Internet Info 1997 December/Internet_Info_CD-ROM_Walnut_Creek_December_1997.iso/ietf/93jul/area.userservices.93jul.txt

Text File | 1993-09-22 | 14KB | 304 lines

User Services Area

Director(s):


   o Joyce Reynolds:  [e-mail]


Area Summary reported by Joyce Reyolds/Information Sciences Institute

Ten working groups in the User Services Area of the IETF met in
Amsterdam.


Integrated Directory Services Working Group (IDS)

The IDS Working Group is chartered to facilitate the integration and
interoperability of current and future directory services into a unified
directory service.  This work will unite directory services based on a
heterogeneous set of directory service protocols (X.500, Whois++, etc.).
In addition to specifying technical requirements for the integration,
the IDS Working Group will also contribute to the administrative and
maintenance issues of directory service offerings by publishing
guidelines on directory data integrity, maintenance, security, and
privacy and legal issues for users and administrators of directories.

The ``Advanced Usages of X.500'' document from the IDS Working Group has
been sent to the RFC Editor for publication.  The ``Pilot Project''
catalog is out as an Internet-Draft.  The revision of FYI 11 has been
released as an Internet-Draft and will be submitted to the RFC Editor
for publication by the end of August 1993.  A draft on ``Legal & Privacy
Issues in Directory Services'' was submitted and will be published as an
Internet-Draft.  A draft on ``A Guide to Available Directory Services''
was circulated and will be advanced as an Internet-Draft for eventual
publication as an Informational RFC. The ``Directory Services Policy
Handbook'' will be split into pieces and will be released as a series of
documents.


Integration of Internet Information Resources Working Group (IIIR)

IIIR is chartered to facilitate interoperability between Internet
information services, and to develop, specify, and align protocols
designed to integrate the plethora of Internet information services
(WAIS, Archie, Prospero, etc.)  into a single ``virtually unified
information service.''

IIIR met twice at this IETF. At the first session, the HTML
Internet-Draft from Tim Berners-Lee was discussed, and will be submitted
as an Informational RFC. The HTTP protocol will also be released as an
Internet-Draft before the next IETF. HTML+ may be brought in as a

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potential standard.  At the second session, the ``Vision of an
Integrated Internet Information Architecture'' document was discussed.
The document is still an Internet-Draft, and comments have come in that
need to be incorporated.  The ``Resource Transponders'' document was
also discussed.  The potential overlap with the SVRLOC Working Group's
work has still not been resolved.

The ``Taxonomy of Information Services'' document has been shelved as
other papers have recently been published on this work.  There are some
minor problems with the Gopher RFC which will be addressed in an
addendum.  The Prospero protocol was suggested as a means of integrating
information services.  Discussion on this item will be taken to the IIIR
Working Group e-mail list.  The Gopher/IIIR data type specifications
will be registered as MIME types.  A document will be written on failure
tracking and resolution between information services.  ``Z39.50 over
TCP/IP'' will be released as an Internet-Draft, to eventually become an
Informational RFC. A paper on integrating data elements between the IAFA
Working Group's paper and the library community will be released as an
Internet-Draft.


Internet School Networking Working Group (ISN)

The Internet School Networking Working Group is chartered to facilitate
the connection of the United States' K-12 (Kindergarten-12th grade)
schools, public and private, to the Internet, and school networking in
general.

After some background on the history of ISN, the group shared
experiences in school networking and their own companies and projects.
There were 30 or 35 people in attendance and almost all had more than a
passing interest in school networking.  Next, the group gave a lot of
good feedback on the document currently under construction, the
Internet-Draft on FAQs for the primary and secondary school community.
Also discussed was a document on connectivity models for schools.  It
was decided that this document will be combined with the USERDOC2's
document on how to connect to the Internet, and will be put out as an
Internet-Draft.  The final agenda item was a review and revision of the
group's charter.  After some discussion, three volunteers from three
different countries agreed to draft the text for a new charter and post
it to the list.  From there, the group will determine new deliverables
and milestones.


Network Information Services Infrastructure Working Group (NISI)

NISI is exploring the requirements for common, shared Internet-wide
network information services.  The goal is to develop an understanding
for what is required to implement an information services
``infrastructure'' for the Internet.

The NISI Working Group discussed two main topics.  First, comments on

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the current Internet-Draft were solicited and a discussion of the
relationships between network information centers (NICs) ensued,
resulting in suggested revisions to the document's diagram.  Secondly,
the scope of recommendations for interactions between NICs when more
than one are involved in helping a user were clarified.  The group
benefited greatly from the international input available in this forum,
and both documents currently in progress should be much improved.


Network Training Materials Working Group (TRAINMAT)

The Network Training Materials Working Group is chartered to enable the
research community to make better use of the networked services.
Towards this end, the working group will work to provide a comprehensive
package of ``mix and match'' training materials for the broad academic
community which will:  1) enable user support staff to train users to
use the networked services and 2) provide users with self-paced learning
material.  In the first instance, it will not deal with operational
training.  This working group is the IETF component of a joint RARE/IETF
group working on network training materials.

The meeting opened with introductions and descriptions of training
activities in which each person is involved.  Jill Foster discussed the
RARE ISUS Network Training Materials Task Force as well as the NISP/ITTI
project at the University of Newcastle, UK. The group reviewed data
elements for the training materials catalog, and agreed on the general
categories which Jill presented with a few suggested changes.  A small
group will finalize the template and send it out to the list.
Volunteers were recruited to work on the catalog.  Another project the
group will pursue is a subject resource guide.  Issues in using the
network to deliver interactive and multimedia training were discussed,
with the possibility for developing multimedia pilots reviewed.  Jill
gave a demonstration of the materials developed at Newcastle.


