Atlanta, GA. 18 Cooperative Extension professionals representing 14 institutions attended eXtension’s Impact Collaborative Innovation Facilitator Training in Atlanta, GA in March 2019. They completed initial learning and application of the Impact Collaborative methodology. Their skills help them lead innovation skill-building experiences at state or institutional events and at the national Impact Collaborative Summits. They join 41 other Impact Collaborative Innovation Facilitators representing 28 institutions that were trained in January 2019, and 53 others trained last year.
Directors & Administrators appoint individuals across Extension to be trained in the Impact Collaborative innovation skill-building methodology to work alongside their leadership teams to help bring more innovation to their projects and programs for increased impact. Upon completion of the training, eXtension will work directly with its trained Facilitators and institutional leadership teams to design a local event that helps project and program teams find innovative ways to advance local impact. Learn more about our State & Institutional events here.
Innovation Facilitators also participate in the national Impact Collaborative Summits to incubate project and program teams across the nation. At these Summits, eXtension brings unique opportunities to create impactful results at the local level by increasing Cooperative Extension’s organizational readiness and capacity for innovation and change. The Impact Collaborative Summits connect Cooperative Extension professionals with skills, tools, resources and partners that can expand and deepen their impact in a continuing partnership with the Impact Collaborative. The next Impact Collaborative Summit is from April 30th to May 2nd, 2019, in Atlanta, GA; to learn more about the Summit, please click here.
Please find a complete listing of the newest Innovation Facilitators below, listed by institution:
University of Kentucky
Daniel Allen
Clemson University
Dawn Anticole White
The Ohio State University
Pamela Bennett
North Carolina State University
Douglas Clement
Cyndi Lauderdale
University of Nebraska – Lincoln
Lynn Devries
Amy Schmidt
Dagen Valentine
Southern University
Tiffany Franklin
University of New Hampshire
Charlie French
Jared Reynolds
Virginia Cooperative Extension
Conaway Haskins
University of Minnesota
Tammy McCulloch
Texas A&M University
Larry Pierce
Kansas State University
Wade Weber
Fort Valley State University
Cynthia Willis
Kentucky State University
Austin Wright
eXtension Foundation
Tira Adelman
To learn more about eXtension and the Impact Collaborative, please visit eXtension.org
The eXtension Foundation’s Impact Collaborative Summit, held October 16-18 in Indianapolis, Indiana, united design thinkers from the Cooperative Extension System and partners from organizations confronting the most pressing challenges of our time to shape positive futures for communities. Three days of co-creating, hands-on learning, and collaborative conversations sparked innovation and creative implementation planning in over 30 projects designed for local community impacts. Summit teams, which included Extension professionals and partners, along with diverse partners from regional and national organizations and businesses explored the processes and practices that enable co-creative approaches to the challenges and opportunities in our communities.
Recognizing the Impact Collaborative Summit is just the beginning, the eXtension Foundation will provide ongoing learning and support to the teams in a variety of ways. All teams and projects will have the support of the eXtension Foundation’s Virtual Bridge, a timely digital-based platform for interactive workshops, co-creation and networking spaces, and avenues for building synergy by sharing resources, ideas, and successes.
The teams attending the Summit participated in a “PitchFest” on the final day where they each presented the advancements on their projects and the important next steps and investments needed to move forward. The PitchFest was judged by external partners/investors, Extension leaders, and peer co-creators. The following projects were recognized and are tapped to move forward with supports tailored to their immediate needs.
These projects include:
TOP SCORE
Award: Recognition and a trip to the 2019 Impact Collaborative Summit
Tuskegee University, Public Dialogue Team
This project focuses on racial equity in the food system through amplifying the voices of those most affected.
MOST INNOVATIVE – EXTERNAL
Award: Recognition and a trip to the 2019 Impact Collaborative Summit
Oregon State University, Virtual Park Ranger
This project reconnects people with nature through an augmented reality app that stimulates improvements in personal wellness and environmental stewardship.
MOST INNOVATIVE – INTERNAL
Award: Recognition and a trip to the 2019 Impact Collaborative Summit.
Purdue University, DEI Indy
This project increases diversity, equity and inclusion practices within Purdue Extension CityLAB- a synergistic hub for the 16 Tech Neighborhood that features innovative experiential learning enabling the development of practical skills to enhance the lives and livelihoods of residents.
MOST FUNDABLE
Award: Recognition and strategic support from eXtension Partner Development Team to advance their project and design funding strategies over the next three months.
University of Florida & Florida A&M, CIVIC
This project fosters civil and inclusive dialogue to cultivate a climate of sustained community conversation around complex and pressing local issues through technical resources and professional development training to enable CES agents to effectively serve as conveners, moderators, and coordinator.
