NetNews Usenet Archive 1993 #3/NN_1993_3.iso/spool/comp/edu/composit/545

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Entry: 7
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 93 14:44:18 PST
From: Rodney Hoffman <[e-mail]>
Subject: Coalition for Networked Information (VERY L-O-N-G!) (7)
Message-id: <[e-mail]>
Reply-to: Computers & Composition Digest (R. Royar) <[e-mail]>
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Date: Sun, 10 Jan 93 23:38:17 -0500
Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
Comment: CNI Big Ideas Project Forum
Originator: [e-mail]
Version: 5.5 -- Copyright (c) 1991/92, Anastasios Kotsikonas
From: Paul Evan Peters <[e-mail]>
To: Multiple recipients of list <[e-mail]>
Subject: Original description of Project Big Ideas

PROJECT BIG IDEAS

INTRODUCTION

The election of Bill Clinton and Al Gore Jr. to the
Presidency and the Vice-Presidency of the United
States of America ensures that very high-level and
sustained attention will be paid to networks and
networked information in the new Administration.  The
appointments that the new Administration will make in
the natural course of its transition to office will
create the need for a large number of new
relationships to be established and cultivated.  The
story is the same in Congress, where the number of new
Representatives and Senators is the highest it has
been in memory.  It is important that the Coalition
and its Task Force take immediate action to realize
the potential for progress that exists in the current
situation.  Project Big Ideas is the Coalition's
response to this need.

BASIC APPROACH

(*) The leaders of the Coalition Working Groups are
being asked to add this topic to the agendas for their
meetings at the Fall 1992 Coalition Task Force
Meeting.

(*) A network discussion forum known as "cni-bigideas"
has been established to provide a common means for
continuing the separate Working Group discussions
begun at the Fall 1992 Coalition Task Force Meeting,
and to provide a means of participation in this
conversation for individuals who were not present at
the Fall 1992 Coalition Task Force Meeting.

(*) The leaders of the Coalition Working Groups will
convene with Coalition staff and members of the
Coalition Steering Committee for a meeting as soon as
possible in 1993, in order to review and refine
contributions being made to Project Big Ideas.

(*) The theme of the Spring 1993 Coalition Task Force
Meeting on March 22 and 23, 1993 in San Francisco,
California will be "Big ideas that make a difference"
and the Meeting will be planned to aid in the
development and programming of those contributions to
Project Big Ideas that generate the most interest and
excitement.

(*) Through out the period between the Fall 1992 and
Spring 1993 Coalition Task Force Meeting, members of
the Coalition Steering Committee, Coalition staff,
leaders of Coalition Working Groups, and other people
associated with the Coalition will draw upon
contributions to Project Big Ideas in their speaking,
writing, and constituency representing activities.

(*) Next steps and timetable for Project Big Ideas, if
any, will be planned in light of the above measures
and their outcomes, for consideration by the Coalition
Steering Committee at its April 1993 meeting.

GUIDING OBSERVATIONS

(*) Contributions to Project Big Ideas, and reactions
thereto, should flow freely and without constraint,
and they should be submitted to the Coalition by
whatever means is most convenient for their
contributors.

(*) Contributions to Project Big ideas that are
expressed in terms of what is known about the elements
of the technology strategy of the Clinton / Gore
Administration will be particularly welcomed.  It is
widely reported that this strategy will have five
basic elements:

(-) Investment in communications infrastructure with
the objective of linking every home, school, library,
and business to the "national information
infrastructure" by the year 2015.

(-) A civilian technology agency (drawing upon the
example of the Defense Advanced Research Projects
Agency) with a research agenda aimed at fostering new
technologies.

(-) Investments in education with particular attention
to continuing education.

(-) Appointment of a presidential science and
technology advisor to the National Security Council
and the Council of Economic Advisors.

(-) A technical extension service (drawing upon the
example of the Agricultural Extension Service) for
speeding up the transfer of technology into small
businesses.

(*) Contributions to Project Big Ideas that are
expressed in terms of the following cost categories
will be particularly welcomed:

(-) Ideas that would not require money but which could
be carried out by the Administration (regulatory
actions, directives, assignments of responsibilities,
and the like) or Congress (hearings, letters to the
Administration, studies, and the like).

