What is eOrganic, and How Can Partnering with eOrganic Benefit My Project?

 

What is eOrganic?

eOrganic Goals

  1. To engage farmers, agricultural professionals and other members of the organic agriculture community with timely and relevant science-, experience-and regulation-based information in a variety of media and educational formats
  2. To facilitate project management, communication, and publication to eXtension.org
  3. To foster a national organic research and outreach community

eOrganic (at eXtension.org/organic_production) is the eXtension Resource Area for Organic Agriculture

You can find eOrganic’s resources for farmers, ranchers, agricultural professionals, certifiers, researchers and educators seeking reliable information on organic agriculture at eXtension.org (pronounced e-extension). eOrganic’s initial content focused on general organic agriculture, dairy production, and vegetable production, but eOrganic members are now developing content on other farming systems and topics. All content is collaboratively authored and peer-reviewed by eOrganic’s community of University researchers and Extension personnel, other agricultural professionals, farmers, and certifiers with experience and expertise in organic agriculture.

Find our published content at eXtension.org/organic_production

  • Articles: eOrganic’s articles cover everything from the nuts and bolts of organic production for beginners to the latest information and technology for advanced producers http://extension.org/organic_production.
  • Videos: Because a moving picture is worth a thousand words, short video segments highlighting organic practices are featured at eOrganic. Producers and researchers demonstrate innovative cover cropping, reduced tillage, cultivation, soil management, pest management and marketing strategies. You can find eOrganic’s videos at eXtension (http://extension.org/article/187) and at eOrganic’s Youtube site (http://www.youtube.com/eOrganic)
  • Webinars: Our webinar series allows farmers, agricultural professionals and others to participate in live presentations by researchers, educators and farmers. To ask a question, participants type a question in the chat box. Find our archived webinars and upcoming webinar information at http://extension.org/organic_production
  • Ask-an-Expert: People need answers to questions that aren’t currently answered in eOrganic’s content. To get an answer, eOrganic supports eXtension’s Ask-an-Expert. Users submit questions at eXtension.org and a community member or members with appropriate expertise reply to the request via email. Find Ask-an-Expert by clicking on the Question boxes in the upper right hand corner or at the bottom of any of eOrganic’s article pages.
  • eOrganic members are now developing online short courses and additional opportunities to connect with organic practitioners and service providers.

eOrganic (at eOrganic.info) is a developing virtual organic agriculture research/outreach community

You can participate in a national organic agriculture research/outreach community at eOrganic.info, eOrganic’s virtual workspace and community hub. eOrganic community members convene at eOrganic.info to network, discuss, learn together, collaborate, manage research/outreach projects, and publish peer-reviewed articles, FAQs, videos, and other content to eXtension.org. 


Take a tour of eOrganic's public content, and its community hub, at http://eorganic.info/tour

Why would I want to include eOrganic in my proposal?

Increasingly, funders are asking for proposals with 1) a significant extension component including stakeholder engagement, 2) integration of research and extension, and 3) a partnership with an eXtension Community of Practice. An eOrganic partnership can help your project deliver all three.

eOrganic offers tools to facilitate your project’s delivery of high quality, peer-reviewed resources to a growing national audience of farmers, extension and other agricultural professionals, certifiers, educators, and researchers. eOrganic’s pages at eXtension.org have received more than 850,000 page views since January, 2009 and its YouTube videos have been viewed over 645,000 times. And eOrganic not only delivers web resources, it also directly engages its growing audience. eOrganic’s community has answered more than 800 Ask-an-Expert questions. Two thousand people from all over the country attended the first 23 webinars hosted by eOrganic over the last year. eOrganic communicates bi-monthly with its more than 4000 newsletter subscribers and keeps in frequent touch with its 700 Facebook fans, 800 Twitter followers, and 690 Youtube subscribers. eOrganic also reaches out to more than 8000 farmers and agricultural professionals through booths and other activities at 3 or 4 major (and many more minor) organic farming conferences across the US each winter. eOrganic is now in the process of surveying its users to evaluate the quality and impact of its resources and activities.

