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AGENDA: June 17 2009

AGENDA: June 17 2009. Agenda:

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AGENDA: June 17 2009

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  1. AGENDA: June 17 2009 Agenda: • Where are we now and what is eOrganic's vision for the next few years?  We described this in our proposal, so lets take a look at that. Please read the proposal to refresh your memory!  Proposal highlights will be shown in a brief powerpoint presentation. 30 mins incl discussion • Where do we need to be in October when the new rfa comes out? What questions do we need to answer in our monthly meetings? Let's make a list of the issues. Here are some ideas to get us started. 30 mins incl discussion • What should be the agenda for July's call, and what do we need to do to prepare for that call? 15 mins

  2. eOrganic the National Information, Training, and NetworkingSystem for Organic Agriculture

  3. Timeline and Funding • eOrganic began to develop as an eXtension Community of Practice in fall 2006 with funding from eXtension (45K) • eOrganic received OREI funding in fall 2007 (612K: lead OSU, with UVM, UIL, UMN) • eOrganic launched its community workspace in fall 2007 and developed its first wave of content on that workspace throughout 2008. • eOrganic (lead, Clemson, w/OSU) received an Extension IPM grant: 100K: Oct 2008-Sept 2010 • eOrganic published its first content to eXtension in January 2009. • eOrganic submitted a new proposal to IOP in March 2009 (10 Universities) • This proposal was not funded, but the IOP will fund eOrganic at approx 300+K in 09-10

  4. eOrganic Proposal Highlights

  5. People/PIs (12 institutions) • Heather Darby Title: Extension Assistant Professor UVM • Mary Barbercheck Title: Professor, PSU • Timothy Coolong Title: Extension Faculty, UKY • Cynthia Daley Title: Professor, CSU Chico • Darin Eastburn Title: Associate Professor, UIUC • Eric Gallandt Title: Associate Professor, U ME • John Hendrickson Title: Senior Outreach Specialist, UW • John Lambrinos Title: Assistant Professor, OrSU • Sally Miller Title: Professor, OhSU • Anusuya Rangarajan Title: Director, Small Farms Program, Cornell • Erin Silva Title: Associate Scientist, UW • Garry Stephenson Title: Director, Small Farms Program, OrSU • Danielle Treadwell Title: Assistant Professor, UF • Michelle Wander Title: Associate Professor, UIUC • Roger Leigh Title: IT Director, OrSU • Deborah Cavanaugh-Grant Title: Extension Specialist, UIL • Jim Riddle, Organic Specialist, U MN • Brian Baker, OMRI

  6. eOrganic's Public Content • eOrganic launched its public content at eXtension in late January 2009. To date, over 60 authors have contributed to more than 180 articles, 75 FAQs, and 100 videos. • Since our public launch, eOrganic's articles have seen over 77,000 hits (total number of times our pages have been viewed) on eXtension, with more than 22,000 hits in May. The most-visited article in May was Bonnie Cox's Training Systems and Pruning in Organic Tomato Production with over 700 hits. • eOrganic's videos at Youtube have seen over 25,000 total views. The most-viewed video is footage of Suzy and Robelee Evans demonstrating their Reigi weeder. This video has been viewed by people in India, Turkey, Russia, and Brazil.

  7. Content Templates

  8. Citation formats and eOrganic disclaimer

  9. Geographic relevance • Permissions (image, excerpt, etc)/ types(creative commons) • Source of info (science, practitioner, regulation) • Contributors and contributions

  10. eOrganic.info • eOrganic started developing an eOrganic-configured Drupal-based "collaborative workspace" (eOrganic.info) in August 2007 in partnership with eXtension • eXtension agreed to work with us to "feed" our completed articles from eOrganic.info to eXtension.org for publication. Content developed at eOrganic.info and in publication-ready form can now be published to eXtension.org with the click of a mouse. • ***OSU supports two other workspaces: PBGworks, also supported by CSREES (Plant Genome), and the OSU Hort Dept. workspace.

