Progress 09/01/21 to 08/30/23
Outputs
Target Audience:This project involves researchers, students, businesses, and other organization types (governmental, NGO, etc.) from across the data and agricultural sectors. Individuals from farming and scientific communities as well as integrative disciplines (e.g., engineers, geneticists, extension educators, and information scientists) have engaged with NAPDC activities and content. The NAPDC community includes stakeholder and partner organizations and projects (for a list please visithttps://www.agdatacoop.org/aligned-projects) that have shared NAPDC communications and events since the start of the project. This diverse community continues to grow as measured by website visits and activity attendance. For example, since its launch in January 2022 the NAPDC website has hundreds of unique viewers from across every inhabited continent of the world. Over 100 unique attendees have participated in at least one Webinar this past year with an average of 25 attendees logging in each month for the monthly webinar. To ensure the inclusion of URM audiences, we have shared NAPDC activities with various URM organizations, such as SACNAS and the NAPPN Equity, Inclusivity, and Diversity Committee, particularly with respect to the convening grant opportunity. Changes/Problems:The convening grant subaward process has been more challenging than expected. We worked with the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Office of Sponsored Programs to refine the process and reduce time to award; however, the process continues to be lengthy. This is in part due to the number of steps involved in the awarding process and in part due to the coordination of multiple offices both within and between institutions. NAPDC has been successful in keeping track of the processes on the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) side of the award process but is dependent on "checking in" with the PIs of awarded projects since the process moves into new hands once UNL has fully executed the award to the recipient institution. At that point, the onus is on the convening grant PIs to make sure invoices are being sent and processed in a timely manner, at which point much of the process is difficult to track. These challenges of working with multiple offices within an institution as well as between institutions has slowed the progress of convening grant teams. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Webinars provide both training activities and professional development activities for NAPDC community members. Each webinar is led by individuals who are recognized by NAPDC leadership as experts on the topic of the given event. Leading one of these events provides all presenters, but particularly early-career presenters, to gain skills, confidence and community recognition. The purpose of each of these events is to disseminate information, increase knowledge and skills and provide an opportunity to meet other community members. Webinars are offered as Zoom meetings rather than `Zoom webinars' to encourage broad community participation, engagement and interaction. Additionally, NAPDC provided formal internship experience for the undergraduate work study relevant to science communication, website management, and graphical design. The work study attended team meetings and gained professional presentation skills. Furthermore, the project manager received training in website management and listserv management. The project manager also received training in using software (e.g., smartsheet) to manage applications to the Convening Grants opportunity and registrations to the NAPDC conference. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?This project reaches researchers, students, and companies from across the agricultural sector by leveraging stakeholder and partner organizations (e.g., the Midwest Big Data Hub) to distribute information on project activities and events. This has led to a great diversity of participants, based on information collected at event registration, from many types of institutions as well as from across disciplines that continues to grow. For example, since January 2022 the NAPDC website has had over 2,500 unique viewers from across every inhabited continent of the world and the number of visits is growing by over 100% month-to-month. Webinar registrations are also growing and so appear to be meeting a critical need. Event details and links to registration pages are shared through the NAPDC listserv and social media. Since most registration pages are hosted on the NAPDC website, we can collect information on first-time users and give them the opportunity to opt-in to our listserv. The website also has a webform where interested parties can register to join our listerv. Recordings of each webinar are available on the NAPDC website. Twitter (@agdatacoop_ag) is being used for advertising upcoming events and to reach broader audiences who may prefer social media over email for their communications. In this way the project cuts across generational differences in communication preferences. NAPDC includes members who share information on upcoming NAPDC activities with various URM organizations, such as MANNRS and SACNAS, particularly with respect to the convening grant opportunity. Dissemination of convening grant activities is primarily the responsibility of the convening grant teams, but, when appropriate, NAPDC shares these outcomes on the website under the "Convening Awards" page. These outcomes are organized within the funded project description, along with the summary narrative from the proposal and a link to an associated website. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?
