The article discusses the layout and organization of the new website for the Buckeye Yard and Garden onLine (BYGL) Newsletter. The new site [ bygl.osu.edu ] was designed by the OSU inVirtual Perspective Team. Weekly content is provided by members of the Ohio State University Extension Nursery Landscape Turf team, assisted by Cheryl Fischnich who handles the posting of all content into the BYGL’s new content management system.

The new site, was developed using the content management system, JOOMLA!. This system has been used by the inVP team to design new online homes for OSU Extension Master Gardener Volunteer Program, OSU Buckeye Turf Program, Ohio Bioproducts Innovation Center, Center for Multifunctional Polmer Nanomaterials and Devices, and the American Society for Horticultural Science. The new site complements the timely news stories being written by the authors through the use of attractive photos, RSS news feeds, and direct links to various bookmarking and news story tagging services.

Link: Educational Update for May, 2008

“A true e-learning experience for anyone interested in turfgrass management, Buckeye Turf serves industry professionals around the globe,” explains Karl Danneberger, a professor in the Horticulture & Crop Science Department. “We invite users to download educational podcasts, read timely technical turf notes in multiple turfgrass science disciplines or sign up for a distance education experience.”

By working closely with inVirtual Perspective Technology Team leader Tim Rhodus, the OSU Turfgrass Science Team has used cutting edge Internet technologies to better communicate turfgrass science management techniques for many years. Buckeye Turf combines these technologies into one location that complements the content generated by the Ohio State faculty and staff. Rhodus and team members Bud Witney and Victor van Buchem designed Buckeye Turf using a content management system (Joomla) that boasts an extensive use of RSS Feeds, blogging software, multi-language podcasting, multifunction search capabilities and photo management archives. The site design also allows users to change the width of the content displayed on their monitor.

Buckeye Turf is the new home for longtime successful turf outreach and education initiatives, such as TurfNotes, SportsNotes and International SportsNotes, and now adds new services through enhanced podcasts, LandscapeNotes and distance education opportunities. Users are encouraged to use RSS Feeds to subscribe to a syndicated feed from Turf News, TurfNotes, SportsNotes and Podcasts sections. Additionally, users are invited to sign-up to receive e-mail notification when a new posting has been published to the website.

Via Buckeye Turf Podcasts professionals and students can access, download and watch the latest OSU research reports and presentations on turfgrass pests, cultural programs, and case studies delivered as enhanced podcasts. Since August 2006, OSU faculty, staff and graduate students have contributed over 50 presentations to this multimedia resource which delivers full-screen playback through the QuickTime player or iTunes music software.

Dr. Danneberger also developed an innovative method for creating an international turfgrass educational tool by having visiting researchers and students Aneta Studzinska, Marcela Munoz and Jia Yan perform the voice-overs for the Polish, Spanish and Chinese versions of the Buckeye Turf Podcasts. iTunes subscriptions are available for all the podcast series: English, Spanish, Polish, Chinese and Research Reports and make downloading newly published podcasts a seamless and automatic process.

Modeled after TurfNotes and SportsNotes, the new LandscapeNotes will deliver timely technical tips for turfgrass selection, weed management and lawn care maintenance. Coordinated by Dave Gardner, associate professor of Turfgrass Science, frequent contributors to LandscapeNotes include Extension pathologist Joe Rimelspach and the Bug Doc, Dave Shetlar.

With the demand for distance education increasing, Buckeye Turf will soon be launching an online Sports Turf Management Certificate Program which incorporate the lecture materials presented in a Sports Turf Management course organized by Ohio State Sports Turf Extension Specialist Pam Sherratt. This certificate program was developed for turf professionals who can not attend The Ohio State University, but still want to attain a higher knowledge about maintaining athletic fields. All of the course content was packaged as podcast files by the Digital Technology Team from lectures presented by Sherratt, Danneberger, Gardner, Shetlar, Rimelspach, John Street and Mike Boehm. Sherratt, who manages SportsNotes anticipates high school, collegiate, and recreational facilities field managers and their employees will benefit from this new educational opportunity.

