The Cotton Info team undertakes extension and communication for the cotton industry.The team are from different organisations with a geographically spread. Information about activities was being captured via phone meetings without being systematically captured or recorded. This limited the capacity to report, review and evaluate the full activities and impact of the group.

The YourDATA M&E platform is a web-based application that provides a central data collection point for projects. By allowing team members to input raw data, view real-time graphical reports, and export collated data to spreadsheets, at any time and from anywhere (http://dev.couttsjr.com.au/yourdata/), it can be particularly tailored to collect and collate M&E data across regions, individuals and projects to allow reporting against milestones and strategic objectives.

For the first time, engagement, activity, output and impact data from the Cotton Info Team has been able to be captured in real time and collated for on-going improvement and reporting purposes. This is a significant jump in being able to demonstrate the role and value of the cotton team activities and clearly demonstrate the extent to which they are supporting the RD&E process and assisting industry to maximise the take up of new research, improved management practices and obtain productivity, profitability, environmental and social benefits.

This provides cotton growers and other stakeholders with the confidence they need that their levies and funding being used for this purpose is an effective investment. The process and system is flexible, easy to use and delivers timely information needed for decision-making about this significant development and extension delivery program to the cotton industry.