ACE Membership: A Benchmark Study

This study continues inquiry into the reasons people join and retain membership in voluntary professional organizations. Expanding on a study of historical membership data (1991-2004) provided by the Association for Communication Excellence in Agriculture, Natural Resources, and Life and Human Sciences (ACE), 555 individuals who were dues-paying ACE members in 2006 were sent online surveys. Methodology was based on Dillman\u27s Tailored Design Method. Sixty-four percent of the population responded. Analysis indicated that members were a fairly homogeneous group in terms of employment classification and regional membership status. Average membership tenure was 3.34 years, with 27% of members reporting a lapse in membership. Respondents valued and were satisfied with organizational communication, professional development opportunities, publications, networking, and annual meetings. However, they expressed dissatisfaction with some organizational components, including special interest groups, cliquishness, lack of diversity, features of the annual meeting, and judging in the awards program. The findings support existing literature about workplace organizational loyalty and commitment and the extended application of such studies to voluntary organizations

Texas Agricultural Commodity Board Members\u27 Perceptions of the 2002 U.S. Farm Bill

Extension educators have important roles in educating the public on national agricultural policies. The purpose of the study reported here was to determine Texas agricultural commodity (corn, cotton, grain sorghum, and wheat) board members\u27 perceptions of the 2002 Farm Bill. Male respondents, 46 to 55 years old, considered the Cooperative Extension Service/universities and the Internet as good information sources for learning about the farm bill. Cotton board members believed their organizations influenced the bill\u27s final outcome. Extension educators should maximize their resources by using information sources suited to stakeholders\u27 needs for learning about future farm bills

Communicating the Handling of Nonresponse Error in Journal of Extension Research in Brief Articles

This article reports a study designed to describe historical treatment of nonresponse error in the Journal of Extension. All Research in Brief articles (N=83) published in JOE (1995-99) were analyzed using content analysis techniques. Results showed that not mentioning nonresponse error, not controlling nonresponse error, or not citing the literature were the norm and not the exception. It is recommended that Extension researchers address nonresponse error when it is a threat to the external validity of their study. Recommendations for additional study and adoption of methods for handling nonresponse are provided

Texas Agricultural Organization Board Members Knowledge of and Information Sources for the 2002 Farm Bill

This study attempted to assess Texas agricultural board members’ knowledge levels of the 2002 Farm Bill and to explore perceived values of information sources used to learn about the farm bill. Selected Texas agricultural organization board members (70) were most knowledgeable about the crop insurance and direct payment programs, findings that parallel previous studies. Respondents were least knowledgeable about the food stamp program. Respondents identified the Cooperative Extension Service and farm publications as the most valuable information sources for learning about the 2002 Farm Bill. No significant relationships existed between respondents’ knowledge of the 2002 Farm Bill and their information sources. If agricultural communicators want to reach agricultural board members, they should communicate farm bill programs and issues using the Cooperative Extension Service, the Internet (agricultural sites), and farm publications

Using CD-Based Materials to Teach Turfgrass Management

Traditional Extension programs are delivered in face-to-face workshop settings. Recently, educators have used new technologies for program delivery with increasing frequency. One technique (CD-ROM) has not been explored thoroughly. Using a turfgrass management curriculum for Master Gardeners, researchers sought to determine if learning differed between students taught using CD-based materials versus those taught in traditional workshops. Using a pre-test/post-test design, 94 participants\u27 turfgrass management knowledge was measured. CD-based materials were more effective than traditional settings for teaching turfgrass management topics to Master Gardener trainees. CD-based materials could increase the number of clientele reached and enhance their learning experiences

Selected College Students\u27 Knowledge and Perceptions of Biotechnology Issues Reported in the Mass Media

