful problem solving and/or task completion will be presented and explored.

Ryan Germann
Exegenix, Inc.

The Basics of XML

There has been a lot of talk about XML, its SGML heritage, and its destiny to usurp HTML's place on the World Wide Web. Many commentaries over-simplify the role held by these markup technologies, and fail to consider the confusion caused by the "dumbing down" of these explanations.

In order to provide session attendees with the means of communicating about XML with lay-persons, this session will use everyday language and analogies to provide clarification of:

* basic principles behind SGML/XML
* differences between SGML and XML
* the relationship of HTML to both SGML and XML
* the value of structured, tagged data, from both a technical and fiscal perspective
* current and burgeoning applications of these markup technologies, from print publishing to financial transactions

Ray Kimsey, NC State University
Dr. Bob Rubinyi, Univ. of Minnesota Extension Service

The CYFERnet Document Registry as a Model for Sustainable Interstate & Interdisciplinary Collaboration

Extension as a system is facing a major challenge in the Internet Age to provide the public with easy, "one-stop" access to unified information collections from institutions around the country. In order for such a system to be sustainable, it must be heavily automated and decentralized with advanced browse and search capabilities that offer the user seamless access to information from multiple Extension sources.  This type of document registry database is now under development at NC State University as part of the national Children, Youth and Families Education and Research Network (CYFERnet).

 The database takes advantage of the distributed nature of the Internet to promote interstate collaboration and sustainability.  The document registry database is an important mechanism for sharing resources within Extension to promote a greater quality of service with less duplication of effort. To promote sharing of the software behind the database the document registry is being developed using “open source” tools such as PHP and MySQL.  The source code for the software will be made available for other states to modify, enhance, or otherwise use as they find appropriate.

This session will include an overview of the CYFERnet project, its human infrastructure, and the attempt to develop a sustainable, national model for other program areas. Methods employed to increase sustainability of this registry include:

1. A large number of people that have the ability to support the system.
2. Resources remain with the local state that contributed the resource to make it easier for the document to remain up-to-date.
3. Registry tools that provide automatic notification to document editors when: documents reach their expiration date, need reviewing, their URL link becomes inactive, or when new resources have been identified.
4. The use of open source tools which allow others to take the registry software and further enhance or modify it to fit their needs.

This session will conclude with a discussion of the database structure, the current status of the project, and future development efforts of tools related to enhance the document registry.

Todd Flowers
Pantone

The Future of Color

Ever wonder what is going to be the next industry changing technology? Come see a step by step Client Case Study showing the advantages of a revolutionary process in printing, Pantone Hexachrome.

Russ Merzdorf
Purdue University

The Multimedia Power of Enhanced Acrobat™ PDFs

Most people are familiar with Acrobat™ PDF files due to their ease of publication creation, quickness of downloading from the Web, and the commercial-quality printouts that can be obtained from them. Few, however, realize the powerful multimedia potential that exists within this self-compressing document file.

In addition to containing fonts and high-rez graphic information, the Portable Document File also supports very useful teaching, searching and customizable researching tools that you expect to find only in web browsers or search links. Creation of interactivity is achieved through very user-friendly control palettes that are designed to give the reader/learner dynamic access to high-end audio and video, QuickTime™ animations and full-color photos, and links to live Internet sites and other publications.

This capability makes the dynamic PDF document as useful on the web as it is on a CD-ROM (which can function independently of a live connection or in tandem with it).

This 45 minute presentation traces the evolution of the enhancing process and discuss some of the technical issues and capabilities that go along with adding video clips, audio files, World Wide Web links, and links of related publications to the surprisingly powerful Acrobat™ PDF documents.

Other areas of discussion might be the levels of security that can be added for content integrity or copyright issues

Joyce DeBoe and Jennifer Obst
The University of Minnesota Extension Service

The New World of Communication: Bridging Client Needs and Services

A fresh look at customer service and innovative strategies for responding to client needs.
How do we structure and market our communication services to internal clients?  We’re finding ourselves working in a more competitive environment.  The captive audience is no more.  Clients don’t have to use our services, which raises customer service to a new level.  In this new environment, how do we organize and present our services to be more relevant and useful?  How can we be more flexible and responsive?  How do we bring value added services to our clients?  We’ll discuss the evolution of communication units and compare a variety of strategies in an effort to highlight what doesn’t work and what does work.  Join us for a lively discussion and share what works in your state.