Prairie View A&M, A New D.E.I.
This project encourages financial and personal stability through a tool box and open conversations about diversity, equity, and inclusion for individuals and families with limited resources.
Purdue University, Indiana Community Together
Coming Together for Racial Understanding addresses a community need to engage in dialogue and action around issues of race and racism. This research-based, deliberative, and action-focused project explores, through guided facilitated discussions and activities, the impact of race and racism in a community to improve the quality of life for those involved and impacted.
National NPSEC Team, Collaboration Teams
This project establishes the structure and operation of Collaboration Teams which will focus on specific pesticide safety related issues and development of supporting materials to meet the needs of Pesticide Safety Education Programs based at land-grant universities and the thousands of stakeholders they serve.
Tuskegee Coming Together/Public Dialogue Team
This project focuses on racial equity in thefood system through amplifying the voices of those most affected.
CROWDFUNDING
Award: Recognition and through a generous contribution of LikeMinded.org, strategy and support from its founder, Lynn Luckow, to position their project for crowdfunding using the digital platform in the coming months.
Oregon State University,Virtual Park Ranger
This project reconnects people with nature through an augmented reality app that stimulates improvements in personal wellness and environmental stewardship.
Purdue University, Healthy Boiler
This project supports behavioral health across Indiana and beyond through the development of a toolkit designed for educators to use with preteens that focuses on positive psychology techniques to help youth build their skills related to mental health and fortitude.
University of Nebraska, Nebraska Regional Foods
This project creates a collaborative resource portal for all local food system (production, distribution, and consumption) participants to reduce duplicity of projects and increase synergy addressing regional food system challenges.
University of Nebraska, Nebraska New Learning Experience for 4H
To increase the vitality of Nebraska’s rural communities, this project reimagines 4-H club experiences through leveraging technology to bridge geographic gaps by providing a virtual 4-H club experience utilizing existing 4-H curriculum and experiences.
Utah State University, Mental Health
To grow resilience, hope, and connection for health and well-being in Utah communities, this project provides a plan for collaborative and comprehensive Adult and Youth Mental Health First Aid trainings across the state.
URGENT COMMUNITY NEED- EXTERNAL
Award: Recognition and a trip to the 2019 Impact Collaborative Summit
University of Florida, National Sustainability Summit
With the first joint National Sustainability and Extension Energy Summits as an anchor (being held in April 2019), this project aims to expand and improve the efficiency, inclusiveness, and effectiveness of this event and establish an intentional community of practice for sharing resources and engaging local, state, and national partners around sustainability and energy issues.
Kentucky State University, Nutrition & Agricultural Literacy after-school program
This program promotes a shift in culture within CES and its programs to embrace and operationalize a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive atmosphere, recognizing multiple dimensions of identity and experience.
URGENT COMMUNITY NEED- INTERNAL
Award: Recognition and a trip to the 2019 Impact Collaborative Summit
University of Vermont, Vermont DEI
This program promotes a shift in culture within CES and its programs to embrace and operationalize a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive atmosphere, recognizing multiple dimensions of identity and experience.
The scene above is an example of “satoyama”, a traditional Japanese agricultural landscape where different land uses are maintained in an integrated and harmonious manner over many generations. More broadly it is also what some call a Socio-Ecological Production Landscape (SEPL), supporting both human well-being and biodiversity through sustainable production systems. The Community Development and Knowledge Management for the Satoyama Initiative (COMDEKS) helps sustain and promote SEPLs across the globe by collecting and distributing knowledge and experience from successful on-the-ground practices for replication and upscaling in other parts of the world.
Though perhaps in a less idealized way, I and many of my Community, Local and Regional Food Systems CoP cohorts seek similar outcomes in the form of healthy, multi-functional1food systems adapted to local need and conditions, including urban environments. Of course as a Community of Practice knowledge sharing is also of great interest to us. In this post I highlight several findings from my recent eXtension supported Land Grant Informatics fellowship2 relevant to realizing these kinds of outcomes by more effectively linking people, technology and information in support of our Land Grant mission and the diverse communities we serve.
“Emergent Health” as an Integrative Framework for Collaborative Action
One thing I sought out early in my investigations were broad systems models/definitions of health and fitness, touched on in my last post. And from that, what opportunities might exist for “convening an ecosystem”3 of Land Grant actors around a shared set of informatics related objectives supporting those models in the form of healthy people, communities and food systems.
As it turns out, there is in fact a fair amount of existing momentum to build on, including that documented by the:
APLU Healthy Food Systems, Healthy People initiative, calling for “collaborations and integration among agriculture, food, nutrition, and health care systems that have never before been explored or optimized. Working across these systems and developing solutions that combine multidisciplinary research and education”. The image below from that report illustrates those kinds of collaboration across various scales.