  11. eOrganic.info functionality Current functionalities of the website include: 1) individual member tools: customizable personal profile pages, a task manager, and blogging 2) groups of various types - discipline (e.g., soils, cover crops, and disease management), farming system (e.g., dairy, diversified vegetables), project (OREI, SARE, and other research/outreach projects), and administrative (Leadership Team, Editorial Committee, Membership Committee, etc.) 3) group tools: member lists, email notifications, forums, photo sharing, task management, a "wiki" for group documentation, free webconferencing, and activity streams 4) help section 5) aggregated news feeds: "listening station" for the web featuring organic and sustainable agriculture information 6) publishing workflow (articles move from idea—draft—final draft—review—author revisions—certification -review—copy edit—ready to publish—publish—republish); 7) a managed, anonymous, peer-review process; 8) direct publishing to www.extension.org. 9) associated metadata (data permanently associated with the page) including contributor attribution and permissions, geographic relevance (state and NRCS ecoregion), information type (science-, experience-, and/or regulation-based), and date.

  12. eOrganic Outreach • eOrganic members presented and staffed booths on behalf of eOrganic from late 2007 to March 2009. • Collectively, eOrganic members have participated in more than 38 events attended by over 13,000 people. Approximately 1000 eOrganic factsheets and 2000 eOrganic bookmarks have been handed out at these events. • Major events: Eco-farm conference, Southern SAWG, the Midwest Organic Farming Conference, PASA, Organicology, 6th International IPM Conference, and many producer meetings, classrooms, policy maker meetings, and more.

  13. eOrganic Project Goals: • Goal 1: Further develop eOrganic, the Organic Production Resource Area at eXtension.org, as a resource for farmers, agricultural professionals, certifiers, researchers, educators seeking information on best organic agricultural practices, research results, farmer experiences, and certification. • Goal 2: Train organic farmers, extension personnel, and other agricultural professionals in organic agricultural principles and practices. • Goal 3: Facilitate researcher/educator/farmer networking, collaboration, and research and outreach project management through the eOrganic.info workspace and web community

  14. Goal 1: Further develop eOrganic, the Organic Production Resource Area at eXtension.org as a resource for farmers, agricultural professionals, certifiers, researchers and educatorsseeking information on best organic agricultural practices, research results, farmerexperiences, and certification.

  15. Activity One: Publish text-based peer-reviewed science-, experience-, and regulation-basedinformation to eXtension.org. • Our first content focuses on the fundamentals of organic agriculture (soil and pest management, certification) as well as dairy (model livestock) and diversified vegetables (model cropping) systems. • Content is typically authored or co-authored by some combination of group leaders and members, authors outside the group who volunteer to submit an article to the group, and/or contract authors.

  16. Content models • Groups take leadership in providing models for specific strategies or formats for content development. • The Soils Group led efforts to incorporate OREI-funded research results into eOrganic articles and to address the relationship between organic certification and other federal programs • The Vegetable Group published video content and initiated the eOrganic YouTube site (http://www.youtube.com/eOrganic). • The Dairy and Vegetable Groups described farmer experiences in the form of both articles and videos. • The Cover Crops group is exploring with SARE how to bring SARE content (using the book Managing Cover Crops Profitably as a model) to eOrganic/eXtension. • The Seeds Group published an entire resource guide

  17. Each group described future content development plans Dairy group future content topics: : • Forage and grain cropping and grazing systems for organic dairies; • Economics and marketing, with emphasis on value added processing considerations and interactive economic decision-making tools; • Advanced content on organic dairy herd nutrition; • Advanced content on organic dairy herd health; • Livestock selection: breeding and purchasing considerations; • Infrastructure considerations. A special emphasis will be placed on ration development based on high forage and low grain diets as well as maximizing farm grown forage yield and quality,

  18. Vegetable Group: • Regional leaders: Anu Rangarajan, Cornell (northeast); Tim Coolong, Univ of KY (south); Erin Silva and John Hendrickson, Univ of WI (midwest); Alex Stone, Oregon State (west)] • Crop-specific content will be developed in years one and two on carrots, peas, beans, cucurbits, brassicas, potato, lettuce, and spinach (adapting content from the Cornell organic crop guides); • year three on tomatoes, peppers, onions, and garlic (crops not addressed by the NY project). • Content will be nationalized and regionalized.

  19. Vegetable Group content (w/pest, soils, covers groups): • Crop specific content will include: cover crops, soil health, field selection, disease management, nonpathogenic disorders, insect management, crop and soil nutrient management, harvesting and post harvest handling, and pesticide registrations. • Regional organic and conventional vegetable production guides will be used as reference materials (e.g., the online Southeastern US Vegetable Crop Handbook). • The Soils, Disease and Insect Management, and Cover Crops groups will work closely with the Vegetable Group on the crop specific articles. • The Vegetable Group will also address cross-crop issues in partnership with appropriate groups: transition, rotation planning, soil health, systems plan development, whole farm systems strategies, cover crops, nutrient management, plastic mulches, season extension, irrigation, transplant production methods, seeding methods, potting mixes, packing shed design and management, and food safety.

