Recipient Organization
UNIV OF MINNESOTA
(N/A)
ST PAUL,MN 55108
Performing Department
(N/A)
Non Technical Summary
The Digital Center will:Continue to support and expand the delivery of risk management education through the Ag Risk and Farm Management Library.Provide the Results Verification System to the regional centers so they can efficiently receive and manage project applications and reports.Provide public access to a searchable database of all risk management education funded projects to facilitate collaboration among risk management educators.Collaborate with the regional centers to help ensure that risk management programs are delivered to underserved producers and producers underserved by crop insurance.Develop a visual dashboard that will provide aggregate administrative reports in the RVS. The dashboard will communicate outcomes of ERME funding, improve the reporting coming out of the RVS, and assist with future funding decisions.Coordinate a national ERME conference and lead ERME communications strategies.
Animal Health Component
(N/A)
Research Effort Categories
Basic
(N/A)
Applied
(N/A)
Developmental
(N/A)
Goals / Objectives
The Digital Center for Risk Management Education proposes to continue to serve as the Risk Management Education Electronic Support Center. The Digital Center will:Continue to support and expand the delivery of risk management education through the online Ag Risk and Farm Management Library, which currently provides organized access to more than 4,900 risk management education (RME) materials.Provide electronic support to the regional centers with the Results Verification System (RVS), an online proposal and reporting system, for project applications and reports.Facilitate communication and collaboration with the directors of the four regional centers.Facilitate collaboration among RME providers through public access to a searchable database of the results of all risk management education funded projects.Create and disseminate evaluation materials to assist awardees in project evaluation.Provide a visual dashboard within the RVS to inform future funding decisions by insightfully communicating data such as awarded topic areas, producer demographics, and outcomes.Collaborate with the regional centers to help ensure that RME programs are delivered to underserved producers, including special emphasis audiences.Provide leadership for RME communications to help producers, practitioners, and other stakeholders learn about RME programs.Coordinate an annual national Risk Management Education conference with the regional centers that facilitates sharing of programs, innovations, and educational materials.Improve the effectiveness of delivering risk management education by supporting the four regional centers to identify and develop new strategies to deliver risk management education.
Project Methods
The Digital Center will continue to provide and update the Results Verification System (RVS) so all proposals can be submitted to the regional centers electronically (Figure 1). The RVS is an integrated grant management system that allows centers to efficiently receive, award, and manage applications and reports. It has been used since 2003 to manage over 1,700 Extension Risk Management Education (ERME) grants. The RVS includes:Electronic proposal submission. A portal will be maintained for regional centers to accept funding applications. Each center will manage their applications separately and securely.A secure database will store and archive all applications and reports for each center.The RVS will allow applicants to manage their applications and reports by creating a log of every application and report submission, and identifying content missing from applications or reports to help eliminate incomplete submissions.Grant management and administrative functions will let centers create new grant programs; accept, approve and delete applications; review and approve reports; determine when reports can be publicly viewed; and email project directors.Each stage of a project will be displayed and tracked in RVS including application, review, quarterly reports, final reporting, due dates, and overdue notices.Regional centers will be able to set review criteria and assign applications to reviewers. The system will summarize feedback and allow centers to disseminate comments to applicants.Panel reviews can be completed electronically either in-person or remotely. Reviewers can view, rate, and comment on assigned applications. The system will tabulate the sum of all reviewers for ranking by the regional centers.Progress and final reports will be submitted to RVS. The RVS displays proposed results and project steps from applications so projects report directly to what they said they'd accomplish.Data from all completed projects will be organized and can be queried to create aggregate reports of accomplishments by state, region, year, topic, or audience emphasis. Access will be provided to NIFA. This data will be available through a visual dashboard that will provide aggregate administrative reports in RVS. The goal of the dashboard is to improve reporting.Materials will be available in the RVS to assist awardees with project evaluations.