Yoseph O. Elkana
Agricultural Consultant, Specialist in International Extension and Training, formerly with the Israeli Extension Service and the World Bank

The 'Study Tour' as an Effective Cross-Cultural Communication and Technology-Transfer Training Method

The well-planned and managed "Study Tour" has been found to be an extremely effective and time/cost efficient method for cross-cultural communication and technology transfer, especially among professionals and decision-makers. 'Seeing' is not only 'believing', but also 'learning'.

The presenter will share his experiences with short study tours, in Israel, for participants from tens of developing and developed countries.

Although advanced, Israel's agriculture has only recently undergone development. The visitor can learn and experience the process with people who have themselves gone through it during their lifetime.

Among the lessons to be learned -- that a modern agricultural industry needs:  environmental issues to be part of agricultural policy; multi-based strong research and extension; strong farmer organization; quality genetic bases, and healthy propagating materials; backing by a viable handling, processing, and input manufacture sector, with strong market orientation; exporting high-value produce; and most importantly, quality, dedicated people are the key to success.

Some 5-12 Day Study Tour Success Factors (to be analyzed in depth):

Get full initial information on participant's goals and needs, and tailor-make the program accordingly.

During all visits there is the hidden agenda of how achievements were arrived at.

The visitors are not lectured to, but rather communicate directly with producers and others -- in English,  French, Spanish, Russian or Arabic.

The organizer accompanies the group day and night, to help make all the "pieces of the puzzle" fall into place. Emphasis is on understanding the processes rather than on technologies proper.

A summary session is conducted, and documented. Follow-up is attempted.

Todd Flowers
Pantone, Inc.

The Technology of Color

Discussion of the new and expanding amount of color spaces, exploring the steps to achieve desktop color management and the implementation of color in popular graphics applications.

Meg Ashman , The University of Vermont
Pat Downer, Vermont Agricultural Experiment Station
Bob Fardelmann, University of Vermont Extension
Kim Parker, University of Vermont Extension
Kim Zaletta, University of Vermont Extension

The University of Vermont Image Gallery

Have you ever needed a summer photo when there's three feet of snow on the ground? Our solution—inspired by the ARS image gallery—was to initiate a project that would create a Web-based digital gallery of up-to-date professional photos. The project is a collaborative effort of communicators and technologists in University of Vermont Extension and the Vermont Agricultural Experiment Station, including an editor, graphic designer, and information technologists. We hired a professional photographer and a part-time project coordinator who, in addition to being well organized, enthusiastic, and personable, has some background and interest in many of the technical skills required by the project.

While potentially never-ending, the project will proceed through several phases. In the first phase a variety of shoots were scheduled and photographs taken. Images are available in several sizes and resolutions and include a caption and other searchable information. A unique aspect of this Cold Fusion application is that, using the Web, the task of managing information is a shared responsibility among project members. During this session the presenters will share what you need to know to replicate or adapt this project for your organization so you won't get caught empty-handed by the next snowstorm!

Judy Winn
Texas Agricultural Extension Service

The View from the Front: Agent Evaluations of Extension Publications

When editors and artists create educational publications, we try to intuit how to best meet the needs of the intended audience.
1. What will a reader expect to learn from this publication?
2. How shall we structure and edit the text for the optimum reading level?
3. What design will be most appealing?
4. What format and color choices will contribute to readability

We hope our training and experience will help us make the right choices, but we often lack meaningful feedback for measuring our success.

To get this kind of feedback, communicators in Texas are asking county Extension agents to evaluate selected publications periodically. We want to know how well our educational materials are meeting agents’ programmatic needs as well as the educational needs of Extension customers, and we’ve found that agents are not shy about telling us!

In this session, we’ll share their thought-provoking suggestions for improving publications, as well as the insights we’ve gained—including a cardinal rule we all know but often forget. With accountability such an important issue these days, we communicators need to evaluate our products in the real world where they are used.