  20. Activity Two: Publish video-based information demonstrating practitioner experiences andresearch results to eXtension.org • eOrganic will develop short video clips and more polished video series to demonstrate farmer- and researcher-generated organic production strategies and experiences. • Video clips will be available at eOrganic's YouTube channel (http://www.youtube.com/user/eOrganic), as series with audio transcription at eXtension.org, embedded in articles as appropriate, and used in webinars/short courses

  21. Group video initiatives • The Vegetable Group: Video effort will focus on communicating farmer expertise. At least 5 clips and one video series will be published per region. Video topics will include rotation planning, post-harvest packing and handling (emphasis on food safety), reduced tillage, and season extension. • The Disease Management Group will produce at least three videos: 1) grafting of greenhouse tomatoes for disease management (OREI-funded project led by Francis, OhioSU), 2) hot water and chlorine treatment of vegetable seed, 3) scouting for vegetable diseases on your organic farm. • The Weed Management Group will produce at least 8 short videos demonstrating research results for a grower audience. • The Weed Group will also identify at least two experienced "systems weed managers" in each of the 4 regions and produce videos demonstrating farmer weed management strategies. The videos will highlight specific management practices and systems-level approaches. The farming systems will include diversified vegetables, cash grain, and integrated animal systems.

  22. Activity Three: Develop Models for Regionalization of eOrganic Content • The New Ag Network (NAN, http://www.new-ag.msu.edu/) will serve as a model for eOrganic regional networking and communication that includes development of regionally-specific content for publication to eXtension.org. • NAN (led by Deborah Cavanaugh Grant, in cooperation with Liz Maynard, Purdue; Dale Mutch and Joy Landis, MSU) is a 5 year old outreach collective directed by educators at 3 Midwestern Land Grant Universities and advised by midwestern organic farmers. • NAN will form a Research-Outreach Group in eOrganic’s workspace. NAN will facilitate networking among organic farmers, educators, and researchers in the Great Lakes Region using the eOrganic.info interface by coordinating virtual project tours and seminars with regional researchers, educators, and farmers (see Goal Three); at least one third of these seminars will be developed into eOrganic articles. In addition, NAN will collaboratively develop its regional newsletter in the workspace, and some newsletter content will be adapted for publication to eXtension.org.

  23. Activity Four: Build Partnerships with other Organic Agriculture Information Providers • eOrganic published cover crop articles adapted from SARE's book Managing Cover Crops Profitably in its January launch The text from the chapter was brought into eOrganic.info, information that was not compliant with the NOP regulations was removed, and additional photos, text and videos were inserted as appropriate. • eOrganic will continue to collaborate with SARE representatives (Andy Clark and Dena Liebman, see SARE Letter of Collaboration, Appendix 1) to develop strategies by which SARE content can be updated and augmented through the collaborative efforts of the eOrganic Cover Crops Group and made available at eXtension.org. This model may then be adapted for partnerships with other organic agriculture information providers.

  24. Activity Five: Further develop eOrganic.info and eXtension public site: • Customizable personal pages • Customizable group workspaces • Training on the adoption of other group communication and collaboration tools: • Training strategies to suit different learning styles • Improved public site usability

  25. Activity Six: Build and Manage the Ask-an-Expert system.

  26. Goal 2: Train organic farmers, extension personnel, and other agricultural professionals inorganic agricultural principles and practices.

  27. Activity One: Conduct webinar series for farmers and agricultural professionals highlighting eOrganic content, OREI/other research results, and regional expertise. • All webinars will be taped and video streamed from eXtension.org and at least one third will be developed into text-based eOrganic articles. • eOrganic will evaluate the utility and efficacy of coordinating "webinar parties" at local Extension offices or farms with high speed internet.

  28. EORGANIC ‘FUNDAMENTALS OF ORGANIC AGRICULTURE (FOA)’ WEBINARS • eOrganic will offer a minimum of 6 FOA webinars each year. The webinars will target farmers, Extension educators, other agricultural professionals. • eOrganic will seek out presenters representing past and current OREI-funded projects in an effort to bring OREI project research results and researchers together with farmers and agricultural professionals. • Topics: Principles of Organic Soil Fertility; Organic Agriculture and Soil Health; Organic Management of Plant Health; Organic Management of Livestock Health; Cover Cropping in Organic Cropping Systems; Introduction to Organic Systems Planning; Soil Testing in Organic Farming Systems.