eOrganic is also a virtual community and workspace at eOrganic.info – there, your group has the use of project and group management tools, the opportunity to manage a public project website with interactive tools, easy publication of resources to eXtension, and access to eOrganic’s webinars, Ask-an-Expert, and other engagement tools - all of these strategies facilitate integration of research and extension as well as collaborator and stakeholder engagement.

eOrganic.info also supports you and your group as members of an emerging national organic agriculture research/outreach community, offering opportunities for networking, learning, and collaboration.

Why NOT partner with eOrganic?

What can my research/outreach project DO with eOrganic?

As member groups of eOrganic, research/outreach projects can:

Engage farmers and the agricultural professionals supporting them

  • Develop and publish articles, learning lessons, manuals, resource guides, research reports, or other text and image-based resources to eXtension.org
  • Develop and publish videos to eOrganic’s YouTube site and eXtension.org
    • demonstrate techniques (Calculating Dry Matter Intake at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSYflqjP6B0)
    • deliver a one hour webinar in short segments that can be uploaded to Youtube as clips (Late Blight Management at http://www.youtube.com/eOrganic#p/u/4/cCoclhzpZDQ )
    • coordinate a video series on a specific topic (http://www.extension.org/pages/18726)
    • embed videos in articles (http://www.extension.org/pages/18571)
    • In March-April 2012, eOrganic video staff will conduct a virtual video capture training in which eOrganic projects and members can learn to plan and capture high quality, easily-editable video using low cost tools and simple strategies. Video that is captured according to the training guidelines will be edited by eOrganic video staff and uploaded to eOrganic’s YouTube site; from there they can be easily embedded into eOrganic articles or other websites or used in virtual or in-person trainings.
  • Coordinate/deliver webinars and webinar series
    • deliver a webinar on your project to farmers (Planning for Flexibility in Effective Crop Rotations at http://www.extension.org/pages/26734)
    • coordinate a webinar series on a timely topic for farmers -- your group can present the first webinar; invite 3 other research/outreach groups or farmers to present the others. Consider pairing up researchers and farmers as presenters, or farmers as sole presenters (Planning Your Organic Farm for Profit at http://www.extension.org/pages/26410).
  • Broadcast a live presentation through eOrganic as in Healthy Soils for a Healthy Dairy Farm from the NOFA NY Organic Dairy and Field Crop Conference http://eorganic.info/node/6235 (it will be archived and available for viewing like any webinar)
  • Broadcast an entire conference through eOrganic as in the USDA 2011 Organic Farming Systems Conference in Washington, D.C., found at http://www.extension.org/pages/33545/usda-2011-organic-farming-systems-conference-webinars, or the recent Organic Seed Growers Conference 2012, http://www.extension.org/pages/61925.
  • Coordinate synchronous or asynchronous, fee-based certificate short courses
    • develop an asynchronous online training (example from Oregon State University at http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/dce/phytophthora/)
    • coordinate a short course consisting of 4 - 8 learning units on an information gap identified by extension and other agricultural professionals (e.g. organic nutrient management basics, intro to organic disease management)
  • Develop an interactive database or learning tool to support a participatory project and foster researcher-farmer, farmer-farmer engagement/learning. For example, eOrganic is working with an organic vegetable breeding and trialing project to develop and support a public, web-based, interactive variety trialing database. See the NOVIC website at http://eorganic.info/novic
  • Describe your project and engage your cooperators and stakeholders through a public website that you manage through eOrganic.info.
  • What are your ideas? eOrganic can support your web development, video editing, short course, and other needs to transform your Web 2.0 ideas into reality.