Diane Bowen
Texas Agricultural Extension

To Market, To Market: Road Map to Retail

The retail marketplace offers much promise—and some pitfalls—for Extension education products. Texas Extension encountered many triumphs and tribulations as it developed and marketed “Butterflies of Texas” a butterfly identification wheel created specifically to reach new audiences in retail markets.

This session will focus on how we created and marketed the butterfly wheel: what worked, what didn’t, and what we’re doing to capitalize on our success, including:
•  Product development—how the wheel morphed as it went from the initial   brainstorming session, through printing of the first wheels and to delivery of our third edition just 6 months after the first.
•  Development and execution of the marketing plan—retailer contacts, publicity efforts and a big boost from our partnership with the Entomology Department.
•  Expenses and revenues—costs to produce and market, retail and wholesale pricing, and revenues so far.
•  Glitches, missteps and gremlins—our mistakes and what we learned from them;
•  Evaluation—soliciting and receiving feedback from consumers, retailers and subject-matter experts.

The butterfly wheel forged a path into the retail jungle down which Texas Extension hopes a host of new products will follow. This session is designed to help other agencies considering moving into retail markets.

Rob Rost
Oregon State University

Traditional Learners  versus  On-line Learners in an Extension Educational Program. Does the Environment Affect Learning?

Is there a difference between the traditional classroom and the on-line learning environment in terms of the amount of information learned by participants in an Extension Service educational program? The developers of a Master Gardener training web site at Oregon State University conducted a study to examine this question. This session will be a presentation of the study results.

The study employed a pre- and post-test design and analysis of variance (ANOVA) statistical tools to conduct the learning measurement and comparison. A random sample of 100 traditional learners and 100 on-line learners was selected from the statewide group of volunteers participating in Master Gardener training course. Data generated from the study included test scores and demographics information for both the traditional and on-line learner groups.

The use of ANOVA statistical tools allowed researchers to compare test score sets from both groups in a number of ways. For example, in addition to the basic comparison of control group versus treatment group, the test performance of study participants was compared on the basis of demographic characteristics such as age, education level, and others.

Beth Raney and Peg Shuffstall, Penn State University
John Dorner, North Carolina State University

Training & Support Teams for Extension Regions - How do they work?

To conduct technology training in various regions of a state, communications and teamwork is necessary. Teamwork among the IT professionals, extension educators and the regional directors can make or break effect training and support.

What does it take to have an effective training and support program in a region? Some type of communication between the regional director and the regional trainer is good, but what else? Come listen to some ideas that have worked for several Regional IT Specialists.

Jim Hamilton, John Tubbs, Ken Spelke and Tom Ward
University of Illinois

Using a Hybrid Technology Mix for Short-Term Public Information

The University of Illinois and Illinois Farm Bureau were faced with the challenge of a short deadline for getting information to rural farm audiences about the new USDA Commodity Certificates Loan Program in August 2000. To assure timely and accurate information, the decision was made to do a live interactive satellite television Uplink/downlink. Experts were I the Champaign TV studio, including the USDA staff regulating the rural funding. Questions were accepted via telephone, E-mail, and FAX during the live program.

The unique part of the program was that many modern technologies were blended to give the audience the maximum possible opportunity to be informed.
- The program was broadcast in three different satellite technologies: C Band, KU Band, and Direct Broadcast Satellite (DBS) via The Dish Network.
- The live program was also available via computer. The user had the choice of Real Networks Audio, Real Video Streaming, or the Microsoft Streaming Technology.
- Planning also included making the program available through DTN (small aperture satellite) and the Illinois Farm Bureau public feed to radio stations.
- The technology mix also offered the audio over the University of Illinois TeleNet Latitude Bridge system which is an 800 number via telephone lines. In the planning this feed was for those that only had plain old telephone service (POTS) available. It turned out several rural people used the telephone feed via cellular phones while working on the farm, and some radio stations took news feeds off the telephone service. The Latitude Telephone Bridge is the basis for linking together all of the other technologies. The good news is that this service is also available for rental to other Universities.
- For time-shifting, Alternate Plans included viewing after the conclusion of the program. The program was distributed via videotape to all IL Extension Offices, and all IL Farm Bureau Offices. The program was also available via telephone recording from the Latitude Bridge. The program was post-produced and compressed to be available as video streaming from our campus website. There were three different versions to play over 28.8 modem, 56k, and cable modem speeds. The cable modem was full screen at 30 frames per second, so appeared similar to broadcast television.

