Minding the Gap: A Theoretical Approach to Increase Accessibility of Seasonal Forecast Products

The field of subseasonal-to-seasonal forecasting has become an important component for regional stakeholders and decision makers worldwide. It provides them with crucial information that can lead to an action plan, such as when a period of drought is predicted. Currently, scientific research organizations generate public reports for each forecast season. However, there is generally a gap in knowledge between the research output and the consumers of these reports. Therefore, report findings are often misinterpreted. As a result, important decisions (such as crop growth and city planning) are being made with limited understanding of the science.

Bridging the gap should occur from both the research organizations as well as the report consumers. Specifically, researchers should improve upon the methods they use to disseminate their findings in a way that is more easily accessible to the consumer; conversely, consumers should be educated so that they better understand the scientific processes behind the results presented. Efforts exist to bridge the gap from both the researcher and consumer perspectives, such as through collaborative projects involving forecast producers, intermediaries and end-users; however this study will focus on educating the consumers.

Currently, there are a few in-person trainings aimed at educating stakeholders and decision makers about seasonal forecast products. While extremely useful, participation in such trainings is limited by the cost of travel, which also limits the amount of time that can be spent by the participants at the trainings. Providing online options is one way to increase the accessibility of these trainings globally.

For this project, we have expanded on prior research developing online courses in regional climate modeling. Utilizing the frameworks described in Walton et al. (2015, BAMS), we have created a new framework on how to train decision makers about seasonal forecasting products. The goal of this framework is to make education about seasonal forecasting products accessible to all consumers by creating a free, online short course. Currently, only in person trainings exist, which are costly in both time and resources.

Using education theory, successful in-person trainings can be modified for online learning environments without sacrificing valuable hands-on activities and peer-to-peer discussion. Problem solving will be a large component of the framework (such as game theory), which has the learner make decisions and follow through with the consequences of those decisions; similar to what they will be expected to do with seasonal forecast products. Our presentation will be a brief introduction to this educational framework, which will be used to modify seasonal forecasting in-person trainings to be effective in an online learning environment.

We value feedback from our colleagues and will welcome a discussion after our brief overview.