National eXtension Initiative

On April 17, 2009, the eXtension staff decided to re-evaluate the future of the news.extension.org application in light of the site usage, our priorities, resources, and on the general recommendations of the 2008 Progress Review Panel to simplify the number of eXtension sites. We have discontinued the operation of the news.extension.org application and the code development at this time.

The application is gone, but we’re still interested in aggregating the Cooperative Extension feeds that were collected at news.extension.org. As an experiment, we’ve taken those feeds and created a Cooperative Extension News “room” in FriendFeed.

You can get a feed from this room to add to your own feed reader, or read the news right in FriendFeed. If you want to share with a wider audience, you can even use FriendFeed to create a widget, and display the latest CE articles on your own website (directions at the bottom of this post).

Visit the Cooperative Extension News FriendFeed room. (If you have a feed that should be added, please let us know about it.)

Friendfeed is just one way to collect and share Cooperative Extension news. If you have other ideas in mind, we’d love to hear what you’re thinking. Thanks!

Make a News Widget

Here’s an easy way you can create a widget to put on your website that will display the latest Cooperative Extension News articles:

1) If you don’t have a FriendFeed account, you need to create one first.
Click the orange “Create an Account” button at
http://friendfeed.com/rooms/cooperative-extension-news
2) After you are signed in, Click the Tools link at the top of FriendFeed
3) Click “Embeddable Widgets” under the “Share your feed” section
4) Click the “Feed Widget” text
5) Select “Cooperative Extension News” from the Feed dropdown selector.
6) Customize your widget options and copy and paste the javascript to
your website

If you listened to last week’s eXtension national conference, you know the staff is compiling reports for states and institutions.

Terry Meisenbach, communications and marketing leader, asked how many feeds I receive to find news for eXtension. My answer was 44 feeds, although perhaps half that number provide the bulk of the news posted on eXtension. I receive two and three feeds from several states—might be a special Web site or blog in addition to the extension news feed.

News feeds come from these states
Alabama
Alaska
Arkansas
California
Florida
Idaho
Illinois
Indiana
Iowa
Kansas
Kentucky
Louisiana
Maine
Maryland
Minnesota
Mississippi
Montana
Nebraska
Nevada
New Hampshire
New Jersey
North Carolina
North Dakota
Ohio
Oklahoma
Oregon
Rhode Island
South Dakota
Texas
Utah
Virginia
Washington
Wisconsin

If you’ve added a news feed or want to make sure I’m getting a specific feed from your institution, please post a question comment or contact me.

Lynette Spicer, Virtual News Room

We’ve gotten several requests for a publishing short-cut button so that minor FAQ edits can go live to the Public Site without stepping through the entire peer-review workflow. If this was a point of frustration for you, we’ve got good news — you can now click the “more options” link in the Publishing Options interface and get a “One-click Publishing” button.

One caveat: while this is a much easier way to publish a FAQ, please remember that no peer review steps will be recorded. So if peer review is important to your group, you don’t want to use this option.

To access the “Publish now” button, click the “more options” link in the Publishing UI. We hope you like the new feature! (note: you won’t see the publishing interface unless you turn on the “Show publishing controls” option in your FAQ preferences.)

Please feel free to use, edit releases about two new communities of practice that are now public on the eXtension site.

Niche Meat Processing Is New Feature on National Cooperative Extension Web Site

New Web Resource Helps U.S. Goat Producers

Lynette Spicer, Virtual News Room

As of April 3, 2009, nearly 9,400 of all approximately 15,000 Cooperative Extension Service professionals had eXtension IDs. We’re working to increase that number to 100 percent!

One of the first steps to being fully engaged with the eXtension initiative is to create this eXtension ID. By doing so you’ll be allowed to work in the eXtension collaborative space, you can become a member of one of 35+ Communities of Practice, and you’ll be registered to receive routine email updates on the initiative.

If you don’t have your ID yet, it’s a simple process! Just go to
http://people.extension.org and you’ll be taken to the registration page.

Encourage your friends and colleagues in Cooperative Extension to do so today!

As of today, eXtension released a youth specific design for youth content developed by Communities of Practice. Any content tagged as “youth” will be displayed in an environment more engaging for young people. To view this environment you can go to http://www.extension.org/science.

eXtension has recently approved four new “needs-based” Communities of Practice based upon a regional priority setting process. CoP names, lead contact name and home institution, and email address follow. For more information please feel free to contact these leaders:

Water Conservation, lead contact is Kelly Kopp at Utah State University (kellyk@ext.usu.edu).
Sustainable Marine Fisheries, lead contact is Kenneth J. La Valley, University of New Hampshire (ken.LaValley@unh.edu).
Food Safety, lead contact is Jean Weese, Auburn University (weesesj@auburn.edu).
Freshwater Aquaculture, lead contacts are Nathan Stone (nstone@uaex.edu) and Steeve Pomerleau (spomerleau@uaex.edu), University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff.

For more information about Communities of Practice contact Craig Wood at craig.wood@extension.org.

We are pleased to announce the approval of the first Professional Development Community of Practice. Led by Ben Silliman (NCSU) and Heather Boyd (Virginia Tech), this 13-institution community of practice will develop web pages, FAQs, Moodle courses, and web conferences related to planning for and designing evaluation of Extension programs; effective evaluation methods; collecting, analyzing, and interpreting data; and communicating evaluation results. For more information about becoming a Professional Development Community of Practice, contact Larry Lippke (larry.lippke@extension.org).

eXtension will host the second of four national web conferences in 2009 on Wednesday April 15. All web conferences are held via Connect at the following web address: http://connect.extension.iastate.edu/teammeeting/ from 2:30 to 4:00 p.m. EASTERN time.

These web conferences serve as a means of updating Cooperative Extension faculty and staff on the current status of the initiative. The other dates for 2009 are:

–July 8
–October 7

Need to learn about how to be more effective in conducting 4H & Youth Development programs? What about improving your presentation skills, understanding Extension history, increasing your knowledge of dietary guidelines and nutrition, agrosecurity, or even forestry? Online courses on these topics and more are available through eXtension at http://pdc.extension.org, and the list is growing almost daily. You may log in at this site by simply using your eXtension ID. Click on the Login link in the upper right corner of the screen and discover the learning opportunities. For more information contact Larry Lippke at larry.lippke@extension.org.