Brad Schneller
Ontario Ministry of Agriculture

Using ACE Communication Methods to Reach Ontario Farmers and Agriculture Industry

Farmers and the agricultural industry in the Province of Ontario have been the benefactor of many communication methods and techniques researched, tested and used first by ACE professionals in state and federal projects and programs.

The speaker will tell about agricultural communication ideas that were adopted and used in Ontario because Canadians were welcomed to join ACE, given the opportunity to participate in and get to know professional members at national and regional conferences, make entries in the critique and awards program, visit staff in state and federal offices and host a national and a regional meeting.

Linda Benedict  and Tom Merrill
Louisana State University

Using the Editorial Pages for Media Relations

Does your media relations program include meetings with newspaper editorial boards? If not, it should. Editorials and op-ed pieces can be valuable tools for telling the story of your institution and helping to gain public support. Editorial boards may not know as much about agriculture or the land-grant system as you think they do. By meeting with editorial boards, your top administrators will also learn more about how the media works, which should be of some support to you in your work. Op-ed pieces can be tricky. But they too can be valuable when carefully constructed. During this session we will help you develop a plan for making greater use of editorial pages.

Elizabeth Gregory
Texas Agricultural Extension Service

Walk Across Texas: When Marketing Goals and Programming Goals Meet

Walk Across Texas! is a fun and fitness program offered by the Family and Consumer Sciences program of the Texas Agricultural Extension Service. It is a social marketing program that aims to increase the physical activity of its participants through an 8-week team walking competition. The promotional messages are designed from a social marketing perspective, emphasizing the positive, fun, non-guilt-inducing aspects of exercise. After a successful 1998 pilot in 21 counties, Walk Across Texas! Became a statewide “banner program” largely because of its potential for enhancing the image and visibility of Extension while expanding our audience for Family and Consumer Sciences programs. Now in its third year statewide, the program continues to be an exciting example of how programming needs and marketing needs  can be met with the same program. This session will cover the development of the marketing messages and campaign materials, the lessons learned regarding the different pieces of the campaign, and the challenges related to internal marketing (in other words, forestalling the traditional Extension “run and gun” impulse in later years of a successful program).

Kathleen Duncan
Washington State University

Web-Based Accountability System

AICS (Accountability, Information and Communication System) was developed by the Washington State University College of Agriculture and Home Economics and has been used by college faculty since January, 2000.  It was developed to respond to an increasing number of questions about accountability from the University, state legislature, federal agencies and our stakeholders.  It is a Web-based system that all faculty, whether county-based, research center-based or campus-based, use to enter their annual activity reports.  Data entry is via the Web.  The system allows faculty to report on any or all three missions of the College – extension, research and teaching – as well as a number of other areas.  Other report areas include: scholarly activities, partnerships, professional development, professional membership, service, and stakeholder input. To reflect the team nature of much of our work, several components as set up as “team” components.

The system was written in ASP and interfaces with an Access database.

This presentation will demonstrate the input and report features of AICS.  It will describe the changes made in response to what we learned in AICS’ first year.  It will demonstrate the system’s searchability.  And it will focus on how our administrators are using data collected..

Linda Ffolliott
University of Arizona

Webmasters’ Roundtable

This is an informal roundtable discussion for webmasters to meet and exchange information about web site training, standardization in their
units, web policies, programs being used that they feel would be useful to others, etc. I would particularly like to focus on special
tools which can be either developed in-house or commercially purchased. We will collect information about these tools at the meeting.

Karen Cronin
Virginia Tech

“What do radio news directors and program directors think their listeners want to hear?”