Figure 1 (from APLU Healthy Food Systems, Healthy People report) Integration must occur at many societal levels, including national, state/regional, community/local, and scientist/educator/practitioner.
health as an ‘emergent property’ that results from different interactions among components of a complex, adaptive system. Together the individual determinants of health4, and the system as a whole – including social and environmental determinants – can develop a high degree of adaptive capacity, resulting in resilience and the ability to address ongoing and new challenges… To achieve and maintain health over long periods, individuals must continually readjust how they… respond…to the changing demands of life… Social action also is required to create circumstances that can promote individual and population health.5
This emergent, adaptive view of health echoes that of many others, including those I’ve quoted earlier in this series. It suggests a shift away from top down, one-size-fits-all prescriptive approaches often focused on treating the symptoms of dis-ease toward more facilitative ones (e.g. building soil health as a foundation for healthy food systems). A complex adaptive systems approach would also require the arrows in the diagram above going in both directions, allowing knowledge and insight to flow “up” and down, as well as laterally (e.g between communities).
I document in my report2 similar efforts/voices across various disciplines and sectors, some aimed squarely at tackling wicked problems like food insecurity and climate change. Many highlight the critical role networks and “boundary spanners” like Cooperative Extension professionals can play in supporting connectivity and feedback, one “circumstance” vital to the health of these systems, including sustainable agricultural systems. They do that partly by enhancing the ability of people, organizations and communities to recognize and leverage multiple forms of capital. That includes data, information and knowledge resources supporting ongoing learning and innovation locally, and collective intelligence on a larger, sometimes global scale.
Yet in spite of the many good reasons and calls for greater collaboration and integration, doing so remains a wicked challenge in itself, a task often at odds with our well-intentioned but increasingly outdated institutional, programmatic and funding structures. The good news is that a number of useful but underutilized tools and strategies already exist. What remains is for Land Grant actors (including Cooperative Extension and libraries like my own) to more systematically and collaboratively link and leverage these in support of network-centric approaches…
Networked Platforms and Stacks Supporting Emergent Learning
As I began to outline in my previous post, this transformation will require new “socio-technical” structures and capabilities. That means systems (including agrifood systems and Land Grant knowledge systems) where social and technical subsystems are optimized to support locally-directed, globally-connected problem solving and innovation, as well as the well-being of those (including Cooperative Extension) engaging with those systems.
In that post I also mention several architectural patterns commonly found in innovative environments, including networks, stacks and “emergent platforms”. If we look at health as an emergent property relying on these, then a systems approach would require the co-creation and maintenance of such structures. Though now retired Jim Langcuster from Alabama Cooperative Extension has written at length about the future of Cooperative Extension depending on its ability to embrace this type of work, transforming itself into an emergent, generative, “open source platform” developing “adaptive digital networks… responsive to the needs of contemporary learners”.
One central recommendation in my report is the collaborative development of a particular kind of knowledge commons, a “Land Grant Knowledge Graph” undergirding and/or linking such adaptive learning networks and platforms. Like the underlying (light gray) one on the far right below, potentially supporting a variety of emergent, health enhancing efforts.
“Graph” knowledge structures including graph databases provide an ideal matrix for supporting these environments of connectivity, enabling the modeling of a variety of topics or entities, and the relations between them. They offer many practical applications including support for serendipitous discovery and linking of widely distributed expertise and knowledge artifacts, as illustrated through various research networking tools like VIVO and derivatives such as AgriProfiles. In my report I also outline how Issue-Based Information Systems (IBIS) can be used to help document and map as a graph conversations amongst diverse stakeholders working to address wicked problems, through facilitated approaches like dialogue mapping.
Figure 3. “Google Knowledge Graph Card”, returned as part of a Google search result for “Liberty Hyde Bailey”
One of the more developed and commonly used examples of a knowledge graph is Google’s. Figure 3 shows one benefit provided by that graph, the ability to aggregate a wide variety of information resources related to a particular subject in the form of a “Knowledge Graph Card”. In my report I frame this as part of a larger evolution toward a “semantic web”, the original vision Tim Berners-Lee had of the World Wide Web , “where anything could be potentially connected with anything else”, offering countless opportunities/pathways for the sharing, discovery and (re)use of knowledge.
Recommendations
Realizing a Land Grant Knowledge Graph, more effectively linking the diverse and widely disparate knowledge resources from our various institutions in support of emergent learning and health might seem at first to be an impossible undertaking. Especially if approached from a traditional top down planning approach. In his piece Government as Platform, technology thought leader Tim O’Reilly flips that model, suggesting6 a more emergent, collaborative approach, by developing data and information layers, “on which we, the people, can build additional applications” –a suggestion worth considering for Land Grant Universities, sometimes referred to as the People’s Colleges. The Obama administration embraced such a role through its Digital Government initiative, outlining three layers of digital services within a digital ecosystem:
Information (or Storage) Layer -Includes structured information/data such as census data, plus unstructured information such as fact sheets and recommendations.
