Welcome & Introductions

NIOSHAllen RobisonRick Niemeier

UF Ag & Bio EngDorota HamanCarol LehtolaPierce JonesCharles BrownBarbra Larson

SCAHIPBob McKnightHank ColeJoan MazurMel Myers

Conceptual ArtsJeff NelsonChris KnackJohn David Eriksen

Meeting Participants

Meeting Website

www.nasdonline.org/nasdmeeting/

NASD Project Objectives

• To provide a national resource for the dissemination of information

• To educate workers and managers about occupational hazards associated with agriculture-related injuries, deaths and illnesses

• To provide prevention information

• To promote the consideration of safety and health issues in agricultural operations

• To provide a convenient way for members of the agricultural safety and health community to share educational and research materials with their colleagues

History: 1993-95

Funding: NIOSH > UF, part of NIOSH’s Agricultural Health Promotion System (AHPS) grant program

Key Personnel: Rick Niemeier, Pierce Jones, Jeff Nelson, Heather Pirozzoli

Major Activities: culled materials for content, created limited release prototype CD-ROM (October 1994), hosted a 2-day evaluation and review workshop in Gainesville with 30 participants (March 1995), made modifications, released and distributed NASD95 CD-ROM (June 1995)

History: 1993-95

Product: NASD95 CD-ROM

Publication: Jones, P.H., J.S. Nelson, and H. Pirozzoli. 1995. The National Ag Safety Database: A database of agricultural health, safety and injury prevention educational materials. Journal of Agricultural Safety and Health 1(1) 7-15.

History: 1997-99

Funding: NIOSH > CA

Key Personnel: Rick Niemeier (DB coordinator), Jeff Nelson, Michael Dolan

Major activities: Expanded the database, adapted the database for the web-delivery

History: 1997-99

Products: Website, and 3 CD-ROMs (NASD97, NASD97, NASD99)

Publication: Dolan, M., R.W. Neimeier, P.H. Jones, J.S. Nelson 1998. The New National Ag Safety Database (NASD) on the Web & CD-ROMS. In the Proceedings of the National Institute for Farm Safety, pp. 1-4.

History: 2002-06

Funding: NIOSH > SCAC > UF NIOSH > SCAC > CA supplemented by

USDA>UF

Key Personnel: Carol Lehtola (PI), Charles Brown, Jeff Nelson, Chris Knack

Major activities: Expanded the database, identified and removed duplicative and out-of-date materials, a major site redesign, conducted a user survey, and site promotion

History: 2002-06

Products: Website, NASD Survey Report

Award: 2003 ASAE Blue Ribbon Award

Publication: Lehtola, C.J., J.S. Nelson, and C.M. Brown. NASD: The National Agricultural Safety Database--An Important Tool for Safety Programming. Journal of Extension, Feb 2004, Vol. 42 #1

History: 2007-09

Funding: NIOSH>UF UF>CA

Key Personnel: Carol Lehtola (PI), Charles Brown, Jeff Nelson, Chris Knack

Major activities: Expanded the database, major update of video abstracts, major redesign & reorganization, conducted a user survey, moved site off CDC server, rebuilt site as a database-driven system, built NASD online training sister site, built initial training modules, and site promotion

History: 2007-09

Products: Main NASD website, new NASD Online Training sister site, NASD mouse pads

2007-2009 Database Expansion

Additions to the main NASD collection

Documents Added: 440Documents Updated: 59Videos Added: 8Video Abstracts Updated: 209Authors Added: 644Organizations Added: 58

Additions to the NASD Training Series

Training Modules Added: 2

http://www.nasdonline.org/nasdmeeting/nasd_content_2007-2009.pdf

2007-2009 Database Expansion

Composition of the main NASD collection

Documents: 2536Videos: 20Video Abstracts: 383Author records: 1860Organization records: 109

Composition of the NASD Training Series

Training Modules: 2

http://www.nasdonline.org/nasdmeeting/nasd_content_all.pdf

2007-2009 – UF Role

The main NASD collection

Ongoing tasks• Identify, acquire, review, catalog, and submit new materials

to CA for processing• Interact with authors and users• Monitor collections

Major Projects• Major update of video abstract collection• Collaborated with CA on the site redesign• Collaborated with CA on the site reorganization• Major update of organization pages• Prepared 15 years of Journal of Ag Safety & Health abstracts

to add to the collection

2007-2009 – UF Role

The NASD Training Series

• Identifying training module topics• Outlining and scripting modules• Collaborating with CA on the site design• Acquiring media elements (photos, video clips,

graphics) for modules• Testing modules, “focus grouping” modules

2007-2009 – UF Role

NASD-at-large

•Promotion•Safety News & Notes•NIFS Meetings•Personal Contacts•NASD postcards and mouse-pads

2007-2009 – CA Role

The main NASD collection

• HTML processing of materials submitted by UF• Graphic design

• site redesign• Managed a major site move off the CDC server• Programming

• Built a back-end administrative system for materials submission and reporting

• Built the new database infrastructure for nasdonline.org

2007-2009 – CA Role

The NASD Training Series

• Graphic design• Site design• Created original graphics for modules

• Programming• Built site database infrastructure• Built user-registration sub-system• Programmed interactive modules

• Animation• Audio Production

2007-2009 – CA Role

The NASD project-at-large

•Manage web-hosting account•Interface with NIOSH tech staff•Monitor system health•Track site traffic•Monitor site e-mail (first-line defense)•Graphic design

•Postcard & mousepad design

Technical Overview

NASD Website Hosting History

NASD main site

1997-2002 CDC: www.cdc.gov/niosh/nasd

2002-2009 CDC: www.cdc.gov/nasd

2009-present IMH: www.nasdonline.org

NASD Training site

2008–present IMH: www.nasdtraining.org

Technical Overview

Problems of hosting NASD at CDC:

• CDC had restrictions with regard to programming and the use of database technology -- in practical effect, this forced the site to be built as a set of static, HTML-only pages

• Because of its large size, updating or expanding the site was cumbersome and time-consuming

• Site-wide changes (sometimes required by CDC/NIOSH) required alteration of hundreds and often thousands of individual files

In June 2008, CA was informed of future CDC requirements that may have at least complicated, and probably precluded the ability of CDC to host the NASD site.