Engage groups and members of eOrganic’s community hub (eOrganic.info)

  • Describe your project’s objectives, methods, questions, and results on pages in your eOrganic group workspace so other groups and members can learn about your project – and you can learn about theirs.
  • Produce a virtual tour of your project or systems trial to let others learn more about it (tour WSU Puyallup’s organic systems experiment at http://extension.org/article/30805).
  • Coordinate a virtual brown bag (call in by phone or Skype, share a screen) on a critical topic (funding long term systems research projects, reduced till equipment, grad student research questions). Invite members and/or groups - several participants show 2-4 slides followed by an open discussion.
  • Coordinate/deliver webinars and webinar series for researchers, educators, and other eOrganic.info members
    • deliver a webinar on your project for other research/outreach project members (Undercover Nutrient Investigation at http://www.extension.org/article/25232)
    • coordinate a webinar series on a timely topic for researchers, educators, policy makers, or others – your group can present one or more of the webinars and invite other research/outreach groups or farmers to present the others (for example, the Climate Change series this fall coordinated by the Soils Group http://www.extension.org/article/25242)
  • What are your ideas? eOrganic wants to support your ideas for how to grow eOrganic.info’s community mission.

Manage your project and engage geographically-distributed project members:

  • Manage your project, participate in eOrganic.info, and publish to eXtension through a project-specific group workspace at eOrganic.info. Here your group can use project and group management and publication tools including:
    • file and image sharing
    • group pages, for meeting notes and other collaborative documents such as proposals and reports
    • discussion forum
    • article collaboration, editing, review, and publication to eXtension
    • publication of other types of content to eXtension
    • webconferencing
    • calendar
    • technical support for eOrganic.info and other web 2.0 tools
  • Engage your project members and collaborators, including researchers, educators, farmers and agricultural professionals
    • collaborate more effectively with collaborators from other institutions or locations by including them as members of your group workspace
    • develop a project-specific public website where vetted project members can upload files and share ideas in a discussion forum
    • extend your in-person meetings or workshops through webconferencing and broadcasting tools supported by eOrganic

Evaluate your eOrganic content

All eOrganic evaluation activities maintain participant confidentiality and are coordinated with IRB oversight and approval.

  • Evaluation of eOrganic Webinars:  Webinar participants must provide contact information, allowing eOrganic to contact them subsequently to ask them about the webinar as well as other eOrganic content.
    • Polling during the webinars. The “polling” system within GoToWebinar can be used by webinar presenters to ask participants a small number of questions during the webinar. Responses are automatically recorded in the GoToWebinar data, and poll results can be shown to participants during the webinar.
    • Post-webinar surveys: During the webinar registration process participants are notified they will be asked to complete a very brief survey after the webinar. At the end of the webinar, the importance of the survey is emphasized and participants are told to expect an email invitation. The invitation email is sent within 24 hours of the webinar. It is simple and focused on the survey, emphasizing that it only takes 2 minutes and is crucial to the effort to continue providing improved webinars. No extraneous information is included in the email, except a link to where the archived webinar will be posted. After the initial invitation, two brief reminders are sent -- one about two days after the first invitation and the second about two days later. Response rates are approximately 70%.
      Sample questions: Which of the following best describes your work? Where do you work? How much did the webinar improve your understanding of the topic? Do you intend to apply the knowledge you gained in this webinar to your work? Would you recommend this webinar to others? Questions can also be crafted to query the participants about information specific to the webinar.
      Post-webinar surveys also include questions about participant experiences with eOrganic articles, videos, other live or recorded webinars, Ask an Expert, or any other specific content related to the webinar (for example, other project-specific content or activities).
    • Surveys of webinar participants the following year: To assess the impact of the webinar on participant practices, a survey can be sent to webinar participants the yearfollowing webinar delivery. Webinar presenters identify practices that could have been changed as the result of that specific webinar. Questions are crafted to solicit impact feedback from farmers as well as the agricultural professionals supporting farmers, or any other audience group.
      Example:
      As the result of attending the eOrganic late blight webinar, in the summer of 2010 I (select all that apply):
      1. destroyed potato cull piles
      2. planted and managed my tomatoes and potatoes to maximize air flow and leaf drying
      3. scouted my fields regularly for late blight symptoms
      4. carefully managed my irrigation to minimize leaf wetness (timing of overhead irrigation, use of drip irrigation)
      5. planted late blight resistant varieties
      6. prophylactically applied copper or other materials
      7. other (please describe _____________________________________)