Platform (or Management) Layer -Includes all the systems and processes used to manage this information.
Presentation Layer –What the “end users” of information create/need in order to leverage that data and information in support of informed decision making and action.
Adapting this brilliant XPLANE created image from Jay Cross’ Informal Learning Blog (now archival due to his unfortunate passing), I’ve created the animation below to illustrate how Land Grant supported networked stacks and platforms might help facilitate emergent learning and innovation at the community level. Each able to both “push” and “pull” from those above, below and adjacent to it, enabling multiple pathways for data, information and knowledge exchanges. Combined with efforts like those highlighted in a recent GODAN Open Farms documentary this could greatly contribute to the development and scaling of SEPLs and similar integrated approaches.
My report2 provides several examples of existing organizations and initiatives illustrating typical roles or needs within this stack. It also provides several suggestions on how Extension and others can develop their “sociotechnical capabilities” for interacting with and contributing to such an ecosystem. That includes best practices like following FAIR principles, what I see as a specialized form of Working Out Loud, where you make the “digital trace” left by your work more findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable.
Gaining and promoting a systems-oriented definition of health, including agrifood systems health, based on an understanding of complex adaptive systems and related emerging transdisciplinary frameworks.
Ashared understanding of and ability to effectively leverage information and communications tools and systems (including Issue-Based Information Systems capabilities and metaliteracy)
Promoting trust and mutual understanding amongst Land Grant personnel and those they work with, nurtured through facilitative/network/systems leadership.
Next Steps
I and several colleagues have already begun exploring how some of these ideas could be implemented in the form of Land Grant system facilitated Crucial Conversations on Health and Wealth. Though we might each use different tools and programmatic structures to realize desired outcomes, we share an interest in collective sensemaking and problem solving approaches which can help communities better address wicked problems like hunger. At the very end of my report is a concept map generated from a recent Diversity & Inclusion designathon session exploring those ideas. Look for future posts/updates as we proceed on that learning journey!
Links to all the various outputs associated with the eXtension co-sponsored fellowship this post emerged from are available here: https://www.extension.org/jeff-piestrak/
Endnotes
1. Food systems “multifunctionality”, those providing economic, environmental and social functions or benefits simultaneously, is something many researchers and practitioners look at when assessing the health of food systems, particularly those applying a social-ecological systems (SES) framework. 2. My fellowship final report is available for download from Cornell’s eCommons repository here: http://hdl.handle.net/1813/48205 3. In line with eXtension/LG system partner GODAN’s (Global Open Data for Ag & Nutrition) theory of change for realizing a data ecosystem for agriculture and food 4. A broad range of personal, social, economic, and environmental factors can influence the health of people, communities and food systems. More information can be found here: https://www.healthypeople.gov/2020/about/foundation-health-measures/Determinants-of-Health 5. Bircher, J., & Kuruvilla, S. (2014). Defining health by addressing individual, social, and environmental determinants: New opportunities for health care and public health. Journal of Public Health Policy, 35(3), 363–386. https://doi.org/10.1057/jphp.2014.19 6. O’Reilly’s article is chapter two from the book Open government: collaboration, transparency, and participation in practice
In this third blog post on the University of Wisconsin-Extension Data Jam Initiative, I will focus on four institutional outcomes of this Evaluation Capacity Building Framework.
Screenshot from the University of Wisconsin-Extension Civil Rights Legacy Datasets in MAXQDA.
INSTITUTIONAL OUTCOME 1: Continuous use of Institutionally Collected Data
The Data Jam Initiative provides colleagues with the tools, skills, support and community they need to engage in the analysis of large, often fragmented and hard-to-analyze textual datasets. We are currently conducting a longitudinal study measuring the initiative’s impact on analytic self-confidence and proficiency. At this early stage we observe heightened empowerment in Extension professionals, and we see a steep increase of evaluation, research and internal development projects that utilize the data from our central data collection system.
INSTITUTIONAL OUTCOME 2: Improvement of Institutional Data Quality
An essential element of the Data Jam Initiative is to communicate to colleagues and leadership how data are being used. Institutionally, this validates colleagues’ efforts regarding reporting, and it supports leadership in adjusting data collection foci based on ongoing, interdisciplinary data analysis. This, in turn, helps keeping institutional research, evaluation and communication efforts in alignment with ongoing data collection and storage.
INSTITUTIONAL OUTCOME 3: Building Interdisciplinary Capacity to Quickly Respond to Emerging Analytic Needs
All-Program area Evaluator Data Jam at the University of Wisconsin-Extension, March 2017.