Technical Overview

Benefits of NASD Move

•Freedom from programming restrictions•Ability to utilize database technology•Updating efficiency•Maintenance efficiency•Improved site portability

Costs of NASD move

•Loss of links•Reduction in page ranking•Loss of traffic•Whatever credibility was lent to NASD by virtue of its residing on a “cdc.gov” server would be lost

The site relocation gave us the ability to re-build NASD as a true database-driven system.

Technical Overview

nasdonline.org & nasdtraining.org: Technical Details

•hosted at InMotionHosting.com, a 3rd-party professional web-hosting service

•mostly built using open source software (free, reliable, well-supported and widely used)

•uses MySQL, PHP, jQuery, Adobe Flash, and symfony

Site Traffic & Page Ranking

History of Site Statistic Collection

Source of Data Data “Issues”

2001-2005 WebTrends site analytics reports provided by Glenn Doyle/NIOSH

• Consistency problems• Gaps in data• Cached pages not

counted

2006-present Omniture site analytics reports provided by Glenn Doyle/NIOSH

• Short periods of lost data• Unable to access in-

depth analytics reports

2009-present Google Analytics reports provided by CA (a parallel collection effort)

• Fails to log PDF files as site traffic

Site Traffic & Page Ranking

Visits, Sep 2001 - Aug 2009

Site Traffic & Page Ranking

Comparison: NASD & eLCOSH post-site-move traffic

Site Traffic & Page Ranking

Reasons for Traffic Loss

1. NASD’s Google page rank was dramatically reduced

2. NIOSH/CDC was unable to generate 301 redirects for the site move

3. Moving the site resulted in lost inbound links

4. Since 9/1/2009 there has been no expanding the database and maintaining the website

Site Traffic & Page Ranking

Speculations on why:

1. New domain name (nasdonline.org) was young (registered in April 2009).

2. nasdonline.org did not have a significant number of inbound links

3. A site which resembled a link farming operation added hundreds of links to NASD

4. Google indexed a set of pages that resided on the CDC server to allow the CDC search engine to index summaries of NASD material. This may have appeared duplicative to Google.

Page rank went from 6 to 0 (out of 10) following the site move

Site Traffic & Page Ranking

Efforts to Recover Page Rank & Increase Traffic

1. Custom re-direct pages were created for each NASD page

2. An extensive email campaign for requesting updates of inbound links

3. Contacted Therapysites.com about the set of 900 links to NASD which resembled a link farming operation

4. NIOSH technical staff removed summaries of NASD material

A 10-page appeal was sent to Google in December 2009, in January 2010 NASD’s page rank increased from 0 to 7.

Site Traffic & Page Ranking

Recommendations for Future Traffic Recovery

The recent increase in Google page rank should help increase traffic over time. In addition, the following actions should be considered:

1. Expand the site content

2. Additional effort to track down and update links to the old site URL

3. Make additional requests for inlinks

4. Run a Google Ad Campaign. Google Grants are available for non-profits (eLCOSH received one)

5. A broader marketing campaign

NASD & the Ag Safety Community

2003 NASD Survey

Where do you typically obtain AS&H information?

Almost 50% of respondents identified the Extension Service and University or college programs as their primary source of AS&H info.

Rank the top 3 types of materials you prefer.

1.Ready-to-go Presentations Interactive training programs, on-line videos

2. Research Articles/Reports JASH Abstracts3. Extension Publications New and Revised Extension

Materials

NASD & the Ag Safety Community

2009 NASD Survey

How would you prefer to find out when new safety information is added to NASD?

About 60% preferred e-mail update notices

What topics would be useful for you to be included in the interactive training sections? (68 responses in 31 categories)

1. Vehicles (including ATV, road safety, and general tractor topics) --- 30%2. Chemicals (including fertilizers, pesticides, & general chemical handling) --- 16%3. Machinery (general machinery safety) --- 16%

NASD & the Ag Safety Community

2009 NASD Survey (continued)

On average, how often do you use NASD to find information about agricultural safety and health?

Few times a year: 60%; Monthly 30%

Would you be interested in participating in blogs or chat rooms on NASD?

No: 70%

How would you describe yourself?

1. Safety professional/educator: 77% (Extension professional: 23%)2. Agricultural worker/owner/supplier : 7%3. Health-related profession: 7%4. Other: 7% (including librarian, construction worker, private contractor)

NASD & the Ag Safety Community

Where do the materials in NASD come from?

land-grant institution 41 % (Extension)government agency 22professional association 14 (mostly ASABE)

non-profit organization 11commercial source 6NIOSH center 3surveillance program 3non-land-grant university 1journal <1

NASD & the Ag Safety Community