Networked Information Retrieval Working Group (NIR)

NIR is chartered to increase the useful base of information about
networked information retrieval tools, their developers, interested
organizations, and other activities that relate to the production,
dissemination, and support of NIR tools.  NIR is a cooperative effort of
the IETF, RARE, and CNI.

Jim Fullton gave an overview of CNIDR. Jill Foster gave a brief overview
of the RARE ISUS work in the NIR area.  Anders Gillner discussed his
work on the Eurogopher project.  This project involves establishing a
subject-based, as well as geographic-based, Gopher infrastructure in
Europe.  The group then spent most of the meeting editing the NIR
report.  Major changes included the merging of the WAIS and freeWAIS
sections, NCSA's Mosaic was moved under the WWW section, and the NLM
sections were removed.  Various methods of publishing and maintaining
this information on-line were discussed.  Several suggestions for

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evaluating NIR tools was discussed.  It was decided to put together a
simple checklist as the basis of the evaluation.  There will be further
discussion on the mailing list.  The charter was updated to remove the
reference to documentation and training materials.



Uniform Resource Identifiers Working Group (URI)

URI is chartered to define a set of standards for the encoding of system
independent resource location and identification information for the use
of Internet information services.

The URI Working Group met in three sessions to discuss various issues
related to URLs, URNs and URCs.  The current URL proposal, along with an
amendment to expand the allowable character set, was approved by a vote
of twenty-nine to one.  A report on the Info Mesh was made by Karen
Sollins.

URNs were discussed in great detail.  Agreement was reached on the basic
format of URNs as well as their content.  Sub-elements of the URN remain
undefined and will be discussed at the next IETF.

A paper describing a proposed URM was discussed, as were proposals for
the format of URCs.  A call for papers describing URMs and URCs was
made, with discussion to be carried out on the list.  Next time:  1)
discussion of URN sub-fields, and 2) discussion of URC/URM formats.



User Documents Revisions Working Group (USERDOC2)

The User Documents Revisions Working Group is preparing a revised
bibliography of on-line and hard copy documents, reference materials,
and training tools addressing general networking information and how to
use the Internet.  The target audience includes those individuals who
provide services to end users, and end users themselves.

The USERDOC2 Working Group reviewed recent activities, including the
release of FYI RFCs 19 and 20, since the last IETF meeting.  The
archive, ``Introducing the Internet,'' has been updated, adding two
additional documents and revising the access guide.  Four sites
currently house copies of the archive, and others are encouraged to
maintain it.  A discussion on documentation needs was held, staring with
a talk by Bert Stals on activities by the ISUS Documentation group.
Issues relating to documentation in languages other than English and
covering a more world-wide perspective in RFCs was covered.  The final
topic was new activities, with two future FYI RFCs in the works.  These
are a revision of FYI 3 which is to be finalized at the next meeting,
and a new document on how to get connected to the Internet which is just
being started.

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User Services Working Group (USWG)

USWG provides a regular forum for people interested in all user services
to identify and initiate projects designed to improve the quality of
information available to end-users of the Internet.

Joyce Reynolds reported on the IETF User Services Area activities
including:  working groups coming to closure, new working groups
starting up, new publications, and current user services related
Internet-Draft postings.

April Marine led a discussion on an FYI RFC update:  FYI 4 ``FYI on
Questions and Answers:  Answers to Commonly asked ``New Internet User''
Questions,'' (also RFC 1325), May 1992.  Bill Manning brought up a
discussion on how to ``empower'' users to utilize and document tools.
There also seems to be missing from the FYI RFC publications a series of
notes that tries to address the manners and morals of the collective
body.  Another topic that may need to be worked on in this forum is how
to deal with the basics (e.g., how do ``I'' get attached?).

Jill Foster presented an update on RARE activities, including a report
on the RARE Information Services/User Services (ISUS) activities.

David Sitman, EARN (European Academic and Research Network)
representative, presented a discussion and review of EARN's ``Guide to
Network Resource Tools'' in preparation for submission to the RFC Editor
for FYI RFC publication.


Whois and Network Information Lookup Service Working Group (WNILS)

The purpose of WNILS is to expand and define the standard for Whois
services, to resolve issues associated with the variations in access,
and to promote a consistent and predictable service across the network.

Many attendees were new to the WNILS Working Group and requested an
introduction to the Whois++ architecture.  Peter Deutsch presented an
overview of the Whois++ architecture and design philosophy.  A lengthy
discussion followed and additions to the protocol were requested.  Peter
will incorporate the additional specifications and submit an
Internet-Draft by July 30.

Chris Weider also began his presentation with an overview of centroids.
Two problem areas were identified:  a) centroids don't scale for
databases containing large quantities of unique data, and b) the
potential exists for cycles or looping in queries because the directory
is in a mesh configuration.  Chris agreed further work is needed on
indexing but this first implementation should provide a functional
system for existing datasets and a testbed for the limitations of this
model.

The recommended modifications to the Whois protocol have been submitted

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as an Internet-Draft.  The host record section will be updated.  The
goals and milestones will be updated to reflect the following:  1) all
draft papers will be submitted as Internet-Drafts by the end of July,
and 2) two working implementations of clients, servers and centroids
will be available by September 30.



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