National eXtension Initiative

The Google Custom Search Engine (CSE) provided at search.extension.org now allows eXtension ID holders to contribute to the search engine. Logged in users will see a contribute link on the main search page that points to the new Cooperative Extension Search URL Manager. Anyone with an eXtension ID may add or remove sites as needed. We hope you like this new feature and look forward to everyone helping to make search.extension.org a better and more comprehensive resource.

eXtension will host a national web conference on Wednesday, July 14 from 2:30 to 4:00 p.m. EASTERN. The web conference will update attendees on the eXtension initiative including Communities of Practice, the Military Families Partnership, the eXtension Virtual News Room, and more.

Join the web conference at: http://connect.extension.iastate.edu/teammeeting

For more information contact Terry Meisenbach at tmeisenbach@extension.org.

eXtension has written more than 20 letters of acknowledgment in support of teams developing and submitting Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) grant proposals. Most teams are interested in enhancing existing Communities of Practice, while a few are interested in establishing a new Community of Practice. Proposals are being submitted across a number of program areas, i.e., Foundational, Global Food Security, Food Safety, Childhood Obesity Prevention and Climate Change. CoPs have been involved in forming working partnerships and many have also provided letters of acknowledgment. In many of the proposals we have reviewed Cooperative Extension will play an active role in the development and dissemination of educational programming. It has been a learning process for all involved!

The 2010 National eXtension CoP Workshop held June 6-8, 2010 in Austin, TX was a great success. More than 180 Extension professionals attended and CoPs at various stages of development participated. Seasoned CoP members mentored newer members; eXtension staff provided training and all were engaged in an outstanding learning process. Participants attended 55 concurrent sessions on using eXtension tools and services. Two outstanding keynote speakers, David Warlick of the Landmark Project and Melissa Rach of Brain Traffic were featured. The group was welcomed by Texas Agrilife Extension Director Ed Smith who described the history of the Cooperative Extension Service and the importance eXtension represents to the future of the organization. More than 23 concurrent sessions and the keynote addresses were recorded and web cast during the meeting. Recordings may be found at http://about.extension.org/the-2010national-cop-workshop/.

While there has been information on the eXtension site since early June, there is now an official landing page located under the Disaster Issues Resource Area http://www.extension.org/oil spill. Content includes feature articles, Frequently Asked Questions, news stories and the ability to categorize incoming Ask an Expert questions with the “oil spill” tag. The new Oil Spill Community of Practice has 13 members and 3 identified leaders and work is underway to develop new content and membership. The regional task forces identified by the Gulf state Extension and SeaGrant directors are developing this eXtension content. Other Communities of Practice, including Financial Security for All, are contributing content, as appropriate. Resources on eXtension for the public are complementary to educational packages for Extension educators hosted on the EDEN website.

The Association for Communications Excellence in Agriculture , Natural Resources and Life and Human Sciences (ACE) honored two eXtension staff at its annual conference in St. Louis, Mo. Terry Meisenbach, eXtension Communications and Marketing Leader received the ACE Professional Award and Anne Adrian, eXtension Military Families Social Media Strategist, received the ACE Pioneer Award for the Southern Region.

The Professional Award is the highest honor the organization presents and recognizes excellence and professionalism as a communicator. It is based on achievements over an extended period of time and on participation in and support of ACE. The Pioneer Award presented annually, honors members in each region who demonstrate exceptional leadership and technical skills and make significant contributions to ACE during their early careers.

Terry Meisenbach

Meisenbach joined eXtension in 2005 following work at USDA/CSREES as Communications Director and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln as Extension communications specialist. While at USDA he worked nationwide to collaboratively develop a national impact writing and reporting system that has become an integral part of telling the story of agricultural research, extension, and teaching. Since 2005 he’s worked to build interest and engagement in eXtension throughout Cooperative Extension and the land grant university system. He has been ACE president, North Central Regional Director, and held other leadership positions in the organization, including co-founding the ACE Leadership Institute with other past ACE presidents.

Anne Adrian

Adrian joined eXtension in 2010 and has been instrumental in leading the Cooperative Extension Information Technology community throughout her career. Her recent focus on social media has been instrumental in helping eXtension professionals and her colleagues at Auburn University become aware of the benefits of adopting various software applications, digital imaging and diagnostics, and incorporating social media tools in Extension programming. She is part of a new eXtension initiative focusing on military families.

ACE is an international association of communicators, educators and information technologists. It offers professional development and networking for individuals who extend knowledge about agriculture, natural resources and life and human sciences.

A study report documenting the transformative effects of eXtension on Community of Practice members will be officially released in the next several weeks. The results are based on data collected from entries in the transformation section of the Community of Practice Profiles submitted by 11 Communities of Practice in June 2009 and individual interviews with 12 Community of Practice members from nine Communities of Practice completed in May, 2010. The results indicate that without question, eXtension is having a transformative effect in changing the manner in which these individuals do Extension work. Key transformative themes and effects that emerged from the two data sets are:

• Enhanced teamwork and professional contacts: eXtension has changed the way that Extension professionals think and act about working together. A majority of individual Community of Practice members commented on how they now spend time working in teams rather than individually. This has also led to an increase in their own expertise as a result of creating educational content in a Community of Practice. Working in multi-institutional and state teams have made them more aware of research and educational activities occurring in other states and countries, has allowed them to make new contacts with other experts they may never have discovered (within other universities as well as other agencies), and has improved the scope of their educational outreach efforts. As one Community of Practice member commented, “It’s given me the opportunity to get to know colleagues in the same area…who I would never have collaborated with before.” Finally, working in eXtension has allowed them to work past some of the traditional boundaries between landgrant universities to work together on content.