  • Evaluation of eOrganic articles and other content:

eOrganic will work with each project group to identify stakeholders from whom to solicit feedback on the quality and utility of the project’s eOrganic content. The project group will identify individuals and their contact information; eOrganic will provide names and contact information from the project’s webinar participants. eOrganic will send these individuals surveys by email (and/or mail), and follow up with emails and phone calls to improve response rate. Surveys will ask the individual to select one or more articles or videos from a list and fill out a survey about that specific article or video. Surveys will include questions including: Which of the following best describes your work? Where do you work? How much did this article or video improve your understanding of the topic? Do you intend to apply the knowledge you gained from this article or video to your work? Would you recommend this article or video to others? Additional questions can be crafted, including questions about changes in intentions or practices.

How can I include eOrganic in my proposal?

Just like with any other collaborative effort, an effective eOrganic plan of work takes time to develop. Please contact us early in the proposal development process so we can work with you to develop your proposal’s eOrganic plan of work and budget. eOrganic will be written in as a subaward in your project’s budget.

Why is eOrganic asking that proposals include subawards to support eOrganic?

eOrganic requires funding to support the following eOrganic Core Services to your project and other groups and members of the organic research/outreach community.

eOrganic Core Services

  • Development and member/group support for eOrganic.info, the community hub and publication workspace, including tools and support for project management and engagement
  • Editorial management and publication to eXtension and Youtube for all public content (including copy editing, peer-refereed review and NOP compliance review)
  • Coordination of Ask-an-Expert
  • Coordination and technical support for webinars
  • Support for webconferencing and other networking tools and strategies
  • Evaluation of webinars and other public content
  • Outreach to farmers, extension and other agricultural professionals, researchers, and others through booths and presentations at farmer conferences, ads in farmer publications, activities at professional meetings, eOrganic’s public and community newsletters, and eOrganic’s Facebook and Twitter sites

What are the steps to eOrganic collaboration?

Letter of intent: If the funding program requires a letter of intent, contact eOrganic 3 weeks before the letter is due so we can work with you on the eOrganic language.

Proposal: To include eOrganic in your project, an eOrganic plan of work and budget must be included in the project proposal with eOrganic written in as a subaward. Contact eOrganic at least 2 weeks before your proposal is due to allow time to develop a project-specific eOrganic plan of work and budget and the subaward paperwork.

Contact eXtension:  Contact Dan Cotton or Craig Wood at eXtension.org. for a letter of acknowledgement.

eOrganic Plans of Work and Budgets

Core Plan of Work for an Integrated Research/Outreach Project

This is a model plan of work; your project can adapt this plan as appropriate.  Please contact us with your content development ideas.

eOrganic Plan of Work for “OREI INTEGRATED PROJECT”
eOrganic will provide the group with a project workspace at eOrganic.info so the project can:
• describe their project in the workspace (to network with other groups)
• use the workspace tools for more efficient project management, communication, and publication
• develop a simple public project website hosted at eOrganic.info through that workspace
• easily publish to eXtension.org/organic_production
eOrganic will also provide support for webconferencing so the project can communicate with its dispersed project personnel as well as project collaborators/stakeholders via web meetings.