Nothing Reported
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Webinars.NAPDC hosts webinars to expose the NAPDC community to a diversity of research and producer activities and available resources applicable to a national data framework. Topics span framework components, both horizontal (across disciplines) and vertical (within disciplines). Zoom chat is encouraged to engage the audience and support Q&A and discussion.Each webinar is recorded and posted (with supporting materials) to the NAPDC website (https://www.agdatacoop.org/webinars) soon after the event ends. Over 350 attendees have participated in at least one Webinar since the beginning of this project and an average of 36 people attend each webinar. Convening Grants.NAPDC's Convening Grant program was designed to engage stakeholders and aligned projects representing different regional agroecosystems with the idea of a national framework and solicit community input on a framework blueprint. Convening grant awardees reported the following deliverables: Seed Grant ($59,500): "Data collection, sharing, and use at the farm level" aims to investigate data sharing and use in several common use cases at the farm level to determine if it is done securely and with what approvals, in partnership with ADC and AgGateway. Seed Grant ($57,357): "Coalescing Robust Data Access for U.S. Specialty Crop Producers for the National Agricultural Producers Data Cooperative (NAPDC) project" aims to identify and document the information needs and gaps in the specialty crops sector, with an aim to develop a data framework and a standardized data collection process to improve strategic decision making across the food chain. Seed grant ($49,477): "Enabling Cyberinfrastructure for the NAPDC: the OATS Data Frameworks" aims to provide exposure for the NAPDC to diverse communities, access and education to enable the use of Trellis and OADA frameworks, and input on questions of national scope for an agricultural producers data framework. A highlight was the"Fixing the Soil Health Tech Stack" event August 23 and 24, 2022 and include NAPDC as a sponsor for the event.Event was successful, with NAPDC exposure for up to 120 event participants.An NAPDC-focused presentation was given during the event and online surveys were distributed to participants.An "Eight Step Action Plan to Fix the Soil Health Tech Stack Now" whitepaper was produced and distributed in collaboration with other event collaborators (https://bit.ly/farm-foundation-fix-soil-tech).The event has resulted in an exciting ongoing project building much-needed open source tooling to standardize and digitize soil lab data (https://github.com/oats-center/modus) Seed grant ($60,000): "Building synergistic data framework for cropping, livestock, and aquaculture producers of Virginia" aims to document the barriers to developing and utilizing data frameworks from the perspectives of crop, livestock, and aquaculture producers of Virginia (VA).We developed comprehensive surveys for agricultural producersto understand the producer's level of awareness, skill sets, barriers, demands, and willingness to contribute to the current-day utilization and adoption of data management and decision support systems in the agricultural operations. The responders were the producers of (1) crops which include barley, beans, corn, cotton, forages, grain, hay, oats, peanuts, rye, sorghum, soybeans, vegetables, and wheat; (2) aquaculture, which include shellfish, soft crabs, clams, oysters, tilapia, and trout; and (3) livestock, which include beef, black angus, quail, and chukars. About 70% of the farmers reported to use sensors and data technology in their operations such as weather sensors, yield monitors, GPS, soil moisture, aquaculture climate monitoring sensors. Non-availability of low cost or open-source tools/technologies and training was the major reason cited by the 30% producers who did not use any technology or data-run solutions in their operations. Most users of technology expressed interest in adopting advancements with supporting training while some could not still realize their return on investments. Data protection and trust in modern-day technology was highlighted as the major need.We have conducted total four focus group meetings, two with the crop producers, one with the county extension agents, one with the aquaculture producer, and one with the not-for profit organization.Hidden and unknown challenges are faced by the producers when it comes to technology and data-usage with their agrarian decision-making. The top five challenges noted down by the producers were (1) Updates in technology evolution & developments, (2) Data handling, value and management, and authentication, (3) On-farm connectivity and data protection, (4) Training and demonstration, and (5) Cost and infrastructure support. In terms of opportunities, producers prioritized that Connectivity remains a major issue in technology adoption: (1) Farmers trust university-developed tools and need dedicated training and trial days, (2) Producers are reluctant to adopt new technologies and prefer third-party testing and finished products, and (3) Most importantly, training and solutions to increase data ownership/stewardship and protection was highly voted.We developed four case studies for agricultural field crops (1) estimating peanut maturity using aerial imagery, weather data, and machine learning, (2) mapping soybean infestation