National eXtension Initiative

eXtension staff members hosted three institutional team (iTeam) meetings this week. iTeams representing nearly 40 institutions participated in the meetings and were provided with updates on content development, information technology & training, communications & marketing efforts, and other information related to the intiative. The sessions were conducted using Breezed technology and recordings of each session can be found at:
eXtension iTeam Meeting 27 March 2006
http://breeze.extension.iastate.edu/p10204167/

eXtension iTeam Meeting 28 March 2006
http://breeze.extension.iastate.edu/p28335980/

eXtension iTeam Meeting 29 March 2006
http://breeze.extension.iastate.edu/p39617108/

The next iTeam meetings will be during the week of June 26, 2006. Exact dates of the meetings will be provided at a later time. For more information about iTeams contact Dan Cotton at dan.cotton@eXtension.org.

The Development Committee for the eXtension initiative has been established and will have its first meeting on Thursday, March 30, 1:00-3:00 eastern time. The committee is made up of representatives from several groups. They will assist the staff and governing committee to establish policies and procedures for the eXtension development program.

Members include Carl O’Connor, Executive Director, Association of North Central Extension Directors and representative from ECOP Finance Comimttee, Karen Hinton, University of Nevada and eXtension governing committee treasurer; Ron Brown, Executive Director, Association of Southern Regional Extension Directors; Lavon Bartel, University of Maine, governing committee member; Doyle Meadows, University of Tennessee and Mary Peabody, University of Vermont representing the CoPs; Steve Noah, Iowa State University, Barbara Casady, University of Missouri, and Donald Fry, Colorado State University representing land grant university development staff; Carolyn Hernandez, National 4-H Council; and Dan Cotton, Director, eXtension initiative and Betty Johnson, eXtension development officer representing staff.

Beth Raney has joined eXtension as Professional Development Leader to provide professional development for Cooperative Extension faculty and staff on the use of eXtension developed and supported information technologies. Her appointment with eXtension began on March 1.

Beth’s training areas will include use of eXtension’s content management system, the various wiki spaces used for collaboration within eXtension, frequently asked questions, chat rooms, web conferencing, and other synchronous and asynchronous delivery tools.
Beth comes to eXtension from Penn State University’s Information & Communication Technologies unit in the College of Ag Sciences. She joined Penn State’s Extension Computer Services in 1984 as Computer Education Assistant following three and one-half years as an extension educator in western PA. Beth has collaborated with multi-state teams for training and the support arm of CYFERNet and Email: Beyond the Basics, as well as work as a part of national committees for both NETC and ACE.

Beth can be reached at: beth.raney@eXtension.org or by phone at 814-863-2525.

Leadership teams from the eight Pioneer eXtension Communities of Practice are meeting this week in Louisville KY. The primary focus of the meeting is to train these teams in virtual team building…the art of building and working as teams in a virtual environment. The teams are also seeing demonstrations on how to work together in the eXtension collaborative “wiki” space, hearing some “lessons learned” from some early work as a Community of Practice, learing marketing and financial development strategies, and gaining new insight into the technology resources eXtension offers to Communities of Practice.

The teams represented include: Financial Security for All, Extension Disaster Education Network (EDEN), Imported Fireants, Building Local Economies of the Future, Consumer Horticulture, HorseQuest, Just In Time Parenting, and Wildlife Damage Management.

eXtension staff unveiled our “people.extension.org” integrated account management tool today, providing one website where members of our Communities of Practice, our Extension System technology staff, Institutional Teams, visitors and more can come and manage their account, registered email address, and their profile information.

This tool, located at https://people.extension.org lets folks sign for an eXtensionID, set (and reset) their password, and update their profile information with their affiliated State and University – and county for eXtension County/Parish agents.

We’ll be adding more features to this tool in the future, such as the ability to list interests and areas of expertise, enter biographies, and more! Watch about.extension.org for more announcements about those features in the next several months.

If you have an account, come update your profile. If you don’t have an account – or you previously signed up for one at our former “intranet” site – come sign up for one.

