1. Bruce T. Bowman Chair, CARC Expert Committee on Manure Management http://www.agr.gc.ca/science/initiatives/manurenet/ Welcome to ManureNet: A Case Study in Information Sharing

2. Background “Information” – one of most valuable assets of both government and private organizations Serious losses of “corporate memory” since 1990 - retiring personnel take with them irreplaceable information Historically - insufficient integrated effort to organize and preserve organizational information –> Repeat history! Research – wealth of technical information… BUT..often more focused on publishing scientific papers than re-packaging information for other end users

3. What Do Web Clients Expect?  HOME PAGE – Contact Information – Who you are – What you do – Where you are located – How to contact you Client should “take away image” of your business  Impatient - Web pages should start to display useful information quickly (15-20 sec).. or likely to lose the visitor  Rich in content  Well organized  Intuitive to navigate  Accessible for queries

4. Expectations (cont’d) Self-Help - browse / download technical information without having to request it and wait for it to be sent Don’t orphan files – provide re-directs when re-organizing the site (not just to home page) Site Organization & URLs Simple directory structure – minimize levels Short Path/Directory Names – “short memory”!

5. Challenges for Information Delivery In early web, no universal means to provide access to technical documents Limited to word processing formats (large file size) No single format suited a majority of users Difficult to accurately portray equations, graphics Slow transmission rates (<14.4 lines) – PKZIP files Visitors tend to Browse On-line but Read Off-line Must have good off-line content – preserve look & feel

6. Challenges for Information Delivery  Adobe Acrobat PDF – single greatest contribution to universal access to technical on-line information  PDFs = measure of real content of web site Most effective as supplementary means of providing in-depth information, linked to summaries in HTML format Should be able to browse without having to load a pdf file Keywords in PDF files indexed by GOOGLE 200 million copies globally

7. Comparison of File Formats for Saving Technical Documents AttributesHTMLPDFWord Processor Relative File Size 1.0 (graphics not saved) 1 - 5x (graphics dependent) 2 - 30x (graphics dependent) File Viewing / Zoom limited control of on-screen text size universally free reader – Zoom - 1/10x to 16x normal size - visually-impaired friendly - Need browser plug-in; - best viewed off-line in native program Output  printer dependent  graphics not saved  Page break problems  Hyperlinks are best feature (limited off-line)  printer independent  graphics embedded  look & feel preserved  Keyword searchable  bookmarks  printer dependent  look & feel not consistent

8. Rationale for ManureNet 1. Provide national coordination and information sharing on key manure / nutrient issues 2. Efficient way to link to research & extension activities across many jurisdictions and organizations 3. Inventories – expertise, groups / organizations 4. Preserve archive of valuable technical information - program structure ( process & rationale) and reports

9. What is ManureNet? Canadian Issue-based web site focussing on manure / nutrient management issues (includes environmental, health & safety, ghg emissions and sustainable development issues) Started April 1998 - Over 4,000 external links, 17,000 internal links & Oracle Data base with 5,000 records Inventories of expertise, technical reports, codes of practice, current issues Page views/month increased 5-fold in past year 91,329 in Aug. 2002 (Aug + Sept = 172,000)

10. Evolution of ManureNet April 2000 - Added Oracle data base Search by Keyword, Issue, Personnel, Organization Fall 2000 - Started virtual on-line file library and farm press archive (socio-environmental record) (2002 - almost 500 pdf documents) Dec. 2001 - Integrated large existing environmental archive – many reports related to manure/nutrients

11. Environmental Archive In Ontario (1986 – 1997) Aug. 2001 – 10,000 page views Aug. 2002 – 57,227 http://res2.agr.ca/initiatives/manurenet/env_prog/ag_env.html Soil/Water Env. Enhancement Land Stewardship Great Lakes Water Quality National Soil Conservation Land Management Assistance Environ. Stewardship Initiative Green Plan (Ontario) Summary of $100M Env. Programming over 13 yr in Ontario

12. PDF Use Statistics Sept. 2002 On-Line ViewDownloadD/L % Archive 6,7203,42451 MNET18,7884,20622 Overall25,5087,53030 more interest in downloading archive information 70% of files viewed on-line

13. Oracle Database Search Up to 5 keywords (Boolean search) Select from hierarchal list Over 600 people – contact info Over 600 organizations - contact http://res1.agr.ca/manurenet/mnet_search

14. Selecting an Organization

15. Details of the Organization  List of all documents of Organization

16. Resource Details Same resource details for “personnel”

17. Possible Future Activities Expand content on ghg emissions-manure issue Expand content on sustainable development issues Nutrient flows in production agriculture Manure treatment (co-generation, green power) Nutrient recovery & recycling; value-added products Numerous requests to host a forum - biogas – co-generation issue.. or similar issue Generate static web pages from data base

18. IN SUMMARY Preserve organizational & technical information Why, how, who, outcomes Provide rich content, well organized, and linked HTML = best for on-line browsing PDF = optimal for off-line use; measure of real content best way to preserve archival information Client services – Timely response to queries Find & Add new information Provide new services – host forum