Project Lead: Dr. William Hubbard

Contact Information: 706-542-7813

Objectives

The project goal is to develop and market a Web site that will help eastern United States communities (i.e., all states east of the Mississippi) around national forests and other locations have informed dialogue about and develop solutions for deer and forest interactions. Web resources are accessible to all stakeholders and synthesize in images and lay language our knowledge about deer habitat quality, deer impacts, and management strategies. To the extent possible, the Web site provides public domain or permission-granted literature about deer-forest interactions or provides links to such literature.

While eastern United States communities around national forests are the initial target audience, the Web site is accessible to a broader audience including students, hunters, landowners, extension educators, and researchers.

Project management

Bill Hubbard, University of Georgia Cooperative Extension, in collaboration with Dr. Susan Stout, USDA Forest Service Northern Research Station, and Dr. Jim Finley, the Pennsylvania State University Cooperative Extension, developed the project. Project collaborators (i.e., white-tailed deer and forestry experts) were enlarged through sub-regional conference calls. These conference calls with mid-western, northeastern, and southern technical experts covered key white-tailed deer and forest interactions issues, existing resources to include in the Web site, framing the Web site to engage the public, and Web site format.

Based on input from 30 regional technical experts, the Web site focus shifted from deer overabundance to identifying and creating healthy forest landscapes for deer. The Web site target audience also expanded from communities around national forests to all individuals interested in learning about the eastern US forest and deer interaction. A companion PowerPoint presentation for the Web site will be developed with the intent of educating the public and landowners through extension education programs.

Technology

The site was developed using an open source content management system (CMS) entitled, Plone. Dr. Hubbard has previously been involved with numerous projects developed with Plone. Due to his previous experiences, he knew Plone CMS could easily meet the project requirements. Other than Dr. Hubbard’s experiences, Matt Howell, University of Georgia Cooperative Extension, has almost three years of experience developing projects using Plone and was the only other member of the team who has previous experience with the software. Examples of Plone’s features were presented to the project team who agreed to use the software’s built-in features to create a user-friendly site.

Experience to Date

The project team has encountered both barriers and benefits in this project. Input from the regional technical experts is an important factor in the project’s success as well as a project benefit. The technical experts provided breadth and depth to the deer forest interface allowing the team to see new nuances. For example, the initial Web site focus was deer overpopulation. The technical experts noted there are eastern sub-regions where low deer populations are a concern and explained the current focus may alienate some target audiences. As a result of their input, the site focuses on quality deer management. The revised site assists visitors in recognizing and fostering healthy forests and deer herds, and can easily be replicated for other topics.

The most important project barrier is copyright laws for non-public literature. The project team intended to post all relevant literature in PDF format, making it easily accessible to the public. Copyright laws make it impossible to post journal articles. The team will post public-domain and permission granted literature on the deer-forest interface on the site and will link to copyrighted literature.

Advice to Others

“Based on our experience, we highly recommend forming technical committees to ground truth and provide expertise during initial project development. Their input was invaluable to this project and they are an important component of the product evaluation and its dissemination to the public.”