Your eXtensionID will be the gateway to many new and exciting services coming from eXtension over the next several months!

The next meetings for eXtension iTeams (Institutional Teams) are scheduled for March 27, 28, and 29, 2006 from 2:30 to 4:00 p.m. Eastern Time. We have scheduled three meeting times to provide flexibility for iTeams, but we would encourage teams to participate in the call together. Once you have identified a time preference, please send an RSVP email to dan.cotton@eXtension.org.

The agenda and conference connnection information are found at: http://about.extension.org/wiki/iTeam_Meetings

For more information contact:

Dan Cotton
eXtension Director
402.472.2821
dan_cotton@eXtension.org

or

Kevin Gamble
eXtension Associate Director
919.515.8447
kevin_gamble@eXtension.org

The National Equine Resource Team, known as HorseQuest, joined together last week in Lexington, Kentucky to focus on developing content. This hands on meeting facilitated member involvement in the eXtension Communities of Practice Wiki where they further developed material for four educational learning modules. The team was excited to accept new members who hit the ground running and quickly found their place in this ongoing content development.

Discussion also focused on what characteristics should exist to engage in partnerships with groups both in and outside the Cooperative Extension System. Team members brought some really exciting opportunities to HorseQuest and eXtension that can soon be shared with other CoPs.

Despite the fast approaching deadline for launching their equine resources, they still found time and enthusiasm in discussing next steps and began dialogue on how a more robust youth component should be included and the specific audience to targeted.

Additional topics of discussion included peer review guidelines, protocol for adding and recruiting new members to the team, evaluation tactics, graduate and undergraduate student funding for specific tasks, migration of HorseQuest’s existing FAQs to the eXtension FAQ system and identified key members to participate in system testing.

A regular conference call schedule has been established to keep HorseQuest Team members in touch and engaged to take advantage of momentum stimulated during this meeting.

The National Equine Resource Team, known as HorseQuest, joined together last week in Lexington, Kentucky to focus on developing content. This hands on meeting facilitated member involvement in the eXtension Communities of Practice Wiki where they further developed material for four educational learning modules. The team was excited to accept new members who hit the ground running and quickly found their place in this ongoing content development.

Discussion also focused on what characteristics should exist to engage in partnerships with groups both in and outside the Cooperative Extension System. Team members brought some really exciting opportunities to HorseQuest and eXtension that can soon be shared with other CoPs.

Despite the fast approaching deadline for launching their equine resources, they still found time and enthusiasm in discussing next steps and began dialogue on how a more robust youth component should be included and the specific audience to targeted.

Additional topics of discussion included peer review guidelines, protocol for adding and recruiting new members to the team, evaluation tactics, graduate and undergraduate student funding for specific tasks, migration of HorseQuest’s existing FAQs to the eXtension FAQ system and identified key members to participate in system testing.

A regular conference call schedule has been established to keep HorseQuest Team members in touch and engaged to take advantage of momentum stimulated during this meeting.

Recently, I was asked about the 2006 eXtension milestones and when key milestones would be met. I shared with the person they should expect to see the launch of the FAQ / Ask an Expert system, the launch of the first group of public Community of Practice (CoP) Web sites, another group of Communities of Practice named, and much more. If you are one of those interested in knowing more about what to expect this year, please see:

2006 eXtension Milestones: Building and Ramping-Up eXtension

We’re still missing quite a few university branding elements and remind our readers and iTeams (institutional teams) to assure that your institution’s branding elements and graphics have been uploaded to eXtension.
To see if your institutional graphics have been uploaded to eXtension you can go to this link to a List of States Submitting Institutional Graphics on the eXtension wiki site.

If you don’t find your institutional graphic there…follow this link to Graphic Identity Guidelines to learn about how to upload the graphics to the site.

The deadline for submitting all institutional graphics is Wednesday, March 15, 2006.

If you have questions about submitting institutional graphics please contact Terry Meisenbach at Terry.Meisenbach@eXtension.org or 760-318-0276.