(-) Ideas that would cost on the order of magnitude of
$10,000,000, a ballpark figure for initiatives that
could be funded by reallocations of existing budgets
or included in a supplemental budget request by the
Adminstration.

(-) Ideas that would cost more, perhaps much more,
than $10,000,000, constituting initiatives that would
be suitable for inclusion in completely new (likely
multi-year) budget submissions.

(*) Contributions to Project Big Ideas that are
expressed in terms of the mission, goals and
objectives, and priorities of the Coalition will be
particularly welcomed.

FURTHER INFORMATION

Paul Evan Peters
Executive Director
Coalition for Networked Information
1527 New Hampshire Avenue NW
Washington, District of Columbia 20036
Voice:  202-232-2466
Fax:  [phone]
Internet:  [e-mail]
[33655] SUN 01/10/93 21:11 FROM [e-mail]: Coalition Proposed
Agenda
        for the Clinton Administration; 224 LINES (FILED)

Date: Sun, 10 Jan 93 23:39:05 -0500
Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
Comment: CNI Big Ideas Project Forum
Originator: [e-mail]
Version: 5.5 -- Copyright (c) 1991/92, Anastasios Kotsikonas
From: Paul Evan Peters <[e-mail]>
To: Multiple recipients of list <[e-mail]>
Subject: Coalition Proposed Agenda for the Clinton Administration

PROPOSED NETWORKING AND NETWORKED INFORMATION
AGENDA FOR THE CLINTON ADMINISTRATION

December 29, 1992

1.  The NREN, Stupid!

1.1  Things have gotten worse, much worse, rather than better in
the year since the High-Performance Computing and
Communications Act of 1991, with its NREN provisions, was
signed into law as PL102-194.

1.2  The December 1992 report to Congress submitted by the
Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy was a
major disappointment, mostly because it conceived of the
NREN as nothing more than a federal research network.

1.3  Also in December, the National Science Foundation let it be
known that it will take the opportunity of its impending
solicitation for a provider of very high-speed backbone
services to limit its responsibilities and investments to the
operation of a network that links its four supercomputer
centers and only those centers.

1.4  In April, 1992 the Office of Management and Budget proposed
revisions to Circular No. A-130 that held to a very narrow
and dysfunctional conception of what constitutes an
"electronic government publication;"  in July it advanced a
very uninformed and disturbing conception of the NREN in its
statement for the record on S. 2813 and H.R. 2772, the
legislation pending at that time regarding the proposed GPO
WINDO / Gateway initiative.

1.5  These developments and positions are very out of step with
the national interests expressed in the NREN "access" and
"information services" sections of PL102-194 and numerous
other places, and they place the NREN public policy process
at odds with the experiences and expectations of a large and
diverse number of institutions and citizens throughout the
United States.

1.6  Presidential leadership is needed to rescue the NREN
program, and to further elaborate that program along the
lines advanced in the Information Infrastructure and
Technology Act of 1992 and other initiatives that seek to
realize the vital potential of the NREN as the operating
testbed for the national information infrastructure.

2.  Network and Networked Information Enterprise Zones.

2.1  A wide range of difficult public policy issues and questions
need to be framed and addressed if the experience of the
NREN is to be translated to a national information
infrastructure that enables ubiquitous, universally accessible,
high-performance, digital resources and services to support
national life and enterprise in the 21st Century.

2.2  This public policy process is at imminent risk of being
dominated by discussions at the Federal level which are not
informed by actual experience with networks and networked
information, a situation that could result in a public policy
vision and framework that is too strongly influenced by the
vested interests of the telecommunications, computing,
broadcast, cable, and entertainment industries.

2.3  A national program is needed to create regional, state, and
municipal zones, distributed throughout the United States, in
which large-scale, high-performance networks and
networked information resources and services can be planned,
implemented, and evaluated in regulatory, legal, and
financial climates that allow access and experimentation by
the entire spectrum of stakeholders whose perspectives and
experiences are necessary to the public policy process.

3.  Conversion of the National Intellectual Heritage.

3.1  The National Intellectual Heritage consists of the resources
and services generated and managed by public institutions
throughout the United States;  examples of these resources
and services are government publications, publications
preserved as a result of government funding, and other
knowledge in the public domain.

