CURRENT_MEETING_REPORT_

Reported by Tracy LaQuey


AGENDA

  1. Review Charter, Objectives, Timeframe
  2. Review last meeting's action items
  3. Review draft and make comments
  4. Discuss RFC situation
  5. Discuss review process, researching for entries
  6. Discuss format
  7. Determine what's next, for example, distribution and updating
  8. Determine action items for the next meeting


MINUTES

The meeting began with a review of the charter of the USER-DOC Working
Group.  To summarize, the purpose of the group is to prepare a
bibliography of online and hardcopy documents, reference materials, and
training tools addressing general networking information and ``how to
use the Internet''.  End users and people who help end users are the
targeted audience.  The group has been collecting documents since the
first USWG meeting in Texas and have described some broad categories to
cover.  It was decided at the IETF meeting at Stanford to have a rough
draft ready by this meeting.

Last meeting's action items were reviewed.  They were:


   o Write up and pass out questionnaire at Plenary Session:  Enger,
     Roubicek, Bowers
         This questionnaire was written up and passed out at the
         Stanford meeting.
   o Develop Template (LaQuey, Marine, Redfield, Roubicek)
         Karen Roubicek made up a template which was reviewed by the
         mailing list.  She then sent it out to several mailing
         lists and USENET groups.
   o Define set of key RFCs (Reynolds)
         Joyce Reynolds put together a ``Basic Beige'' list of
         RFC's.
   o Research Andrew system and Federal databases (Breeden)
   o Find information SOCRATES project (Breeden)
         Laura Breeden did not attend this meeting, so we heard no
         report on these two items.
   o Choose set of mailing lists (Roubicek, Bowers)

                                   1






         Mailing lists, groups, newsletters and other methods of
         distribution were discussed at the Stanford meeting by a
         full meeting of the User Services group.
   o Liaison with library community (Roubicek)
         Since we don't really have a final draft, we are waiting
         before we do this.
   o Schedule distribution meeting (Bowers)
         A joint meeting with the NOCTOOLS WG chaired by Martyne was
         held at Stanford.
   o Write article about bibliography for ConneXions soliciting info
     (Perillo)
         We did not write an article between the Stanford and Hawaii
         meeting, but Ole has us scheduled for helping him with an
         article for the December ConneXions issue.


The rough draft in reference format was passed out to all members
attending and the entries and categories were discussed.  It was
suggested that we include an entry that describes the format of online
documents (ASCII, PostScript, etc.)  The following categories were
discussed and added to the scope of the bibliography:  Glossaries,
Marketing Materials, Pointers to NICs, Pointers to Maps (this was
actually added at the last meeting but no entries were put into the
rough draft), and pointers to bulletins (like DDN Security and CERT).
The marketing materials will help those users who need to show the value
of networks, and procedures for getting connected.  Some specific
suggestions were made for additional entries (the ACM article on
security and ethics, FRICC documents - OSTP report and online Gore Bill,
NREN document).  Elizabeth Redfield had sent a suggestion that OSI
documents be included, so we decided to include general documents on OSI
protocols and tutorials.  It was decided that we should also add an
introduction and short explanations on networks.

Tracy presented a sample format for the bibliography - using keywords to
group similar documents.  Dave Crocker pointed out the annoyance of
having to flip back and forth from an index to the body of the text.  He
suggested using more detailed key information that will give a better
idea of what the documents are about.

Tracy passed out a letter sent by Elizabeth Redfield concerning some
bibliographic issues and additional fields.  We decided that the format
board would review this message and report on it at the next meeting.

Inclusion of RFCs was discussed.  We don't want to have any political
problems with including certain RFCs and excluding others.  Joyce
Reynolds is going to get some feedback from Jon Postel and Vint Cerf
about her ``Basic Beige RFCs'' list.  It was decided to go ahead and
include this list, though.

                                   2






Since a lot of entries are incomplete and questionable, we decided that
our editorial and research boards should go over all of the entries.
The editorial board will decide if an entry should be included while the
research board will work on incomplete entries.  The chair of the
editorial board is Karen Bowers.  Members include Tracy LaQuey, Francine
Perillo, Joyce Reynolds, April Marine and Jon Pugh.  The Research
committee now includes the NIC, Jon Pugh, Martyne Hallgren, Dana
Sitzler, Karen Roubicek, Tracy LaQuey and Roxanne Streeter.Since the
format of the final bibliography is still not decided, several members
decided to discuss those issues.  The ``Formatting Board'' is Karen B.
and Mary Stahl, with help from Dana Sitzer, Karen R. and Laura Breeden.

We will update the bibliography annually.  If the group is not actively
in session with the IETF, then we will reconvene for some period of
time.  The draft is still located and available via anonymous ftp on
emx.utexas.edu in the directory ``user.wg'', file ``bibliography''.

The following action items were assigned:


   o Karen Bowers will schedule a videoteleconference for the Editorial
     Board the week of November 13.  The board will look over the
     existing draft and make changes.
   o Joyce Reynolds is proposing an F.Y.I. series of notes, allied to
     the RFC's, but providing information about who does what on the
     Internet.  (For example, Joyce thought that the bibliography would
     be a good F.Y.I. document.)
   o We will have a final rough draft sent out electronically by January
     16.  We will schedule a full day (preferably the first day of the
     next IETF meeting in Florida) to go over it.
   o The Research Board will find more documents and complete existing
     entries.
   o The Format Board will review Elizabeth Redfield's bibliographic
     suggestions.
   o We will follow up existing connections in the Library community.
   o Ole, Tracy and Joyce will work on an article for ConneXions.


ATTENDEES


     Armstrong, Karen
     Bowers, Karen
     Choy, Joseph H.
     Crocker, Dave
     Enger, Robert M.
     Hallgren, Martyne M.
     Jacobsen, Ole
     LaQuey, Tracy L.
     Moore, Berlin

                                   3






Reynolds, Joyce K.
Roubicek, Karen
Sitzler, Dana
Stahl, Mary
Streeter, Roxanne
Wintringham, Dan
Yuan, Aileen



                              4