Internet Info 1994 March/Internet Info CD-ROM (Walnut Creek) (March 1994).iso/inet/ietf/uswg/uswg-minutes-89july.txt

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User Services Working Group
Chairperson:  Karen Bowers/NRI





CURRENT MEETING REPORT
Reported by Karen Bowers and Martyne Hallgren



AGENDA


   o Welcome New Members

   o Review Current Projects in Progress/Planned

   o Brief Discussion of Ralph Drom's Universal Directory Service for the
     Internet

   o Participation in USER-DOC, NISI and NOC-Tools WGs

   o Reconvene to Discuss Issues of Distribution for the NOC- Tools catalog,
     USER-DOC Biblio and other USWG Undertakings


ATTENDEES


  1. Bowers, Karen/[e-mail]

  2. Breeden, Laura/[e-mail]

  3. Easterday, Tom/[e-mail]

  4. Enger, Robert M./[e-mail]

  5. Finkelson, Dale/[e-mail]

  6. Gerich, Elise/[e-mail]

  7. Hallgren, Martyne M./[e-mail]

  8. Hastings, Gene/[e-mail]

  9. Jacobsen, Ole/[e-mail]

 10. Kincl, Norman/[e-mail]

 11. LaQuey, Tracy/[e-mail]

 12. Malkin, Gary/[e-mail]

 13. Marine, April/[e-mail]

 14. Miller, Stephen/[e-mail]



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 15. Moore, Berlin/[e-mail]

 16. Morris, Don/[e-mail]
 17. Mundy, Russ/[e-mail]


 18. Oattes, Lee/[e-mail]

 19. Pak, Raylene/[e-mail]

 20. Partridge, Craig/[e-mail]

 21. Perillo, Francine/[e-mail]

 22. Pleasant, Mel/[e-mail]

 23. Pugh, Jon/[e-mail]

 24. Redfield, Elizabeth/[e-mail]

 25. Reynolds, Joyce K./[e-mail]

 26. Roberts, Mike/[e-mail]

 27. Roberts, Ronald/[e-mail]

 28. Roubicek, Karen/[e-mail]

 29. Schoffstall, Martin/[e-mail]

 30. Sitzler, Dana/[e-mail]

 31. Sollins, Karen/[e-mail]

 32. Stahl, Mary/[e-mail]

 33. Steinberg, Lou/[e-mail]

 34. Stine, Robert/[e-mail]

 35. Sweeton, Jim/[e-mail]

 36. Veach, Ross/[e-mail]

 37. Wintringham, Dan/[e-mail]

 38. Youssef, Mary/[e-mail]

 39. Yuan, Aileen/[e-mail]


MINUTES

The purpose of the fairly brief USWG session on Tuesday morning, 25 July
1989, was to welcome new members and acclimate them to the recently
established activities of User Services.  A brief review of the current
charter and organizational structure was provided and a quick synopsis given
on the three currently active USWG projects:  NISI (Network Information
Services Infrastructure), User-Doc and NOC-Tools.  During this IETF plenary,



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full concentration of efforts was placed on the three ongoing projects
scheduled the remainder of Tuesday and all day Wednesday.  (Separate meeting

reports covering those activities have been prepared by the respective
Chairs and are enclosed within the July 1989 Proceedings and the IETF:
directory.)  A new item brought to light at the close of this short session
was an Internet Directory Service (IDS) being proposed by Ralph Droms (NRI).
Discussion on the immediate impact of this IDS and the associated
implications is to be continued during the next (interim) USWG meeting, at
which Ralph Droms has agreed to provide a presentation and field audience
questions.

On Thursday morning, 27 July 1989, the User Services Working Group
reconvened to discuss the issues of distribution of Internet information
such as the NOC-TOOLS catalog and the USER-DOC bibliography.

As a way to approach this complex issue, the group spent some time defining
the user community it was trying to reach, the goals of the distribution
effort and what methods were currently in use or could be used.

The audience is extremely broad.  It includes end users (defined as someone
who uses the network as a tool, such as a researcher), site support staff
including user, network or technical, and administrative support (site being
defined as an academic, industrial, or government organization), regional
and backbone network providers, political groups such as state or federal
legislatures, and specialized groups.  These specialized groups may be
associated with a specific discipline or interest or computer vendor.  Such
groups include EDUCOM, SIGUCCS, SHARE, DECUS, RLG, OCLC, and the American
Physical Society.

The goal of distributing information to this audience is to share
information and to provide guidelines on using and supporting the Internet.
The information can educate or be used as reference material to both new and
old participants in the Internet community.  The USER-DOC bibliography is
useful to the entire audience.  The NOC-TOOLS catalog is targeted more
towards those groups which do technical management of a network.

At present, the main method of information distribution on the Internet is
via personal networking, i.e., "the old boy" system; to find out something,
one asks somebody else if they know the answer or who else to ask.  This
personal networking will always continue.  In addition, MERIT and the NSF
Network Service Center (NNSC) work to provide information on specific areas.
(While not mentioned in the discussion, SRI-NIC should also be included with
MERIT and NNSC). As the regional networks have blossomed, a rough hierarchy
has formed, where information flows vertically (generally from a top-level



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"NIC" to a mid-level or regional organization to some number of sites) and
horizontally (between the organizations at each level of the hierarchy).

Specialized groups tend to share information amongst their own members,
without regard to any hierarchy.

The basic issue then, is to define or open new paths of communication
through which a broad audience can be reached and be provided with the how's
and why's of finding information about the Internet.  There are several
possibilities on how to do this.  Organizations such as SIGUCCS, SIGCOMM,
IEEE, ACE, Nysernet, MERIT, and NSF use conferences, workshops, and
publications as information distribution mechanisms.  Vendors/industry have
both formal (documentation) and informal means of sharing information with
their customer and internal user base.  Newsletters and trade publications
also provide opportunities to share information.

The role of IETF User Services in distributing information, such as the
NOC-Tools catalog and USER-DOCS bibliography, is to make use of
communication avenues already developed by other organizations.  This can be
accomplished through liaison relationships with other organizations such as
EDUCOM and SIGUCCS and use of existing distribution avenues such as the NNSC
Bulletin.

User Services plans the following activities.  An announcement of the IETF
User services working group and how to participate will be made at the
EDUCOM, SIGUCCS, and INTEROP conferences this fall (Martyne Hallgren, Karen
Roubicek and Karen Bowers).  There will be announcements of the USER-DOC
bibliography and the NOC-Tools catalog via the following avenues:  NNSC
bulletin (with a special mailing to the Computer Center directory list),
on-line mailing lists, and through FARNET. Karen Bowers (chr), Karen
Roubicek, Mary Stahl, and Gene Hastings will discuss and chose what mailing
lists shall be used for distribution.  Martyne Hallgren (chr), Laura
Breeden, Karen Roubicek, and Dale Finkelson will pursue the liaison
relationships with other organizations, including EDUCOM, SIGUCCS, NSF, and
FRICC.

Additional Action Items:


   o Connection Checklist (Laura Breeden and Craig Partridge)

   o BOF at Interop 89

   o Contact PM at NSF for the Outreach program


Other Items:



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o Dan Wintringham has raised the issue of establishing a WG to address
  Configuration Tools.

o Tom Easterday is interested in defining procedures on 'How to Set-Up A

  Campus NIC/NOC', an activity in which Tracy LaQuey expressed interest
  earlier.

o If concentrated help in future projects is required, Joyce Reynolds has
  kindly volunteered to Chair a WG as needed.