The purpose of this study was to determine college students\u27 awareness of and attitudes toward biotechnology issues reported in the mass media. Future agricultural communicators (N = 330) representing 11 land-grant universities in 10 states recorded their knowledge and perceptions of biotechnology issues as reported in the mass media. Respondents were mostly seniors (46%), female (55%), and considered themselves 8 average students (60%). Students achieved only 30% correct responses (M = 3.05) in a knowledge assessment of biotechnology practices, illustrating a lack of knowledge. However, nearly 84% of the respondents perceived their level of knowledge as average to high (24% perceived they possessed above-average scientific knowledge). Future agricultural communicators were somewhat accepting of biotechnology practices for genetically modified organisms involving plant life (M = 3.28), but viewed these same practices as somewhat unacceptable for use on humans (M = 1.84). Significant, low positive relationships existed between respondents\u27 perceived and assessed levels ofbiotechnology knowledge (r = .17) and between their assessed knowledge and acceptance of biotechnology practices (r = .16). Selected college students in the agricultural sciences have much less knowledge about biotechnology practices than what they believed to possess. Although correctable through increased study of biotechnology, this finding may pose serious problems for students choosing to communicate the science of biotechnology issues in the mass media. Agricultural communications faculty nationwide should analyze their curricula to determine if students are being given the opportunity to study biotechnology issues while learning how to communicate it to a larger audience

Assessing Stakeholder Needs: Delphi Meets the Internet

Turfgrass specialists and Extension educators responsible for developing educational materials in the Master Gardener Program sought stakeholder input for an innovative curriculum by using innovative data collection methods. County agents, program coordinators, and volunteers from 11 Cooperative Extension Service districts responded to a Web-based, Delphi study. Interactive, online data collection methods provided rapid feedback in the consensus-building process. Extension personnel can use this methodology to develop similar consensus-building activities for other programming issues. Stakeholder input can be achieved, with minimum time and expense, while curriculum developers minimize wasted time in programming development that clientele may not find useful

Barriers to international experiential participation.

Abstract Does "preflection," as proposed by Jones and Bjelland (2004

Large expert-curated database for benchmarking document similarity detection in biomedical literature search

Document recommendation systems for locating relevant literature have mostly relied on methods developed a decade ago. This is largely due to the lack of a large offline gold-standard benchmark of relevant documents that cover a variety of research fields such that newly developed literature search techniques can be compared, improved and translated into practice. To overcome this bottleneck, we have established the RElevant LIterature SearcH consortium consisting of more than 1500 scientists from 84 countries, who have collectively annotated the relevance of over 180 000 PubMed-listed articles with regard to their respective seed (input) article/s. The majority of annotations were contributed by highly experienced, original authors of the seed articles. The collected data cover 76% of all unique PubMed Medical Subject Headings descriptors. No systematic biases were observed across different experience levels, research fields or time spent on annotations. More importantly, annotations of the same document pairs contributed by different scientists were highly concordant. We further show that the three representative baseline methods used to generate recommended articles for evaluation (Okapi Best Matching 25, Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency and PubMed Related Articles) had similar overall performances. Additionally, we found that these methods each tend to produce distinct collections of recommended articles, suggesting that a hybrid method may be required to completely capture all relevant articles. The established database server located at https://relishdb.ict.griffith.edu.au is freely available for the downloading of annotation data and the blind testing of new methods. We expect that this benchmark will be useful for stimulating the development of new powerful techniques for title and title/abstract-based search engines for relevant articles in biomedical research.Peer reviewe

National Agricultural and Texas Journalists' Attitudes Toward and Information Sources for Biotechnology Issues

This research was supported by Hatch Act (H-8934) and State of Texas funds; it was produced through the Texas Agricultural Experiment Station, College Station, Texas.What sources of information do media professionals use, and what is the frequency of use, when covering agricultural biotechnology issues? Fifty Texas and 40 national agriculture journalists responded to this study. Respondents accepted genetic modification of plant life but viewed this same practice as unacceptable for human use. They believed it important to continue biotechnology research to reduce pesticides, provide benefits to the environment, and to have safer food. Respondents believed that biotechnology practices would have positive effects on food production, commercial farming, health, environment, fish and wildlife, and small-scale farms. They often relied on their scientific knowledge and previous science classroom/lab experiences in establishing/maintaining their perceptions of agricultural biotechnology. Significant moderate positive relationships existed between acceptance of biotechnology practices and technical publications/reports and the Cooperative Extension Service. No one media source is a panacea; use all sources to communicate the benefits and risks of agricultural biotechnology.Includes bibliographical reference