News of Agriculture from Mauritius - a unique national agricultural blog?

News of Agriculture from Mauritius - is this the first national agricultural blog?

IAALD blog reaches 1000 postings

We started this IAALD blog in June 2005 - just after the IAALD World Congress in Kentucky. The aim was to report on developments worldwide concerning agricultural information, knowledge, ICTs, libraries, extension, and communication.

Almost 5 years later, we published blog posting number 1000 - CIAT dives into social media and blogging.

In April 2008 we posted some information on the blog and its metrics. How does it now look?

Using Google analytics data for the past 15 months, we can see that blog visits came from: the Americas (39.64%), Europe (30.96%), Asia (17.94%), Africa (9.93%), and
Oceania (1.31%).

The top countries, in terms of vists were:

United States: 15.52%
India: 8.17%
Netherlands: 5.83%
Chile: 5.06%
France: 4.18%
United Kingdom: 3.84%
Italy: 3.35%
Croatia: 3.05%
Spain: 2.84%
Colombia: 2.59%

The top 10 blog postings in the same period were:

1. What roles for the agricultural library of the future?
   
2. Combining Twitter with a live discussion on agricultural knowledge sharing
   
3. The Agricultural Library of the Future: Points from the Rome discussion
   
4. IFLA 2010 AgLibraries group: Current Trends in Agricultural Information Services for Farmers
   
5. Promising opportunities for agricultural information specialists
   
6. Scientific and technical information and rural development: Highlights of innovative practices
   
7. Communicating a new research output: IFPRI strategies
   
8. How accessible is your agricultural information?
   
9. Lifelong learning with farmers in Madurai, South India
   
10. Social media for agricultural science?

Web 2.0 for research, administration and teaching

The UK's JISC has released a set of 'web2practice guides' that explain how emergent web technologies like RSS, microblogging, podcasting and social media can enhance your working practice. Each guide consists of a short animated video (on www.blip.tv) supported by a more in-depth guide covering potential uses, risks and how to get started.

The guides are licensed through creative commons, so readers are free to use, download and adapt them for teaching, staff development or other purposes permitted by the licence.

More postings on social media

Rural journalists using blogs

A news item from the International Federation of Agricultural Journalists (IFAJ) shows that rural journalists are joining the blogosphere.

The author identifies and gives examples of 11 ways they use blogs:

1. Encourage audience feedback and involvement
2. "Over-the-shoulder" diary
3. Cultivate audiences
4. Cover events
5. Follow varied rural issues and affairs (and coverage of them)
6. Supplement coverage of subject matter beats
7. Offer views and opinions
8. Entertain
9. Support freedom of expression
10. Offer inside views
11. Provide (and invite) links

Read the full article.

Science blogging: The future of science communication?

The relationships between science journalism, science communication and new social media was one of the discussion points at the recent World Conference of Science Journalists.

A recent post by Daniel D. Brown on his Biochemical Soul blog explains why scientists and science students should follow science blogs:

1. To keep up to date on fascinating research
   
2. Join in the great discussion
   
3. Science blogs allow you to talk about science in an informal setting
   
4. Gain emotional and social support from like-minded people
   

Why they should start a science blog:

1. Share your passion for science
   
2. Be a part of the community
   
3. Make connections
   
4. Be a part of “the good fight”
   
5. Become a better writer
   
6. Hone your ability to distill complex research into understandable terms
   
7. Showcase your dedication to science and your interest in outreach
   
8. Get feedback on your own thoughts and/or research
   
9. Blogs are great teaching tools both inside and outside the classroom
   
10. Increase the visibility of yourself, your lab, your department, and your University
    
11. Have fun

Farmers joining the conversations on food in many ways

Farm Bureau farmer and rancher members hand out the stickers to people as they talk with them about food and agriculture at fairs, festivals, farm tours and community events.The popularity of these simple stickers points to a hunger among consumers (who are on average, three generations removed from farming) for information about the food they eat, where it comes from and who produces it.

And, America's farm and ranch families are more interested than ever in reaching out to consumers to talk about the food they grow and the art, science and business of farming. Individual producers do this in person, online or both.

Online, recent posts to the AFBF's FBlog by farmers and ranchers explore a variety of food-related topics including, "The Real Story of Ag," "Food, Inc.," "Helping Hands and Good Conversation" and "Family Farmers Produce Safe Food."

Also online, the micro-blogging social media tool Twitter offers a new twist on finding concise consumer-friendly information on just about any subject, including food and farming. If you're using Twitter, search for #foodfact, #foodandfarmfact and #farm to find 140-character messages sent by all types of farmers, ranchers and growers.

Despite the pervasiveness of electronic communication, when meeting face-to-face, most producers still prefer to offer printed resources that people can hold in their hands to help tell the story of modern farm and ranch production.

One example is the "Food and Farm Facts" book (previously "Farm Facts") and a smaller pocket guide version produced by the American Farm Bureau. These printed materials highlight today's modern agriculture. Other excellent printed resources with state-specific agricultural information also are available from most state Farm Bureaus.

Read full article.

Ways to blog ...

In a post 'Science blogging is the new email', one participant in the Science Blogging 2008 conference in London gives a really interesting categorisation of blogging:

• conference blogging (also includes event blogging)
• edublogging
• metablogging (blogging about blogging, by far the largest discipline)
• research blogging (blogging about scientific experiments, the smallest discipline)
• investigational blogging
• evolution blogging (a large subdiscipline)
• news blogging (blogging about science news)
• watercooler blogging (small pieces of interesting or funny thoughts/pictures)
• summary blogging (summarizing other blog posts and linking to them)
• diary blogging (blogging as a personal diary of self-expression)
• hoax blogging

It would be interesting to see if we have other types of blogging in agriculture...

Examples of conference blogging are the recent AFITA-IAALD-WCCA Japan congress where we listed ways to access some content and stories from the congress. Another is the series of Brussels Briefings on ACP-EU rural development, where blog stories are combined with short video interviews.

Anyone got examples of other types of blogging ...?

Science blogging to publish research?

The September 18 issue of 'The Economist' has a short article on user-generated science.

It looks at emerging web 2.0 tools in science, particularly blogging, that may lead to news ways to publish and communicate science and research. It concludes that there's much action and progress in the science blogosphere, but: "in order that blogging can become a respected academic medium it needs to be recognised by the upper echelons of the scientific establishment."

It links to Nature Network - a 'professional networking website for scientists around the world', where you can find a information about the recent Science Blogging 2008 conference in London.

The conference ended with a call to get senior scientists blogging. This may be a good step towards recognition that publishing is about more than just academic articles...