with nematodes using aerial remote sensing, (3) mapping sclerotinia blight severity in peanuts using aerial imagery, and (4) mapping unknown leafspot disease in corn using aerial imagery. Our team on livestock side has developed a nano-sensor for monitoring ketosis in dairy cows. In the future, the developers of this technology will archive the programs, and sensor guide on GitHub for protected and open-source access. On the aquaculture domain, our collaborators at the Freshwater Institute have developed a fish mortality camera system that continuously captures imagery of fishes in the RAS system. Conferences.The goals of the conferences attended and organized by NAPDC and convening grant awardees have been to identify gaps and challenges in data use and reuse, as well as opportunities for coordination. In year 2, we participated in several conferences (TechHub Live, ASAS/CSAS/WSAS Annual Meeting, Conference on Statistical Practice) as well as organizing and hosting the inaugural NAPDC conference in May 2023 at the Nebraska Innovation Campus. This conference served as a venue for presentations and discussions on topics relevant to the NAPDC by representatives of academic, nonprofit, and industry partners. A white paper summarizing the conference and key takeaways is in preparation for expected release in September 2023.Website and listserv.The NAPDC website (https://www.agdatacoop.org) was launched in December 2021 and has since been developed to support communication and dissemination of NAPDC activities, opportunities, and related projects. A listserv was also launched and individuals can sign up for the listserv at the NAPDC website. A separate email address has been established (agdatacoop@unl.edu)for managing communications between the NAPDC project and members of the broader stakeholder community.Survey.Although not explicitly one of NAPDC's activities, we have developed and distributed a community survey as a vehicle for achieving objectives #1 and #2. We had 54 respondents (survey closed August 11, 2023) and we will share our findings in accordance with objective #3. This survey was focused on attitudes and perspectives on a national data framework by agricultural producers, as well as access and barriers to data resources and cyberinfrastructure for producers. The survey was developed and distributed in partnership with the UNL Social and Behavioral Sciences Research Consortium who have professional expertise in designing, developing, disseminating, and analyzing surveys.
Publications
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
Eight Step Action Plan to Fix the Soil Health Tech Stack Now whitepaper was produced and distributed in collaboration with other event collaborators (https://bit.ly/farm-foundation-fix-soil-tech).
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Progress 09/01/21 to 08/31/22
Outputs
Target Audience:This project involves researchers, students, businesses, and other organization types (governmental, NGO, etc.) from across the data and agricultural sectors. Individuals from farming and scientific communities as well as integrative disciplines (e.g., engineers, geneticists, extension educators, and information scientists) have engaged with NAPDC activities and content. The NAPDC community includes stakeholder and partner organizations and projects (for a list please visit https://www.agdatacoop.org/aligned-projects) that have shared NAPDC communications and events since the start of the project. This diverse community continues to grow as measured by website visits and activity attendance. For example, since its launch in January 2022 the NAPDC website has had over 100 unique viewers from across every inhabited continent of the world. Over 100 unique attendees have participated in at least one Webinar this past year with an average of 25 attendees logging in each month for the monthly webinar. To ensure the inclusion of URM audiences, we have shared NAPDC activities with various URM organizations, such as SACNAS, particularly with respect to the convening grant opportunity. For example, NAPDC is participating in the organization of the 2023 North American Plant Phenotyping conference and solicitation of conference support for attendees from URM audiences. Changes/Problems:The convening grant subaward process has been more challenging than expected. We worked with the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Office of Sponsored Programs to refine the process and reduce time to award; however, the process continues to be lengthy. This is in part due to the number of steps involved in the awarding process and in part due to the coordination of multiple offices both within and between institutions. NAPDC has been successful in keeping track of the processes on the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) side of the award process but is dependent on "checking in" with the PIs of awarded projects since the process moves into new hands once UNL has fully executed the award to the recipient institution. At that point, the onus is on the convening grant PIs to make sure invoices are being sent and processed in a timely manner, at which point much of the process is difficult to track. These challenges of working with multiple offices within an institution as well as between institutions has slowed the progress of convening grant teams. