2005 Annual Meeting

Fourth Western Rangelands Partnership Workshop
March 15-17, 2005
Tucson, Arizona

Workshop Notes (pdf)

Participants

Action Item Progress Reports:

• Content Support Group
• Funding and Collaboration
• Establish a Western Coordinating Committee
• Organizing for Sustainability: Design Model for Leadership
• Rework Economics Section
• Selection Criteria
• User Responsibility Statement

Content Support Group

Lead/participants: Judy Blaisdell, John Tanaka, Deva Reddy, Allison Level, Mike Haddock, Elaine Nowick, Tracy Brewer, Michael Haseltine
Progress: My plan for organizing this effort was:

1. Compile a list of those who want to serve as part of this support group.
2. Receive requests from persons desiring a critique of their site
3. Request that a subset of the support group review the site that solicited input.
4. Reviewers would then communicate directly with the person who requested the critique and notify me when they completed the task.
5. Cycle the list of reviewers so no one has to critique every site.
6. Review group would consist of three people with at least one design and one content person.

I sent an email asking for response from people who would be able to review web sites. We had a good response from people willing to critique websites for content, design or both. The persons mentioned above responded, and I created a list of names, email addresses and the preferred area of participation (content, design or both) for all respondents.

During the past year, I had no specific requests for website critique. Michael Haseltine sent an email asking for feedback from the entire group and forwarded an email from John Tanaka when the Oregon site was posted.

Suggested Follow-ups or Recommendations: There does not seem to be a need for a formal review process as we envisioned at last year’s meeting. When a new site comes on line or when we make
changes to a site, it seems that a simple announcement to the listserv is sufficient. With this type announcement, we can individually and informally review a site and send comments or error reports directly to the webmaster responsible for the new site.

Funding and Collaboration

Leads: Karen Launchbaugh and Roger Gates
Current Funding – SARE Grant:

• SARE Proposals were submitted and funded for the Western and Central regions. Progress is going well. Oklahoma and Texas are not covered under the current SARE grants. (**Blaisdell will look into the possibility of submitting a SARE proposal to the Southern Region to cover Oklahoma and Texas and perhaps add eastern grazing lands to the site)

Future Funding:

• A proposal for RangelandsWest to gain status as a ” Western Coordinating Committee ” was submitted on our bahalf by Colin Kaltenbach. Chances of approval as a WCC look good.
• Ecological Site Descriptions are being redesigned by the USFS, BLM, and NRCS. If the pending MOU is signed by these 3 agencies, then ESD’s will need to be formalized and revised. If these
  actions occur, that RangelandsWest may be able to get a contract to develop and house these ESDs. (Banner, Launchbaugh, and Ruyle will stay posted on progress of ESD development and
  look for opportunities for RangelandsWest).
• It is important that we keep abreast of activity in the development of E-Extension . It appears that there will be a few pilot programs funded. RangelandsWest may be interested in being on
  of these pilot programs. (Hutchinson will keep her “ear to the ground” on this one.)
• One aspect of the current site that needs development is Range Education Resources . This is a topic for which there may be funding opportunity. We just need someone to take lead on this
  topic.
• NAL, AgNIC, and IMLS often have money available for photo archives. RangelandsWest Members should look for these opportunities.

Collaborations:

• Native American Collaborations – RangelandsWest has moved forward with very little input from Native Americans. We need to consider ways to include Tribal Colleges in our efforts. Some
  topics such as bison management may lend themselves well to Indian collaboration. (**Launchbaugh will remind SARE participants that they should consider sending Native America
  land managers or Tribal College instructors as participants in the November workshop in Boise).
• We need to develop a section for the “Tools and Techniques” section. Consider asking members of the Great Basin Initiative if they would be willing to take on this task. (**Launchbaugh will
  send e-mail to someone from GBI)

Participants: Roger Gates, Karen Launchbaugh, Judy Blaisdale, Walter Fick, and Sonya Le Febre

Establish a Western Coordinating Committee

Lead/participants: John Tanaka, Jim Dobrowolski
Progress: A draft proposal was developed. Review opportunities were given to all. The final proposal was submitted to George Ruyle who took it to the University of Arizona. The University of Arizona will take the lead in getting it approved by the western deans and directors at an upcoming meeting.

Suggested Follow-ups or Recommendations: Continue to pursue the establishment of this committee.