Over time we create a baseline of shared techniques for analysis, and distributed proficiency in utilizing Qualitative Data Analysis software. Consequently, colleagues can tap into shared analytic frameworks when they collaborate on projects. On a larger scale, the institution can quickly and flexibly pull together analysis teams from across the state, knowing that a number of colleagues already share fundamental analytic and technical skills, even if they have never directly worked together. This allows an institution to respond quickly and efficiently to time-sensitive inquiries, and to analyze more data more quickly, while bringing more perspectives into the process through work in larger ad-hoc analysis teams.
INSTITUTIONAL OUTCOME 4: Retaining Analytic Work through Legacy Datasets
Qualitative Data Analysis Software is designed to allow for detailed procedural documentation during analysis. This allows us to retain the analytic work of our colleagues, and to merge it into a single file. For example, we created a “Civil Rights Legacy Dataset” – a Qualitative Data Analysis Software file that contains all programming narratives containing information on expanding access to underserved or nontraditional audiences, currently from 2014 to 2016. This surmounts to approximately 1000 records, or 4000 pages of textual data. The file is available to anyone in the institution interested in learning about best practices, barriers and programmatic gaps regarding our work with nontraditional and underserved audiences.
The analyses that currently conducted on this dataset by various teams are being merged back into the “Legacy File”. Future analysts can view the work benches of prior analysts and projects, thus allowing them to use prior insights and processes as stepping stones. This enables the institution to conduct meta-analyses, maintain analytic continuity, and to more easily and reliably distribute analytic tasks over time or across multiple analysts. You can find more information on the use of Legacy Datasets in Extension in an upcoming book chapter, published in Silver & Woolf’s textbook on utilizing Qualitative Data Analysis Software.)
Beyond Qualitative Data: A Pathway for Building Digital Learning and Adaptation Skills
The outcomes above are immediate institutional effects the Data Jam Initiative was designed for. But maybe more importantly, we’re creating a base line of proficiency in negotiating between a technical tool and a workflow. Our tools change. Our methodological approaches differ from project to project. Each new project, and each new digital tool requires that we engage in this negotiation process. Every time, we need to figure out how we can best use a tool to facilitate our workflows; this skill is a fundamental asset in institutional professional development, and it transcends the topical area of evaluation.
This means that the Data Jam initiative, as an approach focused on mentorship and making by imbuing a technical tool with concrete, relevant processes, is not limited to qualitative data – it can be a framework for many contexts in which Extension professionals use software to do or build things: Be it visualization tools, digital design and web design, app development, statistics and quantitative research, or big data tools.
The development of the Data Jam Initiative Tool Kit has been supported by an eXtension Fellowship. To access the curriculum, examples, videos and training materials, please visit the UW-Extension Data Jam website: http://fyi.uwex.edu/datajams/
In this second blog post on the University of Wisconsin-Extension Data Jam Initiative, I will focus on the role of software in Data Jams, and on the skills that colleagues are building in this Evaluation Capacity Building Framework.
Screenshot from the Qualitative Data Analysis Software MAXQDA.
What is Qualitative Data Analysis Software?
The technical backbone of the Data Jam Initiative is Qualitative Data Analysis Software – often abbreviated as QDAS, or CAQDAS (Computer Assisted Qualitative Data Analysis Software). This type of research and evaluation software is designed to support the analysis of large amounts of textual information. It allows for efficient data management and the distributed analysis of large datasets in large teams. While Qualitative Data Analysis Software (such as MAXQDA, NVIVO, Atlas.TI or Dedoose) cannot do qualitative analysis by itself, modern packages typically do offer a wide array of options for coding, documentation, teamwork, qualitative data visualization and mapping.
Focusing on Analytic Collaboration, not on where to Click
Data Jam at the University of Wisconsin-Extension, August 2016.
In a Data Jam, groups of colleagues analyze data together while using the same analytic software tool, and similar analytic techniques. This creates a common experience of bringing a tool (the software) and a process (the analytic techniques) together. We’re not teaching how to click through menus; we’re not teaching theoretical workflows. We analyze, we make things – with a real tool, a real question, real data and concrete techniques. These concrete analytic techniques emphasize writing and documentation throughout the process, and they focus on utilizing analysis groups to drive the analysis. In a Data Jam, colleagues practice how to stay focused on their research question, and how to work as an analysis group to produce a write-up at the end of the day.
Qualitative Data Analysis Software empowers colleagues to quickly explore our large datasets, and to dive into the data in an engaging way – as such, this software is a powerful tool to illustrate and practice methodological workflows and techniques. We’re not only building individual capacity – we are building a community of practice around data analysis in our institution. I will focus on this aspect in the third blog post, but I will briefly describe outcomes on the individual level here.
