NTAE 2021-22 Progress Report.docx

NTAE 2021-22 Progress Report.docx

March 2022 Progress Report and Prospectus of Work for Year 4 as of March 2022

NTAE 2021-22 Progress Report

Funding Opportunity Number: USDA-NIFA-OP-006747 Award Number: 2019-41595-30123 Awarded to Oklahoma State University Total Award: $3,408,000.00

Reporting Period: September 1, 2021 to February 28, 2022 (Year 2, Quarters 1 and 2) Date Submitted: March 7, 2022

Prepared by: Extension Foundation (Dr. Beverly Coberly, Extension Foundation PI) ℅ Bryan Cave LLP One Kansas City Place 1200 Main Street, Suite 3800

Submitted to:

Dr. Thomas Coon Dr. Damona Doye Oklahoma State University OSU Division of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources

139 Agricultural Hall Stillwater, OK 74708

1

I NTRODUCTION

Oklahoma State University (OSU), a Carnegie top-tier research university, is well-known for improving our quality of life by bringing new technologies, processes, and research to the marketplace. Under the leadership of President Burns Hargis, OSU embraces a culture of collaboration and innovation. Continuing that tradition, OSU submits this proposal in partnership with the Extension Foundation (EXF). As a land grant university (LGU), OSU is an eligible entity for the New Technologies for Ag Extension (NTAE) funding opportunity offered by USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA), and, therefore, serves as lead applicant and fiscal agent for the NTAE project described below. NTAE funding will allow OSU and its partners to advance the following strategic goals established by USDA for 2018-2022: Goal 1: Ensure USDA Programs are delivered efficiently, effectively, with integrity and a focus on customer service. Goal 2: Maximize the ability of American agricultural producers to prosper by feeding and clothing the world.

Goal 3: Promote American agricultural products and exports. Goal 4: Facilitate rural prosperity and economic development.

Goal 5: Strengthen the stewardship of private lands through technology and research. Goal 6: Foster productive and sustainable use of our National Forest System Lands. Goal 7: Provide all Americans access to a safe, nutritious, and secure food supply. In addition to advancing the strategic goals, OSU and its partners are committed to using NTAE funding to enable a technology-conscious nation to make use of the valuable information and education that the CES has to offer. To that end, the proposed Enhancing Electronic Extension (E3) project will expand upon the progress Extension Foundation has achieved during the past twelve years of NIFA-funded initiatives as well as implement innovative strategies that impact the future.

Extension Foundation Organizational History

In 2004, Cooperative Extension directors and administrators established the Extension Foundation with a singular directive: to increase Extension professionals’ effectiveness in addressing issues of importance to the nation. Key strategies to achieve this mission included: advancing the use of technology to engage learners; bringing together existing knowledge and

2

technology to create new practices and knowledge, and engaging a broader and more diverse learning community across rural and urban settings.

Since July 2006, USDA-NIFA has invested NTAE funding in the Extension Foundation’s national infrastructure, first through the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, then through Michigan State University. OSU’s application for NTAE funding sought to augment the Extension Foundation’s efforts—both within the Cooperative Extension System (CES) and among strategic partners who are positioned to contribute expertise and connect with diverse audiences. Today, the Extension Foundation is a member-based nonprofit virtual network of approximately 35,000 Extension educators. The Extension Foundation is part of the national CES with a board of directors composed of elected CES directors and administrators from each of the six Extension regions, along with ex officio members from the Extension Committee on Organization and Policy (ECOP) and NIFA. Review of Year 3 Objectives This report is a summary based on the two quarterly reports from Year 3. This report lists activities, outcomes, and outputs by area or project, which result in an integrated progress report rather than an objective-based report. This report will have primary project plans, activities and early outputs as the report are completed with only two quarters of work. Objectives of the NTAE grant are listed below: Objective 1. Foster opportunities for innovation by connecting CES personnel with new and innovative technologies that engage a wide array of learners. a. Enhance and upgrade existing functionalities b. Provide customer support, including help-desk staffing, web hosting, training, and software licenses. c. Provide infrastructure support for technical and architectural standards. Objective 2. Provide professional development opportunities that promote the use of open networked learning and other forms of online-based teaching resources. This work will be done through the mobilization of new talents and networks with projects aligned with the USDA Strategic Goals. a. Mobilizing Talent and Networks b. The Professional Development effort

3

Objective 3. Build capacity within and across the CES to effectively engage strategic partners so more customers can be reached across multiple platforms in real-time with science/research-based content. a. Building capacity with fellows and strategic partners b. Organizational leadership and capacity

Objective 4. Update existing and develop any new policies that may be needed to support the business aspects.

Objective 5. Develop and implement a comprehensive evaluation, and communications and marketing effort. a. Evaluation b. Competitiveness in the information and education marketplace c. Design of new and exceptional curricula/program resources for traditional and expanded audiences d. Communications and Marketing

4

Project Narrative Summary

The NTAE project, under the leadership of Oklahoma State University, continues to build upon the strengths and capacities of the Extension Foundation, including its experience providing technology tools for Cooperative Extension professionals and catalyzing professional development innovation in Year 3. NTAE projects are designed to achieve the objectives of the New Technologies for Ag Extension initiative and to align with USDA Strategic Goals and ECOP Program Priorities.