•Increased utilization of new tools/technologies: eXtension has provided the technical expertise to allow individuals to learn and explore new tools/technologies that are not readily or easily accessible on university campuses. As one Community of Practice noted: “eXtension has pushed some of the Community of Practice members to work with new technology such as the wiki, Breeze conferences, and the FAQ system.” eXtension has made available a whole new set of tools/technologies (e.g., webinars, chats, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, blogs) that are broadening and enhancing Extension’s capabilities to reach and interact with traditional as well as new digital audiences.

•Broader content and outreach: Due to interaction within and among Communities of Practice, educational materials are broader in content and are being made available to a wider audience than could have been achieved through an individual institutional/state focused effort. As one Community of Practice commented, “Community of Practice members found that participating in a collaborative work environment stimulated their outreach efforts because they were not responsible for being the sole source of all information.” This comment appears to emphasize the notion that Extension professionals involved in eXtension are realizing that we can leverage the resources of the entire system to meet the needs of state and local clientele by working collaboratively together.

The full report will be made available to the Extension system in the next several weeks. If you have questions, please contact Mike Lambur, eXtension Evaluation and Research Leader at mike.lambur@extension.org.

Eleven land grant universities provided more than half the 326 news releases posted on eXtension during June. The largest number of news releases came from:

University of Missouri–29
Louisiana State University–22
Kansas State University–16
Mississippi State University–16
University of Arkansas–16
Oklahoma State University–15
University of Illinois–15
University of Georgia–13
North Dakota State University–10
Ohio State University–10
University of Wisconsin–10

Between 6 to 10 news releases each were posted from 12 universities: Iowa State University, Michigan State University, North Carolina Cooperative Extension, Penn State University, Purdue University, Texas AgriLife Extension, University of Arizona, University of Florida, University of Idaho, University of Kentucky, University of Nebraska and Utah State University.

Between one to five news releases came from 12 universities: Alabama Cooperative Extension, Colorado State University, Cornell University, Maryland Cooperative Extension, Montana State University, Rutgers University, University of California, University of Minnesota, University of Nevada, University of Rhode Island, University of Tennessee and Virginia Cooperative Extension.

Land-grant university experts and even students from Montana State University contributed to what the nation and world can learn about the Gulf of Mexico Oil spill and the impacts. Both the new Oil Spill CoP resource area, http://www.extension.org/oil_spill, and the Agrosecurity and Floods resource, http://www.extension.org/disasters, have news about the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. It’s not surprising that Louisiana State University was the source of 9 of the 23 oil spill releases posted on eXtension. Other land grants and sea-grants had news on the impacts. News came from Iowa State University, Michigan State University, Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant, Mississippi State University, Montana State University, University of Arizona, University of California and University of Florida as well as DOE, Gulf of Mexico Alliance, NOAA and the Unified Command.

June news releases from 35 states were posted in 32 live CoPs and five not-yet-launched CoPs.

Resource areas with more than 10 news releases posted were:

Gardens, lawns and landscapes–37
Families, food and fitness–30
Personal finance–22
Parenting –20
Oil spill–17
Corn and soybean production–15
Food safety–15
Farm energy–14
Beef cattle–13
Dairy–13
Entrepreneurs and their communities–13
Agrosecurity and floods–12
Family caregiving–11
Horses–11

Each person who has an eXtension ID can share links to the social media tools he or she uses. Go to your profile in https://www.extension.org/people/ to list your Facebook page, Twitter account and more than 20 other media. After listing your social media sites, use the find colleagues by social networks link to start connecting. 493 people have listed their Facebook page, 305 have listed their Twitter account, and 153 have listed their LinkedIn site. Where else can you find those kinds of connections?

YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, SecondLife, SlideShare, Ning, Drop.io and blogs are all a part of today’s communication. eXtension Communities of Practice are on all those social media platforms.

Cooperative Extension has a rich history of going to the people and their communities. Today those communities are online.

Ashley Fondren at Mississippi State University has been tweeting for the Families, Food and Fitness eXtension Community of Practice (@FFFCoP) since last October. Among her 449 Twitter followers are the White House, Newsweek, Parenting and Baby Talk magazines, Disney’s Family.com, Baylor Health, the American Heart Association, Southern Living magazine, Liz Szabo with USA Today and many Extension colleagues.

Fondren said her Community of Practice actively engages its target audience and increases the availability of its content through Twitter. @FFFCoP connects with health, nutrition and media entities helping to spread the word about eXtension’s Families Food and Fitness Community of Practice. She concludes, “Engaging in social media like Twitter and Facebook gives you the opportunity to learn the most up to date information instantly! Join the conversation today! Follow @FFFCoP by clicking http://twitter.com/FFFCoP.”

The Communities of Practice homepage in the eXtension wiki has a link to the social media platforms Communities of Practice use, http://cop.extension.org/wiki/Main_Page. eXtension Communities of Practice evaluate various media, often starting with one and then expanding.

“Rather than be overwhelmed by all the social media options, we suggest CoPs select one platform, become familiar with how people use it and try it,” said Craig Wood, eXtension Associate Director and Content Leader.

Professional development sessions and conferences hosted by eXtension focus on social media communication tools. Archived webinars are at http://about.extension.org/wiki/Recordings_of_eXtension_Professional_Development_Sessions#Social_Networking.

In addition to the Community of Practice sites, find the eXtension organization on social media at:
Facebook – Cooperative Extension
Second Life – Morrill
SlideShare – Cooperative Extension
Twitter – @BeGrowCreate
YouTube – eXtensionInitiative
Blog — http://about.extension.org/blog/
Feeds — http://www.extension.org/feeds