Individual Capacity Building & Improved Perception of Institutional Data Collection
On the individual level, we are seeing two outcomes in our ongoing evaluation of the initiative: Firstly, we build analytic capacity and evaluation capacity. Colleagues learn how to analyze textual data using state-of-the-art analytic tools, and they learn how to integrate these tools into their evaluation and research work flows. View the 3-minute video below to view some impressions and learning outcomes from a 4-day Data Jam for Extension research teams.
https://youtu.be/IOWhots-qdc
Secondly, colleagues gain a better understanding regarding how (and that!) the data that they enter in the central data collection system are being used. Our evaluations show that colleagues leave our Data Jams with an increased understanding as to why we collect data as an institution, and as to why it is important to enter quality data. Experiencing the role of the analyst seems to have a positive effect on colleagues’ perceptions of our central data collection effort, and leaves them excited to communicate how the data are being used to their colleagues.
Not every colleague will use the software or engage in research in the future; our goal is not to make everyone an analyst. But we establish a basic level of data literacy across the institution – i.e. a common understanding of the procedures, products, pitfalls and potentials of qualitative data analysis. This type of data literacy is a crucial core skill as we are undergoing the Data Revolution.
The development of the Data Jam Initiative Tool Kit has been supported by an eXtension Fellowship. To access the curriculum, examples, videos and training materials, please visit the UW-Extension Data Jam website: http://fyi.uwex.edu/datajams/
Collecting large amounts of textual data is easier than ever – but analyzing those growing amounts of data remains a challenge. The University of Wisconsin – Extension responds to this challenge with the “Data Jam Initiative”, an Evaluation Capacity Building model that focuses on the collaborative, making-centered use of Qualitative Data Analysis Software. In this first of three blog posts I will provide a brief overview over the Initiative, the tools we’re using, and the products we’re making in Data Jams.
Data Jam at the University of Wisconsin Extension, August 2016
Extension’s Data Challenge
Extensions collect large amounts of textual data, for example in the form of programming narratives, impact statements, faculty activity reports and research reports, and they continue to develop digital systems to collect and store these data. Collecting large amounts of textual data is easier than ever. Analyzing those growing amounts of data remains a challenge. Extensions and other complex organizations are expected to use data when they develop their programs and services; they are also expected to ground their communications and reports to stakeholders in rigorous data analysis.
Collaborative, Software-Supported Analysis as a Response
Data Jam at the University of Wisconsin – Extension, August 2016
The University of Wisconsin-Extension responds to this expectation with the Data Jam Initiative, an Evaluation Capacity Framework that utilizes Qualitative Data Analysis Software. In monthly full-day Data Jams and multi-day analysis sessions, colleagues meet to explore and analyze data together. Data Jams are inspired by the concept of Game Jams. In Game Jams, game developers meet for a short amount of time in order to produce quick prototypes of games.
Asking Real Questions, Analyzing Real Data
The most important feature of Data Jams is that we work with data and questions that are relevant to our colleagues; in fact, most topics in Data Jams are brought up by specialists and educators from across the state. By collaboratively analyzing programming narratives and impact statements from our central data collection system, we start answering questions like:
How are equity principles enacted in our Community Food Systems-related work?
How do our colleagues state-wide frame their work around ‘poverty’?
How does state-wide programming in Agriculture and Natural Resources address Quality Assurance?
How are youth applying what they’ve learned in terms of life skills in our state-wide 4-H and Youth Development programming?
How does FoodWIse (our state-wide nutrition education program) partner with other organizations, both internally and externally?
Data Jam products are shared with colleagues across the institution via our internal Data Jam blog.
Using Qualitative Data Analysis Software, Data Jammers produce concrete write-ups, models, initial theories and visualizations; these products are subsequently shared with colleagues, partners and relevant stakeholders.
Building Institutional Capacity to Analyze Large Datasets
Data Jam at the University of Wisconsin-Extension, February 2017
Through the Data Jam Initiative, we build institution-wide capacity in effectively analyzing large amounts of textual data. We connect teams, researchers, evaluators and educators to develop commonly shared organizational concepts and analytic skills. These shared skills and concepts in turn enable us to distribute the analysis of large data sets across content and evaluation experts within our institution. The overall goal of the initiative is to enable our institution to systematically utilize large textual datasets.
Since early 2016, we use the Data Jam model in monthly one-day Data Jams across Wisconsin, in regular internal consulting and retreat sessions for project and program area teams, and in graduate methods education on the UW-Madison campus. We have hosted external Data Jams on the University of Washington Pullman campus and at the United Nation’s Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS).