Key Strategies: Technology Learning and Networking Platform NTAE Competitive and NIFA NTAE Preselected Projects

❖ Technology for CES : Partnering with Eduworks and North Carolina State University (NCSU) to enhance existing functionalities to increase the amount of content available and improve access to content. The most significant enhancement involves building Artificial Intelligence into Extension’s Ask Extension tool. The current version, Ask an Expert, is a searchable repository of 50,000 questions posed by the public, and answers supplied by 2,600 Extension educators is now replaced by Ask Extension. Ask Extension is based on open-source software and contains several additional features that allow questions asked by the public to be routed to the state of question origin. ❖ National Program and Asset Registry : Another significant accomplishment is the National Registry of Cooperative Extension Programs and Assets launched to house searchable program information and resources such as presentations, information sheets, and evaluation tools for CES. We are using this tool with a CDC/NIFA program called Extension Collaborative on Immunization Teaching and Engagement (EXCITE) and are expanding the use of the tool to NTAE. This tool will enable Cooperative Extension to create a dynamic geographic map about the incredible work happening system-wide on immunization education and show the strength and value that Cooperative Extension brings to our communities. ❖ Learning and Networking Platform for CES: Connect Extension is a co-learning environment that expands networking and professional development opportunities to all

5

Land-Grant Universities, NTAE partners, and their constituents. Launched in response to Covid-19 in March 2020, the platform currently has 4,875 Extension users participating in subgroups from Health, Urban Agriculture, to Climate. The accounts represent 4438 from 1862 institutions, 310 from 1890 institutions, 22 from 1994 institutions, 56 from federal agencies (USDA, HHS, EPA, NIH), and three from USDA-NIFA certified NLGCA's. Since September 1, 2021, there were 336,000 users representing 411,000 sessions. 88.5% were new visitors to the platform. 54.5% were on mobile, 43.2% on Desktop and 2.3% were on tablets. They represented a total of 622,672 page views since September 2021. ❖ USDA Related NTAE Projects: Research and Extension Catalysts mobilize talent among networks within Extension and from private- and public sector partners. The Catalysts recruited projects from across the Land Grant system. Project teams submitted an online nomination form. Projects that applied went through an application process where the projects were scored in a vetted rubric by outside reviewers. The final selection for projects rested on the scored rubrics and advice from catalysts about project readiness. All NTAE project topics related to the USDA Strategic Goals. Catalysts provide a lead mentor role with projects. Additionally, in Year 3, NIFA identified a number of preselected projects to fund that are placed in our project accelerator for Catalysts to mentor and Key Information Services to provide additional resources. Catalysts serve as program advisory support and are past senior program or administrative CES personnel. Catalysts have many years of experience with programming and networks across the country. Catalysts are Dr. Scott Reed, Dr. Fred Schlutt, Dr. Rick Klemme, Dr. Chuck Hibberd, Dr. Jimmy Henning, Dr. Dawn Mellion, Dr. Chuck Ross, and Dr. Dyremple Marsh. ❖ Sharing Learning with CES: The curated resources and outputs from NTAE projects are in the Flipping Books format and are now published by the Extension Foundation. Professional development through virtual chats and are also utilized by projects to share information throughout the life of the project. ❖ Communication and Marketing: Targeted communication and marketing strategies ensure resources are available to CES professionals to create a national network of CES involved in a focused effort and provide greater visibility for CES. The Extension Foundation now uses HubSpot as the customer resource management tool and as a platform for communications and email. This represents over 220 organizations including Land Grant Institutions and other organizations engaged with our non-member/public offerings. ❖ NTAE Competitive and Preselected Project Information: These strategies are described at length in this report starting on page 17.

6

❖ Partnerships for Expansion and Sustainability: Leadership by individual stakeholders is necessary but not sufficient to drive transformational and systemic change. Collective action and collaboration is essential. It is needed among projects themselves, in specific sectors, around specific issues and locations. It is also needed on a cross-sector or multi-stakeholder basis between companies, governments, and organizations like the Cooperative Extension System. The partnership strategy applied to NTAE projects expands current partnerships and organizational networks for the CES system by connecting the fellows to various public, private and corporate partners. Reporting View: This report will share the activities and outcomes for quarters one and two (September 1, 2021. 1 - February 28, 2022) by the key strategies and the specific NTAE projects to provide better context and meaning for the report. (For those wanting to read the Flipping Book Report by each quarter, here is a link to those reports:

● Quarter 1 report can be accessed here. ● Quarter 2 report can be accessed here.

Many of the NTAE accomplishments from Year 2 and part of Year 3 through the Extension Foundation are highlighted in the 2021 Extension Foundation Year-End Report. https://connect.extension.org/blog/extension-foundation-2021-end-of-year-update

Advancing Technology for CES Objective 1. Foster opportunities for innovation by connecting CES personnel with new and innovative technologies that engage a wide array of learners. d. Enhance and upgrade existing functionalities e. Provide customer support, including help-desk staffing, web hosting, training, and software licenses. f. Provide infrastructure support for technical and architectural standards. The key strategies under Objective 1 for achieving project objectives and strategic goals include advancing technology for CES >Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13 Page 14 Page 15 Page 16 Page 17 Page 18 Page 19 Page 20 Page 21 Page 22 Page 23 Page 24 Page 25 Page 26 Page 27 Page 28 Page 29 Page 30 Page 31 Page 32 Page 33 Page 34 Page 35 Page 36 Page 37 Page 38 Page 39 Page 40 Page 41 Page 42 Page 43 Page 44 Page 45 Page 46 Page 47 Page 48 Page 49 Page 50 Page 51 Page 52 Page 53 Page 54 Page 55 Page 56 Page 57 Page 58 Page 59 Page 60 Page 61 Page 62 Page 63 Page 64 Page 65 Page 66 Page 67 Page 68 Page 69 Page 70 Page 71 Page 72 Page 73 Page 74 Page 75 Page 76 Page 77 Page 78 Page 79 Page 80

impact.extension.org

Made with FlippingBook flipbook maker