Introduction: To remain a viable educational and informational organization, the Extension Service must incorporate new information technology. Budget reductions have cut deep into our ability to provide information and educational programs using traditional approaches. We must look beyond county and state boundaries and combine resources nation-wide to develop expanded programs to meet increasing needs. Electronic technologies provide an opportunity to do this through Global Information Systems for Decision Support (GISDS).

Benefits of GISDS to: Clients - Round-the-clock access to up-to-date, concise, accurate information. User inquiry-driven information retrieval will support decisions on their specific questions and needs. Institutions - Opportunity to coordinate activities of the reduced number of faculty nationally into effective, efficient teams for developing and sharing electronic information nation-wide. Faculty - Shared workload and peer networking will increase the quantity and quality of informational material available as the number of faculty within each state decrease. National peer review, networking, and recognition for scholarly contributions will improve faculty morale, efficiency and effectiveness.

Process: The unique characteristics and capabilities of electronic media require new ways of preparing and using information. Scanning and pasting existing printed publications into CD-ROMS or onto the WWW does not fully utilize new capabilities inherent in electronic media for information and education: layered multimedia, chunked, encyclopedia-like information' with inquirer driven links.' Creation of modules within GISDS will be cooperative efforts of USDA CSREES national program leaders, professional societies, Extension and education faculty, and clientele groups. Informational files will be dynamic -evolving continuously with updated information, not confined to the time, space and geographical constraints of books and CD-ROMS. The National focal point for development of GISDS in the various disciplines will be the respective CSREES National Program Leaders. Interactive development of the individual electronic information files by subject matter, communications and information science faculty will efficiently produce information chunks ready for peer review by the respective team member's professional society. The review-revision will provide quality control, professional development, and enhance widespread use of the information system due to distributed ownership'. Involvement of national clientele groups' such as the National Dairy Association involvement in the National Dairy Database development will be invaluable in making GISDS responsive to user needs and preferences.

Actions Needed:

1. Contact CSREES Director: Encourage CSREES Director Bob Robinson to designate USDA CSREES program leaders as national focal points for developing electronic information systems within their respective subject/program/commodity areas.

2. Encourage Faculty Participation: Use the description of the national collaboration process¹ as an opportunity to build faculty morale since it has the potential to increase, rather than decrease, program offerings.

GISDS will enhance professional development and decrease individual faculty information workload by nation-wide distribution. Encourage faculty to participate in development of information systems related to their professional expertise, e.g. Forage Information System (david.hannaway@oregonstate.edu), HortBase (greenjl@bcc.orst.edu), National Dairy Database and other animal databases (beastwood@ reeusda.gov).

Resources Available: To assist you in presentations to your state administrative team and faculty, text and illustrative slides presenting the GISDS concept and process flow charts can be downloaded at the following URL: http://www.forages.css.orst.edu. At the homepage, hit the PROJECTS' menu button, then go to GISDS.

Illustrations: Top to bottom

• A) Organization flow chart within USDA CSREES for GISDS funding and development; in 1995, CTDE and SERD provided over $5 million as Challenge Grants for information development.
• B) National focus of the individual subject/commodity/program information systems will be at the respective program leaders in the PAPPP, NRE, RESD and Family, 4-H and Nutrition programs of the CSREEES.
• C) Proposed 3-Dimensional team creation-review of the GISDS files is illustrated under HortBase. Files will be created by three-dimensional teams (subject, communications, information science team members). The dimension contributed by each of the respective team members will be reviewed by their respective national professional society.

A)

B)

C)

¹HortBase, GISDS pilot project description: http://waffle.nal.usda.gov/docs/mtg94/append_g.html. Agricultural Network Information Center, http://www.agnic.org. European Agricultural Multimedia Network for agricultural education and extension, http://www.stoas.nl/mmnet/default.html.

Last updated May 19, 1996.