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Webinars provide both training activities and professional development activities for NAPDC community members. Each webinar is led by individuals who are recognized by NAPDC leadership as experts on the topic of the given event. Leading one of these events provides all presenters, but particularly early-career presenters, to gain skills, confidence and community recognition. The purpose of each of these events is to disseminate information, increase knowledge and skills and provide an opportunity to meet other community members. Webinars are offered as Zoom meetings rather than `Zoom webinars' to encourage broad community participation, engagement and interaction. Additionally, NAPDC provided formal internship experience for the undergraduate work study relevant to science communication, website management, and graphical design. The work study attended team meetings and gained professional presentation skills. Furthermore, the project manager received training in website management and listserv management. The project manager also received training in using software (e.g., smartsheet) to manage applications to the Convening Grants opportunity. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?This project reaches researchers, students, and companies from across the agricultural sector by leveraging stakeholder and partner organizations (e.g., the Midwest Big Data Hub) to distribute information on project activities and events. This has led to a great diversity of participants, based on information collected at event registration, from many types of institutions as well as from across disciplines that continues to grow. For example, since January 2022 the NAPDC website has had over 2,500 unique viewers from across every inhabited continent of the world and the number of visits is growing by over 100% month-to-month. Webinar registrations are also growing and so appear to be meeting a critical need. Event details and links to registration pages are shared through the NAPDC listserv and social media. Since most registration pages are hosted on the NAPDC website, we can collect information on first-time users and give them the opportunity to opt-in to our listserv. The website also has a webform where interested parties can register to join our listerv. Recordings of each webinar are available on the NAPDC website. Twitter (@agdatacoop_ag) is being used for advertising upcoming events and to reach broader audiences who may prefer social media over email for their communications. In this way the project cuts across generational differences in communication preferences. NAPDC includes members who share information on upcoming NAPDC activities with various URM organizations, such as MANNRS and SACNAS, particularly with respect to the convening grant opportunity. Dissemination of convening grant activities is primarily the responsibility of the convening grant teams, but, when appropriate, NAPDC shares these outcomes on the website under the "Convening Awards" page. These outcomes are organized within the funded project description, along with the summary narrative from the proposal and a link to an associated website. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?Webinars We will continue to rotate topics for each monthly webinar, particularly focusing on topics that cut across horizontal and vertical components of a data framework. Webinar presenters have represented different career levels and institutions; we will continue to thoughtfully select diverse speakers. Presentations often include a question and answer session to engage the audience, audience members are able to pose questions via Zoom's chat function. Recordings will continue to be made available on the NAPDC website soon after the close of the event. We will continue to offer a form on the webpage where interested parties can request to host a webinar. Convening Grants The convening grants are receiving their subaward funding and initiating their activities. We will monitor the progress of these awards and assist the project teams wherever possible. Each convening grant award team will host a webinar to introduce their project to the broader community and solicit feedback and engagement. In addition, each convening grant team will have in-person representation at the inaugural NAPDC conference and will host a community event as part of the conference program. This will provide teams with an opportunity to present their progress to date and other deliverables to the broader community, and brainstorm plans to secure future funding. At the conclusion of the proposals funded through this award, the NAPDC leadership team will receive final reports from all awardees. These reports will detail progress made as a result of NAPDC funding, challenges or obstacles encountered, engagement of the project with other NAPDC activities (e.g., webinars, conferences), and future plans. Survey We are developing a community survey as a vehicle for achieving objectives #1 and #2, and we will share our findings in accordance with objective #3. This survey will be focused on attitudes and perspectives on a national data framework as well as access and barriers to data resources and cyberinfrastructure for producers. The survey is being developed in partnership with the UNL Social and Behavioral Sciences Research Consortium who have professional expertise in designing, developing, disseminating, and analyzing surveys. Survey questions are being