The development of the Data Jam Initiative Tool Kit has been supported by an eXtension Fellowship. To access the curriculum, examples, videos and training materials, please visit the UW-Extension Data Jam website: http://fyi.uwex.edu/datajams/
I am excited to say that in 2016 the Pollinator Spaces Project registered over 60 new gardens in 20 Georgia counties. As other gardeners have heard about the project we have been asked to continue the project into 2017. We are happy to do so!
Oakhurst Community Garden Pollinator Space – complete with pollinator!
The Georgia Pollinator Census
After working with this initiative for a year we decided to add a new part to the project: the Georgia Pollinator Census. The Georgia Pollinator Census initiative asks school and community gardeners who are experienced in growing pollinator habitat to identify and count pollinators. There are two goals for the project. The first is to find out if there is a difference in numbers and types of pollinating insects in rural, suburban and urban areas. Secondly, we want to expand the insect knowledge of the gardeners.
How will the project work?
As a gardening group is interested in the project they contact me to sign up. They will receive an insect identification/collection kit (thanks to grant monies) and an identification number. I will deliver three aster plants to the gardens. These plants will be put in the ground in the spring to mature and have many blossoms by September.
Gardeners will be trained on insect identification through in-person workshops, website resources, and videos. I will also be available to assist gardeners, along with their county ANR Extension agents.
Many asters are Georgia natives that are very attractive to insects.
We will ask the gardeners to count during the month of September, once a week for three weeks. We are asking for 15 minute count times, counting insects only on the aster. They will log their counts on the website using their individual identification number. We hope for up to 50 volunteer groups for this project.
Since the gardeners that have reported new pollinator habitat are from 19 very diverse Georgia counties, we are hopeful that we will get volunteers for the project from rural, suburban and urban gardens. It will be interesting to see if the the pollinator counts are different. And, we are hoping in inspire a few new entomologists!
It’s always a pleasure reconnecting with and learning from colleagues at eXtension conferences. Last March’s in San Antonio was no different, which included convivial meals along the River Walk and several stimulating workshops.
Slide from UMN Extension program leader Nate Meyer’s presentation using a “Stacey Matrix” to illustrate zone of complexity.
One workshop led by my Network Literacy CoP cohorts included this video by UMN Extension program leader Nate Meyer. In it he encourages Extension to embrace its role cultivating social learning within networked innovation spaces known as “zones of complexity”. Identifiable in a variety of fields and circumstances (including health care), this can in turn create shared pools of collective knowledge which can be drawn on in response to wicked problems and grand challenges which no individual, program or institution can address on its own. [Net Lit CoP co-lead Bob Bertsch writes more about this in his highly recommended blog post Extension 2050: Working Within Networks]
There were also several inspiring keynote speakers at the conference, including John Stepper, author of Working Out Loud. A key strategy of WOL is cultivating relationship networks to enhance self-efficacy and work/life satisfaction by “leading with generosity”, providing insight and assistance to others without expectation of immediate return. Another keynote, Paul Pangaro, spoke about the importance of Extension “designing for conversation”, so the learning spaces we create might better support collaborative, innovative problem solving.
The Grand Challenge: Coordinating Knowledge Infrastructure to Unlock the Potential and Passions of Society
Both are aligned with similar ideas in the library world promoted by individuals such as R. David Lankes, who believes our primary role is the creation of knowledge in and with communities, through conversation. Because we are “in the conversation business”, and technology and particularly the internet is changing the role, form and location of conversations, we must now consider how to provide conversational, participatory network infrastructure. More recently, Lankes has been so bold as to say that THE grand challenge (defined as a societal-level problem that is solvable and has high potential rewards) for librarianship is “coordinating the knowledge infrastructure to unlock the potential and passions of society”. [See my previous blog post for other ideas related to networked knowledge creation, and eXtension’s investment in that capacity]
These approaches are all relevant to the work I and others do at Land Grant libraries like Cornell University’s Mann Library, in support of our diverse communities of inquiry and practice. They’re also related to a “Land Grant Informatics” research fellowship I’m currently pursuing with support from Cornell University Library and eXtension, exploring ways we might more seamlessly and effectively link people, technology and information in support of our Land Grant mission, the communities we serve, and timely, adaptive responses to complex problems. For my fellowship I’ll be focusing on healthy food systems, and issues such as climate change and food security.