Organizing for Sustainability. Design Model for Leadership

Lead/participants: Doug Jones. Karen Launchbaugh, George Ruyle, Jim Dobrowolski
Progress: Preliminary email interactions regarding needs and possible structure. Models of the WCC and AgNIC put forward to suggest options and different components. Areas that may need to be addressed include the following:

1. Membership. This effort has primarily been driven by land grant institutions; however, other groups/organizations have expressed interest and should be accomodated/addressed in some
   way. Examples. Federal and state agencies; professional organizations (e.g. SRM, farm and cattle growers groups, environmental groups), as well as non-land grant institutions…. May
   need to define different categories of membership. BTW, the national AgNIC group has struggled with this issue to some extent, especially in the area of advocacy groups and
   agribusiness members because it affects the assumptions about information bias.
2. Structure. Probably needs a general structure related to membership but then a smaller, ‘executive’ group to make decisions or consult with membership as needed. Also, need to
   appoint/arrange for other groups such as annual (or other) meeting planning activities, etc.
3. Legal status. If the Partnership wants to apply for grants or whatever, it probably needs some legal standing and accountability mechanism, an “official” to sign legal docs, etc. May not be
   necessary for most activities at this time.

Suggested Follow-ups or Recommendations: Need additional discussion and development of options to present to the group. Other suggestions for organization from members are welcome.

Rework Economics Section

Lead/participants: John Tanaka
Progress: Member of Western Coordinating Committee 55 – Rangeland Economics and Policy have agreed to assist in this endeavor. Allen Torell from New Mexico State University and Trent Teegerstrom from University of Arizona will assist me at the workshop in designing this page.

Suggested Follow-ups or Recommendations: Work will be done at the March meeting with follow-up as necessary. Members of WCC 55 will be given the opportunity to review what we have done and make suggestions for both improvement and additional material.

Selection Criteria

Lead: Jeanne Pfander
Criteria for Selecting Locally-Mounted/Originally-Developed Resources
(draft modeled after the HealthWeb statement at ( http://healthweb.org/guidelines.cfm ) )
Locally-mounted resources are those originally developed at the library and/or the librarian’s or Extension agent’s institution. Developers may be library staff, faculty, Extension agents, related
organizations or others connected to the Rangelands West partner. These resources are sent to the coordinating library or Extension office for the evaluation process before they are added to the
Rangelands West state site.

Criteria to consider when evaluating local resources are:

• Is the information under consideration useful outside of the local institution?
• Does the presentation of the information meet generally accepted design criteria* ? Is it a quality presentation?
• Does this same information exist elsewhere on the web, and if so, is local implementation necessary or desirable?
• Is the source of the information reliable and from a responsible authority?
• How will the information be updated and maintained at the host site?
• Are there any licensing costs or legal aspects that need to be considered?

[*Rangelands West design criteria? Do we have any (other than the template)? Can we identify “generally accepted” design criteria? See also the third bullet below re: design and user interface.]

Criteria for Selecting Remote Resources
Some criteria to consider when evaluating remote resources on the Internet are:

• What is the perceived quality of the resource? Is this a valuable site or document for the subject area in question ? [Not sure I understand the last phrase there. – JP]
• Evaluate the source of the information: Publisher, Institution and Author/Producer. Are they clearly labeled on the resource under consideration? Do they have a tradition or track record of
  valuable publications? Is the source of the information a reliable authority?
• Strongly consider the site’s design and user interface . Is it easy to retrieve the desired information? Is the presentation visually appealing? (This factor can be important when comparing two comparable sites). See the Design Group’s document on design evaluation for additional information. [Can not locate on the HealthWeb site. – JP]
• Is the site updated regularly? Is the nature of the information something that needs to be updated regularly?
• What other sites does this site link to? Are they quality sites?
• Is the site under consideration a primary resource for information, or does it just point to other sites? If it just points to other sites, should we be pointing to them instead?
• What is its relationship to other resources?

** Other Non-Rangelands West URLs

• Is it the best resource on X available on the Internet?
• If it is of equal value to another site, is duplication necessary or desirable?
• How many similar resources are necessary?
  (We are striving to include only those evaluated to be of high quality and valuable to rangelands professionals and interested citizens .)

** Existing Rangeland West URLs

• Is there a resource already in Rangelands West, and how does the new resource compare to it?
• Should the new resource replace the existing one?
• Is it different enough to warrant duplication?