  29. Webinars: Primary audience – farmers, ag professionals Dairy Webinars • Year 1 Theme: Critical Issues for Organic Dairy Farmers • Year 2: Advanced Herd Health and Nutrition Vegetable Webinars • Years 2-3: Regional Webinar Series (all 4 regions): "Making Your Organic Systems Plan Work for You". Exploring the organic system plan as a tool to improve a farm's productivity and sustainability. • Audience: experienced diversified organic vegetable farmers.

  30. Activity Two: Train extension agents/agricultural professionals in organic principles/practices and organic farming systems mngmnt by conducting online certificate short courses (dairy and vegetable production) Vegetable Production Short Course: “Introduction to Organic Vegetable Production: a Systems Approach”. Vegetable group in partnership with Cover Crop, Soils, Disease and Insect Management, and Weed Management Groups. • Module 1: Introduction to organic vegetable production: a systems approach • Module 2: Organic certification and systems plans • Module 3: Organic soil management: cover crops, composting and nutrient budgeting • Module 4: Crop selection and rotation practices • Module 5: Pest Management: a systems approach (4 module series) • Module 6: Organic and ecological weed management • Module 7: Organic and ecological insect management • Module 8: Organic and ecological disease management • Module 9: Organic vegetable crop harvest and postharvest management • Module 10: Business management and enterprise budgeting • Module 11: Course evaluation and discussion

  31. Goal 3: Facilitate researcher/educator/farmer networking, collaboration - and research andoutreach project management through the eOrganic.info workspace and web community

  32. Activities One and Two: Invite and support research and outreach group use of the workspace for projectmanagement; evolve workspace for this use. • Identify OAREI and other organic agriculture research/outreach projects • Bring them into eOrganic.info; use workspace for project management • Collaborative writing, review, all work archived • Group decision making (forums, archived) • Image gallery (with metadata) • Meeting scheduling, webconferencing • Other group management tools • Publication to eXtension and other venues • Interaction with the larger eOrganic community • Improve workspace for this use in collaboration with users

  33. Activity Three: Foster Research-Outreach Group Networking • Virtual Seminar Series: Each research and outreach project, farming system, and discipline group will host or co-host at least one virtual seminar series during the course of this project. These will consist of at least four 1 hour virtual seminars hosted through Adobe Connect Pro. The host group will select a seminar topic, work with the ROG coordinator to identify, invite, and schedule 4 presenters with expertise in that topic, invite participants (typically, all eOrganic members and others), and conduct the seminars. All seminars will be taped and available as streaming video from eXtension.org. In addition, at least one third of all seminars will be reformatted into text-based eOrganic articles. • Possible topics include: • Planning and Managing Farming Systems Trials, • New Ideas in On-Farm and Participatory Research and Outreach, • Core Data Sets in Organic Systems Research, • Using eOrganic.info as an Integrated Research and Outreach Tool, • Long Term Organic Systems Trials: What have we learned?, • Reduced Tillage in Organic Farming Systems. • Virtual Project Tours: In addition, each RO group maintaining a workspace in eOrganic will host at least one virtual group tour during the course of the project. These tours would include: introduction of group members, brief overview of group objectives and activities, in-depth consideration of one or more activities, and problems the group has encountered. Virtual tours would be 1–1.5 hrs in duration.

  34. How you can incorporate eOrganic into your OAREI proposal • Create an eOrganic research-outreach group to manage your project, create a public and eOrganic.info web presence,  collaborate, and communicate with your members. • Describe how you plan to participate in and/or take leadership for eOrganic.info research community activities, including virtual project tours and virtual seminars, For example, coordinate 4 virtual seminars given by research/integrated groups from various parts of the country on a given topic • Designate at least one member of your group to serve on an eOrganic committee and state this in your workplan. Currently, these committees include 1) Workspace Development, 2) Publication, 3) Outreach, 4) Evaluation, 5) Membership, 6) Research/integated project groups, 7) Farmer engagement.  Project staff managing eOrganic activities must participate as members of the eOrganic Staff Group. • State in your plan of work that you and other group members will join relevant eOrganic discipline and/or farming system groups (e.g. soils, insect management, dairy, vegetables). •  Make a plan to develop outreach materials appropriate for publication to the Organic Agriculture Resource Area at eXtension.org • Each new group joining eOrganic should designate and budget for a person or persons that 1) provides group content development vision/leadership, 2) trains group members on use of the workspace, 3) coordinates content development, formatting, and editing, 4) works with eOrganic staff to manage content review, and 5) coordinates webinars and seminars, if appropriate. • Incorporate funding for eOrganic platform and publication support into your budget. This funding supports development of and basic training on the workspace; oversight of review, copy editing, and publication of eXtension content; and webinar and webconferencing capabilities.   If your project is focused specifically on vegetable or dairy production, the two systems eOrganic is focusing on presently, your group does not have to include eOrganic funds in its budget.