This investigation is being informed by my colleagues, mentors and networks, as well as decades of front line experience in farming and food systems work before entering academia 20 years ago. Along the way I’ve been influenced by a number of practitioners and thinkers, including National Humanities Medal recipient Wendell Berry, who through his writings has helped me better appreciate the value of culture in agriculture. He’s also highlighted the importance of a systems perspective in preventing and solving wicked problems. In Solving for Pattern (Chapter 9 of The Gift of Good Land: Further Essays Cultural & Agricultural, North Point Press, 1981) Berry writes:
To the problems of farming, then, as to other problems of our time, there appear to be three kinds of solutions, [those which]…
1. Cause a ramifying series of new problems… that… arise beyond the purview of the expertise that produced the solution…
2. Immediately worsen the problem it is intended to solve, causing a hellish symbiosis in which problem and solution reciprocally enlarge one another…
The Community Club, from the 1918 publication “Farm knowledge… the farmer’s own cyclopedia”, available at http://chla.library.cornell.edu/c/chla/browse/title/3074995.html
3. It is not until health is set down as the aim that we come in sight of the third kind of solution: that which causes a ramifying series of solutions… [with] a concern for pattern, for quality… [based on and reinforcing] relationships of mutual dependence.
As part of my own efforts to work out loud, over the next several months I’ll be sharing insights and reflections from my fellowship, as I explore how we might better “solve for pattern” within, across and beyond the Land Grant system. I’ll end this post with the image to the right, from a 1918 publication, The farmer’s own cyclopedia (available from one of Mann Library’s digital collections). In many ways I see Extension and eXtension at its best as modern versions of the “Community Club” illustrated here. My hope is this series itself will encourage and provoke ideas, information and inspiration from others, including those working outside of Extension and the Land Grant system. Please feel free to add your own thoughts and experiences operating in the zone of complexity below!
The vision I have for the Web is about anything being potentially connected with anything…that provides us with new freedom…unfettered by the hierarchical classification systems into which we’ve bound ourselves…. bringing the workings of society closer to the workings of our minds.
Tim Berners-Lee, in Weaving the Web: The Original Design and Ultimate Destiny of the World Wide Web by its inventor
Many of us take for granted capabilities afforded by the World Wide Web (WWW), what its inventor Tim Berners-Lee described on the world’s very first website as an “information retrieval initiative aiming to give universal access to a large universe of documents.” Starting in 1989, amazingly by October of 1990 he had developed three technologies that remain the foundation of today’s Web:
HTML: HyperText Markup Language, for formatting Web documents.
URI: Uniform Resource Identifier, a unique “address” for each resource on the Web. The most common form of URI is the Uniform Resource Locator (URL).
HTTP: Hypertext Transfer Protocol, allowing for the retrieval of resources from across the Web.
Since that time the Web has grown considerably larger and more complex, dramatically changing the way we learn, work and socialize. Within the academic world libraries like mine at Cornell University have helped develop a variety of robust web accessible resources including online databases and catalogs (WorldCat), digital repositories (HathiTrust) and expertise discovery systems (VIVO), transforming scholarly research, learning and dissemination. We’ve also been strong advocates of open, interoperable solutions wherever possible, in support of an informed and democratic society. Collaborative efforts like Linked Data for Libraries (LD4L), semantic web technologies and Linked Data are supporting the sharing of information in a highly flexible and extensible manner across the web.
These enabling technologies, standards and policies are changing the very nature of knowledge, including how its created, managed and shared. The locus of intelligence is shifting away from individuals and institutions, toward “smart networks” and “distributed intelligence”, from an emphasis on building stocks to maintaining flows. This network revolution is also enhancing our ability to sense and respond to crisis and change much more rapidly, often in real time.
The result, as David Weinberger from Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society writes in Too Big to Know, is that:
Knowledge is [no longer] something that gets pumped out of the system as its product… The hyperlinking of science… links knowledge back to its sources [and] into the human contexts and processes that produce, use, debate, and make sense of it.
And so…
Our task is… to build networks that make us smarter
As a vital part of the Land Grant system supporting knowledge with a public good, Cooperative Extension has an important part to play in this network revolution. Yet many have not fully embraced this role, lacking the skills, resources or guidance to do so.
Visual representation of the Theory of Change for Global Open Data for Agriculture and Nutrition (GODAN) initiative.
Dedicated to promoting Innovation and Impact in response to key Issues, including climate change and food security, eXtension has partnered with the USDA and GODAN (Global Open Data for Ag & Nutrition) to support the development of such competencies through a new fellowship. Individuals interested in this exciting opportunity to support innovation and impact within and beyond the Extension system are highly encouraged to apply.
Over the next several months, I’ll be sharing insights and reflections from my own “Land Grant Informatics” fellowship. Sponsored by eXtension and Cornell University Library, I’ll be investigating how we might more effectively and collectively link and leverage digital resources and expertise in support of our research, learning and outreach mission. Stay tuned! [The first post of that Solving for Pattern series can now be found here]
All extension agents are familiar with the method of finding the best practices, adapting and adopting them to work in our communities. This is an efficient way to provide proven projects and methods with limited resources. While the idea of ‘Borrow, Adapt, Adopt’ may not be anything new, using it as a formal project method is.
