Exploring Research Outreach and Engagement in Departments of Agricultural Communication, Education, and Leadership
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Date
2023-05
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The Ohio State University
Abstract
The need to address grand challenges is at the forefront of most universities research initiatives and drives many funding requests. Grand challenges present as complex problems, which must be approached from multiple expertise areas using multiple methodologies. As such, interdisciplinary research approaches and teams are encouraged to address them. Social scientists are often added to bench science teams to develop, administer, and evaluate extension or educational outreach components due to their expertise in these areas. But how do these faculty members and departments advertise their expertise to other faculty within their college, university, and beyond?
The study is constructed on a conceptual framework of interdisciplinarity and organizational communication. Knowledge creation is increasingly multi- or interdisciplinary, and research institutions may create environments to encourage interdisciplinary team building and share that information via various organizational channels. Specifically, websites are a useful tool for interdisciplinary organizations to share information with the public and stakeholders. We analyzed departmental websites related to the social science fields of agricultural communication, education, extension, and leadership to determine how faculty expertise was advertised.
The sample for this study was university websites of departments that had at least two of the following programs: agricultural communication, agricultural education, agricultural leadership, and extension education at land-grant, tier-one research institutions, which resulted in 21 departments. After identifying the sample, a website content analysis was conducted to understand how these universities showcase their faculty's research.
Preliminary results indicate that most department websites require multiple clicks to reach faculty expertise. Most websites analyzed contain a research tab in the website navigation to direct audiences to faculty research. While all department websites included faculty research descriptions on inner pages for each faculty member, some included this information on a research-specific page. Many websites included a current page showcasing active projects and grants in the department.