CURRENT_MEETING_REPORT_
Reported by Joyce K. Reynolds/Information Sciences Institute
Minutes of the User Services Working Group (USWG)
Reports on IETF User Services Area activities and progress of USWG
projects since the Toronto IETF were presented by Joyce Reynolds.
The USERDOC2 Working Group has closed down. Three new working groups
have been formed: Responsible Use of the Network (RUN), Site Security
Handbook (SSH) (SEC/USV Area effort), and Quality of Information
Services (QUIS) (APP/USV Area and TERENA ISUS Working Group co-effort).
Four FYI RFC documents have been published since the Toronto IETF:
___________________________________________________________________________
|| FYI 27 |RFC 1713 |``Tools for DNS debugging'' |November 1994 ||
|| | | | ||
|| FYI 26 |RFC 1709 |``K-12 Internetworking Guidelines'' |November 1994 ||
|| | | | ||
|| FYI 25 |RFC 1689 |``A Status Report on Networked |August 1994 ||
|| | |Information Retrieval: Tools and | ||
|| | |Groups'' (Also, RTR 13) | ||
|| | | | ||
|| FYI 17 |RFC 1718 |``The Tao of IETF - A Guide for New |November 1994 ||
|| | |Attendees of the Internet Engineering | ||
|| | |Task Force'' | ||
||________|_________|______________________________________|______________||
Reports on International Liaison Groups were presented.
Network Services Conference
A brief report on on EARN's Network Services Conference (NSC) held in
London, England, 28-30 November 1994 was discussed. NSC plenaries
included World Wide Web, Publishing on the Net, and School Networking.
RARE + EARN = TERENA
Joyce announced the recent merger between RARE (Reseaux Associes pour la
Recherche Europeenne) and EARN (European Academic Research Network).
The new organization is called TERENA (Trans-European Research and
Academic Networking Association). The two RARE and EARN staffs will be
merged into one staff centrally located in Amsterdam. Assets of RARE
and EARN will migrate to TERENA. TERENA's ``governing body'' is called
the ``General Assembly.'' It is made up of representatives of the
members of TERENA. The new president of TERENA is Frode Greisen (DK).
The TERENA ISUS meetings were held in at the end of the NSC conference
in London. At this meeting, EARNINFO ``officially'' merged with RARE
ISUS and these groups now operate as the TERENA ISUS Working Group.
Jill Foster gave an overview, status update, and implications for the
TERENA ISUS Working Group report regarding the RARE-EARN merger. The
current, new and proposed task forces within the ISUS Working Group were
discussed. Two new task forces in the ISUS Working Group include TIP
(Tools for Information Providers) and QUIS (Quality of Information
Services).
As a result of the RARE/EARN merger, the new TERENA Technical Committee
will be going over the role of each of the working groups. Jill and
Joyce both voiced that the IETF USV Area and the TERENA ISUS Working
Group will continue to liase as they have in the past.
USV-TV
There has not been much accomplished on this subjuct since Toronto. The
major concern when contacting sites from the technical community is the
stress on the already overloaded bandwidth. The ``surges'' of users
coming on to the MBone was particularly a concern.
Joyce is continuing to discuss with experts what we can do with USV-TV.
Also, Mark Prior and Jill, co-chairs of the TRAINMAT Working Group, are
exploring ideas on how to broadcast training over the net.
HTMLing FYI RFCs
Progress has been made in the HTMLing of the FYI RFC series of notes.
Janet L. Marcisak is almost finished with her endeavors at FTP Software.
April Marine and Carol Ward are working on some HTMLing of FYI RFCs at
NASA. Glee Cady of NetCom voiced that her site could contribute, also.
Establishing a central site to house these FYI RFC HTMLs is being worked
on by Joyce.
There was a brief discussion about FYI RFC translations from English
into other languages. Joyce stated that for some time now, many
countries have been translating FYI RFCs into their native language.
She also mentioned that the RFC Editor is keen to have folks contribute
their translations to the RFC repositories. If interested parties
submit their FYI RFC translations to the rfc-editor@isi.edu, the RFC
Editor can announce their availability to the RFC repositories and the
community.
USV-WEB
Susan Calcari presented an update and discussion on the USV-WEB that she
and the InterNIC are assisting the USWG with. Folks who volunteered at
the Toronto IETF to continue the USV-WEB work with Susan, April, and
Joyce include: Sally Hambridge, Barbara Jennings, Suzanne Smith, Terry
Kuny, David Sitman, and Jodi Chu. There was not much progress to report
from the committee. However, Susan reported on where items currently
stand:
1. The address for the page is: http://www.internic.net/usv-web.
2. The page has been improved since Toronto to be a series of links,
the first to the brief ``About the IETF US Area,'' with a return
arrow back to the USV-Web home page. Then all the working groups
are listed, with a link to the CNRI page for that working group.
There is also a link to the chart of working groups, chairs, and
lists.
3. Items suggested in Toronto which have been completed are:
o Menus instead of long text entry on the home page.
o Updated look and feel -- similar to InfoGuide homepage, with
colored markers and return arrows.
o Links to CNRI pages for each working group -- the CNRI pages
had been completed immediately before the Toronto IETF.
4. Items we discussed in Toronto in addition to the basic improvements
we have already made here, are:
o Add a `welcome' page or link, which tells folks more about how
the work of the IETF User Services Working Groups affect them,
and why they might want to participate.
o Add a few nice graphics.
o Possibly add photos and/or an audio message from Joyce.
Discussion with USWGers on the USV-WEB effort included a suggestion that
the USV-WEB home page should be made up of menus, instead of long text.
Jill suggested that USV-WEB pages should have a page of each working
group in the USV area. This is what is being done with the TERENA ISUS
Web efforts.
Susan mentioned the work that the InterNIC has been doing on their
Starter Kit which is currently called Briefcase. This topic was
discussed further in the NISI Working Group. (Susan's slide
presentation in both the USWG and NISI sessions are included in these
proceedings for further information.)
UserDoc2 Working Group Documents - Unfinished Business
Lenore Jackson led a discussion on what to do with the bibliography the
UserDoc2 Working Group did not complete. General consensus of the USWG
is that there is no need to keep working on an updated FYI RFC
bibliography when there are so many high quality bibliographies now
available on-line for the community. A suggestion was taken that a
small document could be produced replacing the outdated FYI RFC. This
will be an annotated replacement, with pointers to the best
bibliographic documentation for users to consult. Joyce will work on
this document.