To foster networking, the group will coordinate at least two virtual brown bags, using eOrganic webconferencing tools, with organic XX groups in other areas of the US; each group will show a few slides about their projects and research questions, followed by discussion. One of these will specifically be for the graduate students working on XX across the US.
 

eOrganic staff will provide training for project members in video capture; videos captured following video capture guidelines will be edited by eOrganic staff, moved through peer and NOP compliance review, and posted to eOrganic’s YouTube channel (from there they can be embedded in other websites, eOrganic articles, etc).
 

eOrganic will support the project with technical support and peer and NOP compliance review for the publication of:

• a webinar describing the project in year 1
• 2 farm case study articles on how specific farms are XX and incorporating project findings into their production plans (as in http://www.extension.org/pages/18352), including videos (see below) of farmers demonstrating practices
• 3 articles on organic management of XX
• 8 short (1-3 minute) videos on farm or research strategies/tools to be embedded into websites, case studies and articles (eOrganic trains project staff in video capture; eOrganic staff edit, transcribe, manage review, and publish to YouTube)
• a 3-webinar series on XX (for example: farmer/researcher teams describe specific strategies, and how to integrate those into a whole-farm plan)
• at least 3 broadcasts of winter trainings: select presentations from winter regional trainings will be broadcast as webinars by eOrganic.
• a moodle-based short course on XX, culminating in how to develop an OSP related to XX, utilizing all project information and resources

eOrganic will evaluate the quality and utility of webinars immediately following the webinar, and the impact of the webinar on participant practices and understanding in the winter following webinar deliver. eOrganic will evaluate the quality and utility of the rest of the project content in the last year of the project.

 

Core eOrganic Subaward Budget for an Integrated Research/Outreach Project

(See end of document for model subaward budget narrative)

Project Total DIRECT Costs: eOrganic Core Subaward DIRECT Costs in years 1/2/3 (add indirect costs to the costs listed below - Oregon State University asks that we use 28.205 times the total direct costs as the calculation for OREI F and A)

<150K (project DIRECT costs):  10K in first year only (direct costs) Sample Budget<150K
 150-250K (project DIRECT costs):   15K in first year only (direct costs)
251-500K (project DIRECT costs):   10K/5K/10K (direct costs)
501K-999K (project DIRECT costs):   20K/10K/20K (direct costs)
1M - 2M (project DIRECT costs):   25K/13K/25K (direct costs)
>2M:  30K/15K/30K (project DIRECT costs): Sample Budget >2M

For a four year project, use the budget for year two in the above figures for your years 2 and 3 (and 4, for a 5 yr project)

These core budgets provide direct support of your project activities as well as support for general eOrganic core functions including outreach, evaluation, Ask-an-Expert, and web platform development and support.

 

Plans of work and associated subaward budgets will vary project-by-project. For more information on how to include eOrganic in your proposal and budgets, contact eOrganic.

Contact eOrganic: For more information or to discuss a proposal, contact Alex Stone, Oregon State University Dept of Horticulture, stonea@hort.oregonstate.edu, (541) 602-4676. Email is preferred so we can quickly answer your questions.

 
  

Budget Allocation and Narrative for eOrganic Subaward

For each project year, eOrganic will allocate your project's eOrganic subaward DIRECT costs as described below. eOrganic will then add appropriate indirect costs (28.205% of direct costs for a NIFA OREI project):

Each year:
B. Other Personnel: 79% of subaward direct costs
(Salary 65%, OPE 35%)
Personnel funds will support staff time for the coordination of the following core functions:
webinar series, content peer and NOP compliance review, copy editing, eOrganic.info/eXtension/Youtube/Facebook/Twitter site support and development, Ask-an-expert, outreach, and content quality and utility evaluation.

D. Travel: 10% of subaward direct costs
Travel funds will support eOrganic staff and CoP members to attend eXtension, professional society, and organic farming conferences to communicate about and market eOrganic to members and stakeholders.

F. Other Direct Costs

F.1. Materials and supplies: 11% of subaward direct costs

Outreach Materials funds purchase outreach materials and conference fees (bookmarks, brochures, banners, ads in conference brochures, booth fees).

Telecommunications fees support eOrganic’s webconferencing and webinar services (currently, Adobe Connect and GoToWebinar).

Computers and video-audio/IT supplies funds support the purchase of staff computers, headsets, microphones, adapters and other IT supplies.