In addition to engaging Ohio’s turfgrass industry through outreach efforts, Buckeye Turf is also an academic resource hub that highlights courses offered at OSU, student club activities, research programs, and opportunities to support OSU through endowments. The site uses integrated Google mapping for locating various facilities on the Ohio State campus and also offers an extensive plant science career resource that includes profiles of over 100 alumni. The News Feeds section of the site uses RSS feed capability to deliver live turf related content from numerous professional and academic sources around the country.

“Buckeye Turf promises to serve anyone who has an interest in acquiring turfgrass science knowledge,” says Danneberger. “This site is a resource for knowledge and current events within the Ohio State University Turfgrass Science program and the turfgrass profession. We hope to reach interested turf professionals through a visually pleasing and easy-to-navigate website that presents useful content to its users.”

View tutorial

More tutorials will be developed following the same approach.

Available at http://buckeyeturf.osu.edu/podcast, this podcasting initiative builds upon Ohio State’s strong history of delivering timely technical turfgrass tips to golf course superintendents (SK TurfNotes) and athletic field managers (OSU SportsNotes) via blog-style postings. Instead of relying on text-only publications to educate the industry, Ohio State faculty and staff experts illustrate educational turf tips with photos and graphics. The enhanced podcast learning module format allows for additional photos, synchronized audio, full-screen desktop playback, and portable playback.

“It is with a great amount of excitement that we launch this new initiative! The idea behind the website is to present turfgrass topics pertinent to our students and industry clientele both in a learning and informational format,” explains Dr. Karl Danneberger, a turfgrass science professor in the Horticulture & Crop Science Department. “The topics range from cultural practices to pests, and include case studies and research reports. The enhanced podcasts presentations are between 2 to 4 minutes long, except for some of the research reports which offer more depth. Our podcast delivery is also unique because we offer many of the presentations in multiple languages including, Spanish, Polish and Chinese.”

Dr. Danneberger began publishing Buckeye Turf Podcasts in August of 2006. The website now boasts more than thirty different presentations, many of which are available in multiple languages. By collaborating with graduate students and visiting scientists to convert the audio of the module into another language, Professor Danneberger has developed an innovative method for creating an international turfgrass educational tool. Visiting research assistants Aneta Studzinska (Poland) and Marcela Munoz (Chile) perform the voice-overs on the Polish and Spanish versions of the Buckeye Turf Podcasts. OSU doctoral candidate Jia Yan delivers the Chinese version of the podcasts.

In addition to her weekly SportsNotes and International SportsNotes educational postings, Ohio State Sports Turf Extension Specialist Pam Sherratt is a regular contributor to Buckeye Turf Podcasts who focuses on modules appropriate for athletic field managers. Sherratt has published in-depth podcasts on the renovation of Ohio Stadium, overseeding methods for cool season turf, and the effect of biomass accumulation on a Kentucky Bluegrass stabilizer system.

Podcasting uses Really Simple Syndication (RSS) technology to deliver content directly to those who subscribe to a feed of content. RSS web syndication is thus similar to a newspaper being delivered to your house each day. With automatic updating via the free subscription, turfgrass professionals can “catch” syndicated packages, instead of searching/browsing websites for new content. Subscribers to the Buckeye Turf Podcasts automatically get the latest learning module podcast downloaded to their computer.

Over the years the OSU Turfgrass Science Program has worked closely with the inVirtual Perspective Technology Team to implement new communication technologies. Team leader Dr. Tim Rhodus encourages turfgrass professionals to use Apple’s iTunes software to manage their all their podcast subscriptions. This greatly simplifies the subscription process. For example, Subscribe to Buckeye Turf Podcasts can be presented as a simple hyperlink in any news story or email message. The iTunes software allows users to organize the podcast files and through synching with an iPod, these podcasts become portable learning modules which users can access away from their desktop computer. Users can also watch a full-screen version of the learning module directly from the Buckeye Turf Podcasts posting. To play the presentation file directly from the website requires QuickTime software.

