Volume 4. No 7
Information Technology News of the University of California, Davis April 1996
Information Technology News of the University of California, Davis April 1996
How to provide e-mail and computer support for a department that stretches from one end of the state to the other. That was the problem Cooperative Extension staffers Claudia Myers and Mina Van Vliet faced. With 125 staff and 300 advisors working in 67 Cooperative Extension offices in separate geographic locations, helping everyone hone computer skills is a formidable challenge. To solve the problem, Myers and Van Vliet have come up with some creative ideas.
Early in 1995, when they switched Cooperative Extension from the Acorn e-mail program to Eudora, Meyers and Van Vliet sent out customized computer disks and written instructions. Then, last May, when they wanted to train staff on using Eudora e-mail software, they put together 10 Eudora training lessons and announced that the lessons would be sent out via e-mail at the rate of one a day. The response was immediate - 220 people subscribed to the online training.
Statewide, Cooperative Extension's use of e-mail doubled that month and has continued to rise ever since.
Next Myers and Van Vliet worked with a group in Cooperative Extension to produce a half-hour taped video program demonstrating Eudora, coupled it with a half-hour live panel and call-in show, and initiated the brand-new UC Davis Cooperative Extension link satellite by broadcasting the program to 23 downlinks around the state. That program was picked up by 50 other Cooperative Extension offices at universities around the country.
In October, Myers and Van Vliet provided another series of 20-minute lessons via e-mail, this time on using Melvyl, Gopher, and other online resources. With the Cooperative Extension group they produced an advanced Eudora satellite course. And with staff anxious to learn about Internet access, they produced another satellite program, complete with customized disks and instructions, on installing and using Internet applications. For that program they got the latest version of Netscape and added bookmarks for agricultural sites around the country. Like the first satellite broadcast, this program has also been picked up by other universities.
Next on the agenda, say Myers and Van Vliet, will be helping county Cooperative Extension offices eliminate long-distance telephone charges by gaining local Internet access through schools, libraries and other institutions.
And the next satellite program will be a course on designing World Wide Web pages. Says Myers, "We've been helping Cooperative Extension people get information from the Internet, but UC Davis is a worldwide leader in agricultural research, so the next step is to get information out. We're helping Cooperative Extension be an information provider as well."