Development and Assessment of an On-Line High Plains Integrated Pest Management Guide for a Regional Audience

Guide Content and Structure

The Guide currently highlights insects and diseases of field crops, rangeland, vegetable crops, and livestock. The content, format, and structure of the Guide were based initially on pest management strategies taken from individual state recommendation guides. This initial focus was on allowable and safe pesticide use, but we rapidly agreed to provide equal space to other management approaches whenever available. The size of the printed guide (~300 pp) precluded major changes except during major revisions every fifth year; yearly print updates were distributed to subscribers. Conversion to an on-line document provided much greater flexibility to improve the content, format, and structure of the Guide as the need arose.

Following the original print format, chapters are organized into introductory IPM and crop groups. Introductory chapters include discussions of IPM concepts (e.g., IPM principles, economic thresholds, insect and disease sampling), toxicity of pesticides, how to read a label, and safe use of pesticides. For the crop-oriented chapters and related chapters, the format includes a section heading identifying the crop(s), a subheading listing the pest(s), chapter author name, and, if available, a black-and-white reminder graphic or icon of key pest(s). The body of each section contains a general description of the pest, damage, economic thresholds, and sampling guidelines; this is followed by a discussion of available management strategies categorized into host plant resistance and other cultural controls, biological control, and chemical control. The chemical control section lists approved pesticides and rates with the appropriate cautionary statements. A date and a list of terms are included at the end of each chapter, allowing it to be categorized by an on-line search engine.

User Visit Analyses and Changes in Usage

Our goal in converting to an on-line guide was to use the infrastructure that had created the printed guide efficiently and to enhance it with the advantages of web packaging and delivery. But users’ relationships with the electronic guide, unlike the printed version, can be complicated by the proliferation of web-based information and the ever-shifting focus of advancing technology. Our desire was to build strong relationships between the Guide and users to facilitate the adoption of IPM practices, and we knew that we would benefit from an understanding of web-based user experience and an in-depth analysis of our specific product. Our analysis was intended to quantify use, identify barriers to use, and evaluate whether users attitudes were positive about using the on-line Guide.

To quantify on-line use, we assessed frequencies, uniqueness, and intensity of use with software (WebTrends 2000). A hit is a single action directed at an electronic file. A visitor viewing or downloading a single file is logged as a single hit, providing an indicator of web server traffic. Visit tracking indicates where and when a unique user’s access began and ended, providing a record of what chapters are being viewed. Uniqueness is defined by a user’s Internet protocol (IP) address that has not been previously recorded. The chapter a user spends the most time on is recorded as the destination for a viewing session. When users return, their IP addresses are matched, and return visits are recorded. There was a steady rise in visits by unique visitors between June and September 2002 (Fig 4).

Of 6,512 unique visitors, 5,407

visited once, and 1,105 returned during

a one-year reporting period (January 1

through December 31, 2002). Return visitors returned on average

more than 8 times, and an average visit lasted more than 16 minutes

(Table 1). A 2004 tally indicated that users accessed the Guide throughout

the year and more often (Fig. 5) than was recorded in 2002. In

2004, 75,196 hits were made to the Guide, compared with 33,297

in 2002. From January to December 2004, the number of returning

unique visitors increased from 1,105 to 4,994, and an average visit

increased to more than 17 minutes.

Identification of User Barriers

To help authors and web site designers, a users’ group was formed; and they met with principal authors of the Guide in Scottsbluff, NE,

Table 2. High Plains IPM Guide Users’ Group Ranking of Barriers Affecting Web Guide Access.

Scale: 0 = No effect to 5 = Strongest effect

comfort navigating the format and organization of the Guide (Chen and Wells 1999, Chen et al. 2002). The descriptive expressions in the scales were chosen by researchers because they reliably calibrate a user’s attitude (Chen and Wells 1999).

The participants were asked to choose which dimensional terms—entertaining (fun, exciting, cool, imaginative, entertaining, flashy) and informative terms (intelligent, knowledgeable, resourceful, useful, helpful)—best described the Guide. In addition, the users chose from dimensional organizational terms (messy, cumbersome, confusing, or irritating) to gauge whether the Guide leads to a destination with too many links, too many layers, or distracting animations or colors (Chen and Wells 1999, Chen et al. 2002). Combining the pre-and post-training attitude and dimensional measurements provides the authors with another indication of whether the Guide is using the expertise of cooperating universities to efficiently package and deliver IPM information via the Web to a regional audience.

When the pre- and post-training session evaluations were compared, 9.1% in the pre-session ranked their attitude as very comfortable; in the post-session, the number of members who were very comfortable using the site had increased to 32.5% (Table 4).

Pre-session dimensional entertainment responses were less evenly distributed (Very entertaining, 10.6%; Not entertaining, 19.7%) than were post-session responses (Very entertaining, 20.2%; Not entertaining, 23.8%). The Guide had lower rankings for dimensional informative (Very informative, 54.5%; Not informative,

Table 3. High Plains IPM Guide Users’ Group Value Ranking of Guide Contents.

Guide Contents, Average Ranking Ranking in Descending Value (No. of respondents)

1. Pest life cycle _{7.2 (13)}

2. Chemical control _{6.9 (13)}

3. Economic threshold _{6.5 (13)}

4. Symptoms and look-a-like symptoms _{6.4 (13)}

5. Infestation pattern _{6.0 (13)}

6. Conditions favoring susceptibility _{5.8 (13)}

7. Crop susceptibility _{5.8 (12)}

8. Cultural control _{5.5 (15)}

9. Scouting frequency _{5.1 (13)}

Scale: 0 = No value to 8 = High value

Table 4. High Plains IPM Guide Users’ Attitude Evaluation Using Pre- and Post-Training Session Responses to Six Web Site Factors.

Scale: 0 = uncomfortable to 5 = very comfortable

0.0%) before the session than after (Very informative, 71.4%; Not informative, 0.0%) and lower scores for dimensional organization before (Very organized, 31.8%; Not organized, 2.2%) than after (Very organized, 52.7%; Not organized 1.8%) (Table 5).

Interpretations and Conclusions

The High Plains IPM Guide allows Extension and Agricultural Experiment Station pest management experts housed at universities in four states to develop and deliver a single pest recommendation product at a regional scale. A main objective of the Guide was to deliver biological information with comprehensive control information to facilitate an IPM approach to pest management. The web publication offers users, including consultants, producers, county

Table 5. High Plains IPM Guide Users’ Attitude Evaluation Using
Pre- And Post-Training Session Responses to Three Groups of

Scale: 1 = Very [dimensional term] to 3 = Not at All [dimensional term]

Management Program (Web Resource as of November 2005: http://

a national web-based learning center for natural resource education. J.

Extens. 42(1).