Progress 09/15/07 to 08/14/09
Outputs
OUTPUTS: The authors generally followed the protocol of NetFlix, Inc. to test the effectiveness of the Netflix model as an educational outreach tool. NetFlix (http://www.netflix.com/) is an online movie rental service that charges a fixed monthly fee for movie rentals delivered to customers' homes via the US Postal Service. In this project, a similar website (http://www.forestryflix.com) was developed as a medium for featuring the list of available forestry and wildlife videos, but no rental fees were charged. Project participants were people that had either found the webpage online or had contacted the authors via the webpage, email or telephone after hearing advertisements for the project. The circulation process was set up so that a participant could order as many of the DVDs they wanted and could keep them as long as they liked. Once participants returned a DVD, they were mailed their next choice, until they had received and returned all of their order choices. Online website activities of project participants who ordered DVDs (i.e. number of orders, order and return dates, list of preferred DVDs, problems with the webpage) and with the DVD distribution process were recorded for evaluation purposes. Topics on these DVDs included: Back Yard Wildlife Management; Best Management Practices (BMPs); Forest Measurements (e.g. biometrics, mensuration); Management and Ecology of Wildlife Game Species; Silviculture; Timber Harvest Contracts; and Managing Your Woodlot. Fun quizzes for each DVD topic were also sent along with each DVD to determine if the participant understood the information on the DVD. Four media were used to advertise and encourage participation in this educational opportunity. Mass media advertising was broadcast by one television network, five radio stations, 10 local and regional newspapers, one web-based newspaper, and mailed 2000 invitation postcards. This advertising process ran from June 1 to August 1, 2008. The initial part of this project was concluded on October 31, 2008. Subsequently, a mail survey questionnaire following the Dillman method (2000) was used to assess the effectiveness of the project. The questionnaire included inquiries into participant demographics, usefulness and clarity of DVD topic meaning, level of engagement including reasons for continued or curtailed participation, and general satisfaction with the DVDs. Beyond standard descriptive analysis for survey questions, logistic regression with a stepwise selection routine was used to explore factors related to selections of the various DVDs offered in the project. These were followed up by contingency tables to identify significant variables. The initial variables in the stepwise variable selection process were those that accounted for participants' project engagement, educational and management preferences, and demographic characteristics. Significance levels for Chi-square tests were set at α < 0.10. PARTICIPANTS: Dave McGill, WVU Forest Management Extension Specialist was the principle investigator on this project and provided adminstrative and development support. Dan Magill, WVU Forester and Research Assistant was responsible for developing and recording the DVDS; developing the website; developing and writing the fun quizzes, taking and processing all DVD orders. Jonathan Kays, University of Maryland Forest Extension Specialist provided technical and administrative project support. TARGET AUDIENCES: The target audiences of this project included forest landowners and the general public. PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: No major changes were included in this project.
Impacts
By March 6, 2009, 63 of the 163 questionnaires that were mailed had been returned (40%) and were used in the analysis. Of the 63 respondents, 73% were males and 26% females. The average age of these individuals was 51 years. Most resided in West Virginia (84%) and most had completed high school or vocational technology training (58%). The average annual income of these individuals was $55,000. About 73% of the respondents own forestland property, amounting to 1,423 ha, an average forestland holding of 31 ha and 20 have forest stewardship plans. When asked if they have communicated with a forester, 29 individuals (46%) indicated they had. Fourteen respondents belong to some type of forestry or wildlife management organization. Non-participants, as defined above, made up 38% of the respondents. Of these, 13 (54%) own forest property. The most prevalent problems associated with forest ownership reported by the forest owners included dealing with trespassers and all terrain vehicles (21). The most popular DVD ordered and received was Back Yard Wildlife Management (34 participants) followed by Managing Your Woodlot (24). Project participants were asked to rank the helpfulness, understanding, easiness of website use, and repeated website use on a four-point (1-4) frequency scale with the number four being the highest positive ranking Respondents generally found the Forestry Flix website easy to use (mean rating=3.67) and understood the content of the DVDs (3.68). The helpfulness of the information content on the DVDs, however, had slightly lower ratings (3.10). Respondents heard about the Forestry Flix project from a variety of sources. Forty-two read about the project in paid newspaper ads. As a result of watching the DVDs, twenty-five respondents had carried out management practices including establishing wildlife food plots (72%) and tree thinning (40%). Out of the 35 individuals who returned a fun quiz sixty-six percent scored 90% or greater. When asked about interest and willingness to pay for additional workshops in forestry and wildlife, 47 respondents answered that they would pay an average of $58.51 for a workshop. Fifty-three respondents indicated that they would be willing to travel an average of 53 miles to attend a workshop of interest. Few demographic variables were related to the specific type of DVD that was ordered by participants. In fact, the only variables related to DVD topics were their status as an active or non-participant landowner and the participants' state of residence (WV vs. out-of-state). Proportionally more non-participant landowners viewed the Managing Your Woodlot video than did active landowners (p=0.080). Almost two-thirds (61%) of the non-participant landowners had viewed this DVD in contrast to only one-third (33%) of the active landowners. The Forestry Flix DVD projects participant's state of residence was statistically related to whether a participant ordered a given DVD for three topics: backyard wildlife, forest measurements, and wildlife game species.
Publications
- Magill, D. and D. McGill. 2009. Forestry Flix: Evaluating the Netflix Model for Accessing Urban and Rural Populations in the Central Appalachian Region Using a Web-based DVD Circulation Program. pp:161-169. In Proceedings: Seeing the Forest Beyond the Trees--New possibilities and expectationis for products and services from small-scale forestry. IUFRO 3.08 Small-Scale Working Unit. Morgantown, WV.
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Progress 09/15/07 to 09/14/08
Outputs
OUTPUTS: Forest wood resources in West Virginia alone provide approximately four billion dollars to the state's annual economy. Additionally, these forest resources support a multitude of plant, wildlife, and fungi species and provide a diverse suite of ecosystem functions. In West Virginia, as throughout the Appalachian Region, approximately 76 percent of the forestland is privately owned by an estimated 260,000 private individuals and families. Although these forest owners are a large diverse group, only a small percentage is engaged in active forest management. The challenge to forest management organizations is to promote sound stewardship practices on this mosaic of properties owned by people with different objectives and motivations. This project was designed to test the Net-Flix-R business model for engaging private individuals in an educational outreach program to allow private forest owners and all citizens to learn how to properly conserve, manage, and sustainably use their woodland resources from the comfort of their own homes. To accomplish this, during 2007 and 2008, we developed and circulated a series of seven forestry and wildlife management activity DVDS using the Net-Flix's business model for a six month period. Currently, we are distributing a mail survey to collect participant information about their experience with this educational outreach method. We will deliver the results of the evaluation at an international forestry conference in June 2009, in Morgantown, WV. PARTICIPANTS: Approximately 160 people have signed up online to participate in this project. A survey of the demographics of these people including questioins related to who they are and the relevance of the project to them. TARGET AUDIENCES: The primary target audience is the group of private landowners that are not inclined to attend educational meetings. This project is intended to reach people that normally are too busy to do more than watch a video to learn about forestry. PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: Nothing significant to report during this reporting period.
Impacts
The evaluation survey is currently being conducted and should be finalized by February 2009.
Publications
- No publications reported this period
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