Because the Buckeye Turf Podcasts website uses blogging software, the most recently published podcast appears first on the Buckeye Turf Podcasts blog. However, all the podcast learning modules are organized under given topic areas that are archived in the Categories heading along the right hand side of the website. Categories inlcude cultural practices, diseases, insects, research reports and more. Recent postings and podcasts include presentations on Winter Overseeding of Bermudagrass Fairways & Greens, Fairy Ring, Pythium Blight and Foliar Anthracnose.

This project was partially supported through a grant given by Dr. L.H. Newcomb, College of Food, Agriculture, and Environmental Sciences Senior Associate Dean and Price Chair in Teaching, Advising and Learning.

Currently, an average of 13 classes per quarter use the campus podcast system, with more than 4,000 users accessing digital lectures, and more than 50,000 downloads to date. Student surveys found that, on average, half of the students in each class subscribed to their course podcast during the Winter 2006 quarter. By Spring quarter, usage of the system had increased to 69 percent.

Since November of 2005, Rhodus and Horticulture & Crop Science Communications Coordinator Victor van Buchem have evolved the Ohio State HCS News into podcasts. With more than 100 stories being written a year, van Buchem’s narration and photography is creating a mobile collection of stories that are pleasing to both the ear and the eye.

Podcasting depends on Really Simple Syndication (RSS) technology to deliver content directly to those who subscribe to a feed of content. RSS web syndication is thus similar to a newspaper being delivered to your house each day. Web developers have extended RSS standards to now include audio, video and graphic attachments, in addition to text, and call this a podcast. With automatic updating via a subscription, users now “catch” syndicated packages, instead of searching/browsing websites for new content. Subscribers to the Ohio State HCS News podcast automatically get the latest news story podcast downloaded to their computer.

For more background on RSS and Internet feed capabilities, read the HCS Digital Technology Team article “Web Syndication: New Tools for Accessing and Delivering Information.”

Rhodus points out that podcast files are going to be valuable for a long time because each one is an educational, multimedia package which is reusable from project to project. “We’ve gotten a lot of mileage out of digital photography because, years later, we’re still using photos of plants when writing tips or training materials for gardeners and students. That kind of recyclable content is perfect in the ever-growing Web publishing environment. We’re also thinking that way with each podcast story, so now it becomes something we can use in later life.”

Another advantage of podcasting is the portability of the files. Through the transfer of podcast files to an mp3 player (such as Apple’s iPod), podcasting allows educational content to be accessed anywhere. For example, students can watch a replay of or listen to a class lecture at their desktop computer or take the lecture with them using an iPod. “In the past, the iPod has been thought of as a just a music device,” Rhodus said. “I feel it is more like a multimedia learning system. You are able to extend your computer’s digital resources through an iPod connection and start carrying your music, movies, slideshows, and blogs whereever you go.”

Rhodus foresees podcasts as modular content that can be inserted and utilized in web publishing applications separate and apart from their original publication series. “Just like we insert plant photos or audio/video files describing proper pruning techniques into a wide variety of digital fact sheets, garden calendars, and diagnostic databases, so too we can insert episodic podcast content. A podcast episode that describes a new rose cultivar can be just as valuable in a digital catalog as it can be in a landscape maintenance guide. We just have to think of digital content, no matter what it was originally created for, as being flexible units that can be reorganized and inserted into unforeseen projects for the future.”

Rhodus, van Buchem and HCS Digital Technology Team members Bud Witney and Elaine Eberlin are working with the OSU Turfgrass Science program to develop a distance-education, podcast-based Sports Turf Management Course. The plan is for the lectures of the online course to be delivered via podcast technology. The team also works closely with the American Society for Horticultural Science (ASHS) to make horticultural content available via podcast technology. The current project includes recording and podcasting educational presentations from the ASHS Annual Conference in New Orleans.

The team is designing many new podcasts using the wealth of digital assets contained in PlantFacts.osu.edu. Tapping into the image archive and illustrated glossary provides many content items a second life – in fact, an extended life through podcasts. Future podcast opportunities include narrated plant walks, virtual garden tours, diagnostic tools, and technical turfgrass management tips.

For more information about podcasting and the horticulture content currently available via podcasts, please read the 8-page PDF of the “Podcasting! What’s All the Buzz?” article published in the May 2006 issue of The Buckeye.