Building Knowledge of Sustainable Rangeland Management Using Information Technology - Northern Great Plains Partnership

Building Knowledge of Sustainable Rangeland Management Using Information Technology - Northern Great Plains Partnership

Summary

Range Extension Specialists and librarians from SD, ND, KS, and NE met with their counterparts from the Western Region SARE in Tucson to coordinate management of state websites within the RangelandsWest Web gateway. State websites were created for SD, ND, and KS, and participants initiated the population of those sites with appropriate information. Several Extension Educators from the NCR SARE region attended a workshop to improve their knowledge of sustainable rangeland management and their skills in accessing online information.

Objectives/Performance Targets

1. Provide reliable and accessible information about sustainable rangeland management by building on the foundation set by the Western Rangelands Partnership
2. Train state range Extension specialists, county-based extension personnel and federal land management advisors in sustainable rangeland management practices and the effective use of information technologies to better serve the ecological and economic needs of their constituencies.
3. Work with Western Rangelands Partnership to build a comprehensive Web gateway on rangeland management as part of the Agriculture Network Information Center (AgNIC) initiative.
4. Expand understanding of sustainable rangeland management approaches within the North Central Region
5. Improve information technology skills of range Extension specialists, county-based extension personnel, and federal land management advisors
6. Create a RangelandsWest Web site for each of the participating NCR states (SD, ND, KS, NE) with reliable sustainable rangeland management information and make it readily accessible through the RangelandsWest Web gateway.
7. Develop a content module pertaining to sustainable rangelands practices on each NCR state’s RangelandsWest Web site.
8. Build an overarching structure for sustainable rangelands content, with introductory text and navigational pages leading to the content developed by each state.
9. Enter metadata into the RangelandsWest Web site database, making it accessible to users of the national AgNIC site via a web services connection.

Accomplishments/Milestones

• Joint meeting between the Extension Specialists and librarians from SD, ND, NE, and KS and the participants in the RangelandsWest project from the WR SARE was held in Tucson in spring 2005.
• Coordination and overall management were established within the NCR SARE participants and between the NCR SARE and WR SARE participants at that meeting.
• Participants in the Tucson meeting initiated a revision of the organizational “tree” structure of the national website.
• State websites were established for SD, ND, and KS, and population of those websites was initiated.
• Several Extension Educators attended an Information Outreach workshop held in Idaho in fall 2005 to improve their knowledge of sustainable rangeland management practices and their skills in using online resources to locate quality information and assist farmers, ranchers and other concerned publics on issues of sustainable rangeland ecology and management. These educators were energized by their attendance and have used the skills and information learned in their programming activities.

Impacts and Contributions/Outcomes

Access to reliable information on sustainable rangeland management is becoming increasingly available for farmers, ranchers, and land managers throughout the western United States, including the western states of the North Central Region. County-based agricultural advisors are becoming more adept at accessing this information, increasing in their knowledge of sustainable rangeland management principles, and utilizing it for the benefit of their clientele.

Collaborators: