10 pages, Extension faculty are tasked with developing and communicating educational programs to local clientele, and communication skills are a considerable piece of the Extension faculty job. Thus, UF/IFAS Extension included a communication portion to the on-board training for newly hired Extension faculty to develop their design skills so they can more effectively communicate through their educational and marketing materials. We used Rogers’ (2003) innovation-decision process to assess Florida early career Extension faculty’s adoption of design principles after completion of the 2019 UF/IFAS Extension Faculty Development Academy. Thirty-two Extension faculty completed the spring and fall sessions of the Academy. A mixed methods approach was utilized to gather survey data at the immediate completion of the Academy and qualitative, telephone interview data four to five months after completing the Academy. The faculty retrospectively perceived they increased their knowledge about design principles. They had an overwhelmingly positive attitude about learning design principles to better their communication efforts, but they decided not to fully adopt design principles in their work as other information and elements of learning their job took precedent.
12 pages., Digitalization is a key enabler of sustainable development of cities’ socio-economic dynamics with the potential to foster climate-friendly urban environments and societies. The advent of the 4th industrial revolution has seen the increased application of digitalization in several fields and at different levels. High-tech digital devices, platforms and environments are increasingly being deployed to enhance productivity, efficiency and sustainability, and improve overall well-being of urban dwellers. Digitalization is projected to further impact cities in future, transform jobs and trigger life-style changes with far-reaching impacts that will ultimately affect cities’ resilience and adaptation capacities. While a growing body of research has highlighted the significance of digitalization to climate change mitigation such as reducing GHG and CO2 emissions, comprehensive evaluations of the potentials of digitalization as an enabler of climate change adaptation remain scarce. This paper addresses this gap by analysing the current trend in digital revolution in relation to climate change adaptation and examines the likely challenges of digitalization. A desk research method was adopted, focusing on core digitalization concepts driving the Fourth Industrial Revolution (IR 4.0). Nine case studies in cities across various continents were selected to assess the potentials of digitalization in addressing climatic hazards and to highlight benefits from implementing digitalization, while considering the social-ecological-technological challenges and tensions around IR 4.0. Our findings reveal the capabilities of digitalization in supporting more effective early warning and emergency response systems, enhancing food and water security, improving power infrastructure performance, enabling citizen engagement and participatory adaptation measures and minimizing the impacts of climatic hazards. Finally, we recommend feasible pathways to overcome present risks and challenges in order to optimize the numerous opportunities offered by digitalization in support of climate change adaptation initiatives.
Kunelius, Risto (author) and Yagodin, Dmitry (author)
Format:
Book chapter
Publication Date:
2017
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Document Number: D08850
Notes:
Pages 59-80 in Kunelius, Risto Eide, Elisabeth Tegelberg, Matthew Yagodin, Dmitry (eds.), Media and global climate knowledge: journalism and the IPCC. United States: Palgrave Macmillan, New York City, New York. 309 pages.
5 pages., A simple random sampling technique was used to select 169 extension officers to examine their level of awareness of information communication technologies in North West Province, South Africa. Data were collected with structured questionnaire and analysed using frequency counts, percentages and multiple regression analysis. The results show that majority of the extension officers were male (76%) with the mean age of 44.6 years, married (79%) and 82.5% were Christians. Forty one percent of the extension officers had Diploma as their educational qualification and a mean of 16.7 years as working experience. The results revealed that out of the 37 ICT tools listed, extension officers indicated high level of awareness of nine tools, which include mobile phones (1.79), computer (1.68), internet (1.77), overhead projector (1.62), fax machines (1.60), organization e mail (1.58), fixed telephone (1.52), personal email (1.52) and organization website (1.50). Significant determinants of awareness level were were religion (t = 1.91, p = 0.58); constraints to ICT use (t = 1.78, p = 0.78); importance of ICT tool (t = 1.93; p = 0.63) and 2 were significant at 0.05% which were competence on ICT use (t= 3.50; p = .001); (t= 2.0, p = .003). The study recommends that more information communication technologies should be made available to extension officers, so that they will become more aware of the use of ICT in extension work as tools that can gather and disseminate agricultural information.
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Document Number: D08812
Notes:
Pages 95-116 in Patrick D. Murphy, The media commons: globalization and environmental discourses. United States: University of Illinois Press, Urbana, Chicago, and Springfield. 192 pages.
8pgs, In many studies, communication and social cognitive theories have been used to investigate people's behaviors toward agricultural insurance programs resulting in varied conclusions on how and why people react to such programs. However, few of them have explicitly investigated the role of social cognitive theory in escalating insurance literacy levels on agriculture and cultural factors. Thus, the purpose of this study is to identify and analyze the behavioral factors of tidal swampland farmers in Barito Kuala Regency, South Kalimantan province, towards agricultural insurance in the perspective of analyzing farmers' knowledge of agricultural insurance products and determinants of community behavior. Under the instrumental case-study research design, the data were collected through interviews and Focus Group Discussion (FGDs) with 35 informants, consisting of the Head of the South Kalimantan Provincial Agriculture Service and the Barito Kuala District Agriculture Service, opinion leaders, academics, representatives of farmer groups, and farmers. Documentation data related to the implementation of the agricultural insurance program were used to complete the interview and FGDs data. The results of this study indicate that tidal swampland farmers are trapped in hoax information or negative issues related to Agricultural Insurance which makes them reluctant to participate in agricultural insurance. Farmers prefer to be resigned and surrender to the state of their agricultural land than to participate in agricultural insurance. Besides, farmers feel there is no point in participating in agricultural insurance, especially those who think the registration and insurance claim process is convoluted. Low insurance literacy is a key problem of the misinformation that is formed.
