Agriculture Information Technology

Advisory Group (AITAG)

Ag IT Advisory Group – Jan. 29, 2009 – via Videoconferencing

Members: Les Backer, Ag and Biosystems Engineering; Cindy Selstedt, Food Systems/Rural Leadership; Chris Schauer, Hettinger REC; Sheila Wiesz, Wells County; Pat Carr, Dickinson REC; Randy Grueneich, Barnes County; Debb Pankow, Child Development and Family Science; Christina Hargiss, Natural Resources/graduate students; Eric Berg, Animal Sciences
Ex-officio: Becky Koch, Ag Communication; Jeff Gerst, ITS
Guests: Jon Fry, ITS; Bob Bertsch, Ag Communication

Introductions

Chair Margaret asked each person to introduce themselves. Nov. 10, 2008, minutes were accepted.

E-mail Clients

Margaret pointed out that many e-mail clients are in use (Outlook, Thunderbird, Pegasus, Mozilla, etc.) Jon said Pegasus hasn’t updated as much as others, and the developer of the open-source software was going to stop it. MS Office includes Outlook, so everyone has Outlook, which is a paid-for, consistent program. Randy said for $50 you can purchase software that sends Pegasus files to Outlook, but it’s time-consuming and all messages are dated the day moved. Jeff said digital signatures and encrypted attachments can be used in Outlook and Thunderbird. Outlook is fully supported with PDAs.

At previous institutions, Eric used Outlook to schedule meetings and to leave an out-of-office reply. Jon said ITS doesn’t allow those replies since they come through as spam. NDSU has no consistent scheduling program since Old Main uses GroupWise calendar rather than Oracle.

Jon said other help desk staff don’t know Pegasus well. Outlook is a Microsoft product, so heavily supported rather than Pegasus with one New Zealand guy. Debb asked if there might be a way to get a license to transition everyone from Pegasus to Outlook. Jon said there might be a new option now. It’s possible to create a folder in IMAP and manually move files. Grand Forks County left Pegasus files on their computers and simply added Outlook, so new e-mails are in Outlook but Pegasus files are available if needed.

Randy said new staff would probably already know Outlook. Margaret suggested we make a concerted effort to transition users from Pegasus to Outlook. We need training on e-mail Web vs. hard drive and making the transition from Pegasus to Outlook. Pat pointed out he and others probably won’t take the time to go to online instructions. Jon will offer sessions at spring and fall conferences and also online.

NDSU Info on our Servers or Other Sites

Should free Web tools and applications be included in the software baseline? Blogs, video, slide presentations, etc. from other sources can be embedded into NDSU pages. Becky is concerned about not using NDSU URLs and lack of consistent look and feel. Staff can now work with Bob and Roger Egeberg to set up an NDSU blog, though they’re working on a template before promoting it to staff. Jeff said AITAG needs to recommend to the NDSU CMS team that blogging needs to be a feature in TYPO3. Jeff suggests purchasing a YouTube channel. SlideShare is the presentation version of YouTube. Bob said PowerPoint conversion is simple. PPTs also can be converted to PDFs. Another conference session should be on PPTs on the Web. If staff can’t make it to the conference sessions, where can they get that information?

Chris and Becky want to keep NDSU branding as much as possible. Bob and Becky will work with University Relations about a YouTube channel and other NDSU branded options.

Chris shared concern from RECs that they aren’t getting the support they need sometimes when they call the help desk. For example, the North Central REC was directed to Minot State.

CMS Training

Bob, Margaret and Brad Cogdill are planning six-hour hands-on training for Grand Forks, Fargo, Minot and Bismarck for Extension support staff conference in April and May. Bob is working with other off-campus staff individually. Agents and REC researchers will work directly with Bob. He’ll get a small group going in February for training using distance technology. On-campus faculty and staff should go to the ITS training. REC support staff need to be invited to the trainings around the state. The Ag for Legislators page at http://www.ndsu.edu/agforlegislators is the first Ag page to be completed in the CMS.

Bob said everyone must request workspace and separately request access to the workspace at http://www.ndsu.edu/cms, then later make a request to ITS to have the page go live. Let Bob know when you make requests so he can be your advocate to make it happen. Bob should update staff at the spring REC conference on CMS.

Bob is drafting a strategic plan for Agriculture and University Extension’s Web presence.

Making the Web Transformational

Bob shared a presentation that challenged us to think not just about high content but also high process to make our Web presence transformational. See http://www.slideshare.net/BobBertsch/making-the-web-transformational-presentation.

• The medium is the message. The Web’s power is in its structure, not its content.
• Building human networks: the Web’s greatest strength
• Entering the “push” paradigm. Reach people where they “live.”

An organization’s Web presence must be driven by its mission and strategic goals. See www.menards.com, which doesn’t sell products on its Web site, though we assume sales is the company’s goal, and www.homedepot.com, which makes purchasing online easy.

On http://my.barackobama.com, the candidates didn’t just raise money and share their positions. They built communities of supporters with common interests or traits beyond supporting Obama.

Under the pull paradigm, users must find information on the Web through hierarchies or searches. With a push paradigm, they can choose what to have delivered to them through feeds such as RSS or Atom, bookmarks such as delicious or networks such as Twitter.

Meeting adjourned at 10:30 a.m. CST. Notes by Becky Koch

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