The results of recent surveys of radio stations in Virginia (and elsewhere) will be presented and discussed in terms of how Ag. and Extension Radio Communicators can better tailor their radio productions for increase use by stations.  The following questions/topics will be discussed and audience participation encouraged:

*  What topics are most likely to be used?  “Hot topics” vary from year to year and, perhaps, from market to market.  How can radio producers anticipate the trends and increase listenership?

*  How can we measure our audiences and the value of the air time we receive if many of our stations are not in rated markets?

*  What station formats should or do we cater to?

*  Do our intended audiences match the station audiences

Jane Hoffelt
Page Works

What You Need to Know About Publication Design

In this information-packed session, Jane will not only review the elements of effective newsletter and magazine design, but will share lots of ideas to maximize your creativity and inspiration. Also see "How Can You Improve YOUR Publication" immediately following.

Judy Purdy
University of Georgia

What’s with the Dog? Using Student Focus Groups to Guide Recruitment Efforts.

The University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences has faced declining student enrollments in recent years. In 1998, the Education, Communication and Technology unit conducted focus groups with current students and used those findings to develop a series of printed pieces that includes an academic majors brochure and a brochure on each major.

This past summer, ECT staff conducted focus groups with college-bound high school junior and senior 4-H’ers to test the effectiveness of the new recruitment materials, which were included in a larger sampling of recruitment materials from several colleges and universities. Among our findings was the need for a less serious-looking initial contact piece to attract attention and provide a sense of campus life. Student responses guided the overall look, feel and content of the new, light-hearted brochure that used a bulldog theme to explore college life. The theme is being carried over into other College recruitment materials, including a recruitment video, power point presentation and display materials. Follow-up focus groups are planned to evaluate the effectiveness of the bulldog theme.

This paper focuses on how College staff can use input from target audiences to develop effective and appealing materials that transcend the usual recruitment look.

Kris Boone  and Bob Furbee
Kansas State University

Where are the Egg Heads?  Integrating Academic Functions into a Departmental Mission

Teaching and research functions can have some strongly positive effects in a communications unit.  Further the academic program gains from this association as well. At some land-grant universities, communications groups may have an opportunity to work with people in academic roles through formal and informal ways.  Originally, agricultural journalism programs were generally housed in communications units, but many now have been pulled from communications groups and merged with other academic units.  Benefits and drawbacks of these relationships will be discussed.  Specific examples will be drawn from the experience at Kansas State, where the academic program is located in the communications department.

Diane Nelson, Elaine Edwards, Del Marks, Barb Abbott, Jeanne Wiebke, Brian Webster, Robin Brekke, Sorrel Brown and Tim Eggers
Iowa State University Extension

Who Moves the Cheese? -- Iowa State’s Reorganization Experience

Packaging and delivering information is a priority for communication staff. The challenge comes in designing an efficient, flexible,creative system that can adapt to new technology, changing demands for services, and variable funding support. Every state has a different approach to meeting this challenge. More than two years ago, extension communication staff at Iowa State University were given an opportunity to conduct an internal review and to propose their own new future. On October 30, 2000, Communication Systems was merged with Extended and Continuing Education, and given the go-ahead to make additional proposed changes. Details regarding the process and the results will be shared at this session.

Audrey Smith
Wild Card Design

Wild Card Design: Conversation with a Designer

Audrey Smith, designer for Wild Card Design, has created many of Domtar Paper’s interesting and beautiful promotional paper pieces. Come meet and talk to the artist herself, see some examples of her work and find out where she comes up with her creative ideas and concepts.

J. Reynaldo A. Santos and Diann Mitchell
EIT, Texas Agricultural Extension Service / Texas A&M University

Zero Effort Database Kit for the Web

Using databases is a key ingredient to dynamic web sites. While learning how to construct a database is an intimidating task in itself, making it to work reliably on the Web renders it many times more difficult -- or so it seems. This presentation will show how easy it is to develop web-enabled databases using free or low-cost software tools with practically little or no programming skills required. The resulting web site comes complete with data entry, view, edit, print, search, and delete features ideal for use in web-based extension programming. Differential access to database features can be adjusted to address security issues.
 

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