3.2  It also consists of the catalogs, listings, and other tools by
which its elements are described, made known, and accessed,
and of the public institutions by which its elements are
generated and managed;  examples of these public institutions
are government agencies, libraries, and museums.

3.3  A national program is needed to facilitate the conversion of
the National Intellectual Heritage from its overwhelming
dependence on print and microform media and products to a
rapidly increasing but orderly reliance on digital media and
products that can be accessed and delivered as part of
networked information resources and services.

4.  National Commission on New Technological Uses of Intellectual
Property.

4.1  What constitutes intellectual property in the rapidly
evolving networked information environment, how to
attribute ownership to that property in that environment,
and how to protect the interests of those who are attributed
such ownership are three of the most worrisome and discussed
questions of the contemporary networking scene.

4.2  Sellers and buyers in the nascent marketplace for networked
information are resolving these issues on a case by case basis
through agreements that express and secure their respective
interests.

4.3  Many of these buyers and sellers feel hampered by the
absence of a clear articulation of the public's interest in the
healthy, if rapidly changing, system of knowledge
production, distribution, and utilization that their
marketplace should serve.

4.4  A National Commission on New Technological Uses of
Intellectual Property is needed to study the practices of the
new marketplace for networked information, to articulate the
public interest considerations that must be served by that
marketplace, and to recommend public policy measures,
including legislation, that would secure those considerations
in that marketplace.

5.  National Repository of Objects for Testing Networked Information
Tools and Technologies.

5.1  Academic as well as commercial research on and development
of high-performance networked information resources and
services is being hampered by the absence of a large-scale,
network repository of textual, numerical, graphical, and,
generally, multi-media objects for use in classifying, testing,
and grading the functionality and performance of such
resources and services.

5.2  This absence also hampers buyers and users of networked
information tools and technologies in their efforts to verify
that those tools and technologies conform with standards
that codify the functionality and performance that they
need;  a particular concern is the interoperability of
hardware and software from different manufacturers.

5.3  A National Repository of Objects for Testing Networked
Information Tools and Technologies is needed to accelerate
the pace, to improve the quality, and to increase the common
awareness of research and development activities and
frontiers in the area of high-performance networked
information resources and services;  it is also needed to
increase the level of shared knowledge and justified
confidence in the marketplace for networked information
tools and technologies.

6.  National Survey of Network and Networked Information Uses and
Users.

6.1  Public policy formulation as well as marketplace formation
in the areas of networks and networked information resources
and services is being hampered by the the absence of data
that describe the uses and users of networks and networked
information throughout all sectors of the United States.

6.2  A National Survey of Network and Networked Information
Uses and Users is needed to take a representative snapshot of
these uses and users on at least an annual basis, and to track
the knowledge and behavior of a representative panel of
citizens as they develop and change over the course of their
entire lifetimes.

TRANSMITTAL LETTER

December 29, 1992

Bill Clinton
105 West Capitol Street
Little Rock, Arkansas
72201

Dear President-elect Clinton:

I would appreciate your kind attention to the enclosed Proposed
Networking and Networked Information Agenda for the Clinton
Administration.  I have also enclosed some brief information about the
Coalition for Networked Information to provide context for this
proposed agenda.

Members of the Coalition believe that you and Vice President-elect
Gore clearly understand that the synergy between technology,
information, and democracy is a matter of utmost urgency as the Nation
prepares for and then enters the 21st Century.

We look forward to the leadership that will flow from this
understanding, and to the programs that will translate this
understanding into tangible national benefits.  We offer our proposed
agenda as a contribution to your long-term efforts in this regard.

Thank you for your attention to the enclosures.  Members of the
Coalition would be very pleased to expand upon any or all of the items
on our proposed agenda.  We would also be very pleased to participate
in any and all Administration initiatives in this area.

In addition to the contact points listed above, I can be reached at
Internet address [e-mail].

Sincerely,

Paul Evan Peters
Executive Director

[33675] MON 01/11/93 08:58 FROM [e-mail]: Re: Coalition Proposed
        Agenda for the Clinton Administration; 66 LINES (FILED)

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