  35. Activity Four: Foster Farmer Networking and Collaboration • Develop a core group of experienced farmers representing various regions who are interested in web interactivity and networking. This group will identify, explore, and evaluate various strategies for developing farmer networking through eOrganic.info and other web initiatives. • Strategies may include: • virtual farm tours (similar to a seminar) in which farmers take virtual tour participants on a farm tour using photos/videos depicting the farm operation or specific strategies; • discussion forums on specific topics; • farmer-led webinar discussions on specific farming topics, e.g. packing shed design/management; conservation practices. • Vegetable leader Hendrickson will partner with this effort to determine how the Univ of WI website (www.marketfarmtoolbox.com) might be developed as a site for farmers to post equipment reviews and plans, record-keeping forms, and reports from on-farm variety/research trials.

  36. Outreach • eOrganic will reach out to farmers, extension and other agricultural professionals, researchers, and others through many activities from the eXtension.org public site itself and through webinars, short courses, and virtual seminars. • In addition, eOrganic will reach out through: eOrganic News: eOrganic will publish an on-line newsletter on a quarterly basis. Each edition will include updates on newly published content available at eXtension.org, a profile of an eOrganic member, announcements of webinars, seminars, and short courses, feature articles on timely organic education topics (e.g. the recent changes in the organic pasture standards), and news from organic research projects. Outreach at conferences, workshops, and other events • Identify, prioritize, schedule and staff outreach events, develop and distribute press releases, as well as collect data and report on events attended, presentations conducted, booths staffed, numbers of people contacted, and materials distributed. • Develop, improve/update, and print outreach materials. eOrganic distributes a trifold brochure for recruitment of CoP members, as well as a fact sheet and bookmark describing the eOrganic public content at eXtension.org. • Regional travel and materials distribution, as well as communication with regional media, will be coordinated by regional “press secretaries”

  37. Evaluation The project evaluation will provide: • ongoing feedback to eOrganic project groups in order to support continuous improvement in their work, • an independent, objective accounting of the outcomes and impact of the project. The scope of the evaluation will focus on: • the extent to which the publicly available information resources developed by the project provide high quality, relevant, and useful educational materials that support the nation’s organic farming enterprises • the extent to which the eOrganic project has developed an effective workspace that supports collaboration among researchers and agricultural professionals

  38. Evaluation Tools and Strategies • Published content: Public content users (farmers, ag professionals. others). Survey instruments and feedback forms will include questions that address the content, format and accessibility of the information resources • Participatory events: Survey participants about the effectiveness of participatory events such as webinars. Pre- and post-test assessments of knowledge, attitudes, skills, aspirations, and behaviors. • Ask-an-Expertsystem: will generate a database of users from which a sample will be surveyed about the effectiveness of this eOrganic service. In each case, a common core set of questions will be used across all content areas to provide an overview of audience feedback across all eOrganic topics; questions of special interest to specific groups may be added as necessary. • Individual or focus group interviews: Common protocols for conducting individual or focus group interviews, website usability testing, and content reviews will be developed.

  39. Discussion of Proposal Identification of areas in which eOrganic is supporting/enhancing mission/goals of Integrated Organic Program

  40. Questions to be answered by Oct? • Where do we need to be in October when the new rfa comes out? What questions do we need to answer in our monthly meetings? Let's make a list of the issues. Here are some ideas to get us started. 30 mins incl discussion • What is/should be the relationship between eOrganic and the IOP (and how does this relate to CSREES/eXtension  partnership)? • How does/can eOrganic support/enhance the mission and  goals of the IOP? • What is eOrganic core, and what is not?  How can CSREES support eOrganic core? • How should IOP-supported projects partner with eOrganic, should they write eOrganic into their budgets, and if so, how much? • Next step: What should be the agenda for July's call, and what do we need to do to prepare for that call? 15 mins

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