developed with input from the PI team and convening grant awardees. This survey will be launched in Fall 2022 so that results can be incorporated into a draft framework blueprint and presented at the inaugural NAPDC conference. Conference The inaugural NAPDC conference will be held in year 2 from May 10-12, 2023, at the Nebraska Innovation Campus in Lincoln, NE. The goal of this conferences is to bring representatives from across the NAPDC community (i.e., convening grant PIs, stakeholder organization representatives, USDA NIFA representatives, and other thought leaders) to discuss a blueprint for a national `open' data framework for agricultural producers and communicate what is needed to build and support such a framework. The outcomes of this conference will be written into a concept paper and shared with USDA NIFA and published in a peer-reviewed journal for the community to reference. This conference is being informed by the outcomes of the survey that will be deployed in Fall 2022.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
The overall objective of this project is to engage agricultural stakeholders across diverse systems and provide a blueprint for development of a national agricultural producers data framework. 1.Develop a blueprint for a national agricultural producers data frameworkby identifying needs and opportunities as well as challenges in physical infrastructure, education and human resources, and critical use cases. 2.Engage and support diverse participation,including all types of agricultural research institutions, producers, and representatives of all relevant data producer and end-user organizations, to foster first steps towards the development of the framework in #1. 3.Communicate and disseminate findingsof all activities through regional conferences, white papers, websites, peer-reviewed articles, and presentations to scientific and producer groups. Webinars. NAPDC hosts webinars to expose the NAPDC community to a diversity of research and producer activities and available resources applicable to a national data framework. Held monthly, these talks/discussions are designed to appeal to a diverse audience and find intersections with other aligned projects. Topics span framework components, both horizontal (across disciplines) and vertical (within disciplines). Zoom chat is encouraged to engage the audience and support Q&A and discussion. To date, 7 webinars have been offered (see products section for list). Each webinar is recorded and posted (with supporting materials) to the NAPDC website (https://www.agdatacoop.org/webinars) soon after the event ends. Over 350 attendees have participated in at least one Webinar since the beginning of this project and an average of 36 people attend each webinar. Participants come from all national agroecosystem regions as well as international locations. Convening Grants. NAPDC's Convening Grant program was designed to engage stakeholders and aligned projects representing different regional agroecosystems with the idea of a national framework and solicit community input on a framework blueprint. The four convening grant subawards range from $40,000-60,000 with durations of 6-9 months starting in June 2022 (see https://www.agdatacoop.org/convening-awards/ for details). Project teams represented 8 institutions, including land grant universities, stakeholder organizations, non-profit entities, and private industry across 7 states (AL, IA, IL, NE, OH, SC, VA). The deliverables span publicly available data resources, conferences, surveys, and workshops. Progress reports from teams will be solicited in Fall 2022. Any institution eligible for subcontract funding under the USDA NIFA was eligible to apply for seed grants. Conferences. The goals of the conferences attended and organized by NAPDC and convening grant awardees have been to identify gaps and challenges in data use and reuse, as well as opportunities for coordination. In year 1, we participated in the Fixing the Soil Health Tech Stack: Gathering for Action two-day virtual event hosted by OATS and the Farm Foundation. We are organizing the inaugural NAPDC conference to be held in Spring 2023 at the Nebraska Innovation Campus. Website and listserv. The NAPDC website (https://www.agdatacoop.org) was launched in December 2021 and has since been developed to support communication and dissemination of NAPDC activities, opportunities, and related projects. A listserv was also launched and individuals can sign up for the listserv at the NAPDC website. A separate email address has been established (agdatacoop@unl.edu) for managing communications between the NAPDC project and members of the broader stakeholder community. Survey. Although not explicitly one of NAPDC's activities, we are developing a community survey as a vehicle for achieving objectives #1 and #2, and we will share our findings in accordance with objective #3. This survey will be focused on attitudes and perspectives on a national data framework as well as access and barriers to data resources and cyberinfrastructure for producers. The survey is being developed in partnership with the UNL Social and Behavioral Sciences Research Consortium who have professional expertise in designing, developing, disseminating, and analyzing surveys. Survey questions are being developed with input from the PI team and convening grant awardees.
Publications
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