User Responsibility Statement

Lead: Norma Kobzina
Progress: Example statements for consideration.
Here are some examples of what we can include on the web site regarding the responsibilities of the user in looking at the web site. I have also incorporated what we use when we teach classes to students, on what they should be aware of when identifying and citing specific web resources. I’ve selected what I think are the most relevant or at least representative wording in the various examples.

The University of Arizona Library “Statement on Use of Library Systems”:
http://www.library.arizona.edu/statement.html
(Relevant wording–“University of Arizona library web sites follow the guidelines in the UA Privacy Statement . Please note that we link to many Web sites not sponsored by the UA. We
cannot endorse or take any responsibility for the privacy practices or policies of these sites, so please consult their privacy policies.

Please be aware that many of the resources you find on the Internet are copyright protected. Although the Internet is a different medium than printed text, ownership and intellectual
property rights still exist. Check the documents you are viewing for appropriate statements indicating ownership and what the person holding those rights is asserting. Remember it is your
responsibility to respect these rights.

The Library’s Web site contains thousands of links to Web pages located around the world. These links are provided in support of the information needs of library users and not intended as
official endorsements.”

U.C. Berkeley “Conditions of Use” Statement.
This one is placed on our pages where we list Electronic resources (journals and other materials.)
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/AboutLibrary/conditions_of_use.html

“Conditions of Use and Licensing Restrictions for Electronic Resources”

“Many of the electronic resources available through the UC Berkeley Library are governed by license agreements which restrict use to UC Berkeley students, faculty or staff members or
anyone using a computer in the UC Berkeley libraries. It is the responsibility of individual users to ensure that these resources are used for personal and/or educational non-commercial
purposes without systematically downloading, distributing, printing or retaining substantial portions of the information. Examples of prohibited uses include, but are not limited to, such
actions as downloading or printing entire journal issues or electronically transmitting online content to mailing lists or electronic bulletin boards. Keep in mind that restrictions vary from
resource to resource..”

Montana State Library Disclaimer
(http://msl.state.mt.us/disclaimer.htm)
“Reference herein to any specific commercial products, process, or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer or otherwise, does not necessarily constitute or imply its
endorsement, recommendation or favoring by the Montana State Library. The appearance of external hyperlinks does not constitute endorsement by the Montana State Library of the linked
web sites, or the information, products or services contained therein..all links are provided with the intent of meeting the mission of the Agency and the Library web site.”

California State University, Long Beach Disclaimer Statement
http://www.csulb.edu/library/disclaimer.html
“Information provided on the CSULB University Library Web site is obtained from many sources. While every reasonable effort is made to keep it accurate and up-to-date, we cannot guarantee
the accuracy of all the posted data, especially data provided by external sources.”

ACM Publications Board
“Rights and Responsibilities in ACM Publishing”
http://203.162.7.79/webs/comsci/ACMComputingSurveys/www.acm.org/pubs/rights.html
There is an overall introduction, including the statement that “Our most fundamental principle is that the publication process exists to support the membership of the ACM and the computing profession in general.” Probably the most relevant section for us is:

Section on Readers: “Readers consult articles in ACM publications because the value the reputation of these publications and find the information contained therein valuable and relevant.

Readers can expect ACM to

• Publish on time with the printed and Digital Library versions available the first day of the issue month
• Ensure that articles are accurate and of high quality
• Ensure that the electronic and printed version of an article match within the limits of the style guidelines of each format
• Ensure that journal, transactions, and magazine articles are professionally copyedited
• Ensure consistent formatting of articles in each publication
• Make publications available at low cost to individual subscribers, for the current year and for all previous years
• Take into account the needs of readers in economically emerging countries and in economically undeveloped countries
• Enable fast access to the electronic version of each article, throughout the world
• Permit low cost purchasing of individual copies of articles (printed or electronic version).

And ACM expects readers to

• Appropriately acknowledge uses of the work
• Respect the copyright of the work.

There are other sections designed for authors, editors, and libraries.

U.C. Berkeley Library “Critical Evaluation of Resources”
http://library.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Evaluation.html

We use this in training our classes, especially when talking about the web. We summarize it by using the terms “suitability”, which addresses the scope of the resource, the intended audience, and timelines. The next two sections are “authority”, “documentation” and “objectivity”.