CURRENT_MEETING_REPORT_
Reported by Kevin Gamiel/MCNC - CNIDR and Janet Marcisak/FTP Software
Minutes of the Networked Information Retrieval Working Group (NIR)
Agenda and Minutes
The agenda of the meeting and the minutes of the last meeting were
approved.
Reports on CNIDR and RARE-related Activities
o Clearinghouse for Networked Information Discovery and Retrieval
Kevin Gamiel reported that CNIDR is continuing its role of
promoting the use and development of NIDR standards by working on
such projects as the Global Schoolhouse, Z39.50 client, server and
gateway software.
o RARE
The European Commission is currently in the process of defining a
work program for the 12BXEU (approximately 12 billion US dollars)
IVth Framework initiative. One of the programs within the IVth
Framework comprises around 50MXEU in the area of Telematics for
Research. RARE and its various working groups intend to develop
and submit a large coordinated bid under this.
A key point of the program is the transition from text-based to
multi-media-based communication and information services.
The RARE MMEP group, a task force of the Interactive Multi-Media
Working Group (WG-IMM) and Information Services and User Support
Working Group (WG-ISUS), has already generated ideas for possible
proposals, including:
- Multi-media chemistry
- Networked CAD/CAM
- Dental training
- Multi-media conferencing for language teaching
- A network interactive learning resource for environmental
design
- Live interactive teaching of surgery between remote centers
- Telepublishing
Internet-Draft: Status Report on NIR Tools and Groups
Jill reported that the NIR report had been independently reviewed by
volunteers from around the world. The volunteers took two or three of
the templates each, contacted each template owner and updated the
template. They also checked for bad software and document links
referenced throughout the document. The group agreed to the changes and
the over 200 page report has been forwarded to the area director for
submission as an RFC.
Update Schedule for Report and Parts of Report
CNIDR had offered at the last meeting to maintain the document on-line.
Jane Smith said that CNIDR would undertake this on a best-effort basis.
The InterNIC also agreed to maintain the document at their sites for
public access. Updates for individual templates should be sent to
nir-updates@cnidr.org.
Availability of the Report in Various Formats
The intention has always been to move to having this document on-line in
HTML. There had been offers from around the world (including early
offers from CNIDR and the InterNIC) to mark up the document in HTML. It
obviously makes sense now to wait for the final RFC version before doing
this.
``April's Checklist'' on Various NIR Tools
April Marine reported on her continuing NIR checklist work. She said
that the problem in creating such a checklist lies in the cross-platform
nature of the up-and-coming tools and the difficulty in maintaining such
a checklist. Also, April felt that any benefits the checklist would
have offered above and beyond those of the NIR report could not justify
the expense of creating the checklist. The group decided not to pursue
work on the checklist based on these reasons.
It was noted that the matrix of NIR tools and platforms had initially
been rather sparse (this was the original reason for wanting the
checklist) but was now pretty complete.
What Next
Jill queried the group for input on what should be the future of NIR.
She felt that, having met its chartered goals, the group should
conclude; the working group agreed.
Quality Issues
The remainder of the NIR meeting was devoted to part of a Quality BOF
chaired by Mitra. (The other part was held during the IIIR Working
Group meeting.)
Quality issues in providing information services were discussed,
including:
o ``Pointers to nowhere''
o Access fails (server moved or denied access)
o Lack of administrator information
o Incomplete or lossy gateways
o Inefficient gateways
o Loss of context information (veronica/archie)
o Poor titles
o Misleading information (file extensions not standard types)
o Expired information
The problem is that there are no formal procedures in place to deal with
any of these problems.
Mitra said that the brainstorming document and two documents from last
time can be obtained from ftp.path.net:/pub/ietf/Quality.
There was some discussion as to whether NIR should continue in order to
discuss quality issues. It was agreed that this was not appropriate.
We should spawn a new group to keep all the issues together and to keep
the motivation. Alternatively, another BOF could be held next time to
define the range of issues and possible need for several sub-groups.
This was a free ranging brainstorming session and no attempt is made to
capture that here. Mitra will be putting together a document based on
these discussions. Further discussion will take place on the
``quality'' mailing list, quality@sunsite.unc.edu. To join, send mail
to listserv@sunsite.unc.edu.
Attendees
Farhad Anklesaria fxa@boombox.micro.umn.edu
Alexis Bor bora@ct.si.cs.boeing.com
Sepideh Boroumand sepideh@jacks.gsfc.nasa.gov
Mic Bowman
Gregg Brekke gbrekke@mr.net
Jodi-Ann Chu jodi@uhunix.uhcc.hawaii.edu
Bruce Davie bsd@bellcore.com
Michael Elkins elkins@areo.org
Michael Erlinger mike@jarthur.claremont.edu
Richard Everman reverman@ka.reg.uci.edu
Jill Foster Jill.Foster@newcastle.ac.uk
Lois Frampton frampton@mitre.org
Kevin Gamiel kgamiel@cnidr.org
Arlene Getchell getchell@es.net
Shawn Gillam shawn@timonware.com
Anders Gillner awg@sunet.se
Judith Grass grass@cnri.reston.va.us
Sally Hambridge sallyh@ludwig.intel.com
Deborah Hamilton debbieh@internic.net
Art Harkin ash@cup.hp.com
Alisa Hata hata@cac.washington.edu
Roland Hedberg Roland.Hedberg@umdac.umu.se
Jeff Hodges hodges@jessica.stanford.edu
Richard Huber rvh@ds.internic.net
Barbara Jennings bjjenni@sandia.gov
Brewster Kahle Brewster@wais.com
Padma Krishnaswamy kri@cc.bellcore.com
John Kunze jak@violet.berkeley.edu
Walter Lazear lazear@gateway.mitre.org
Janet L. Marcisak jlm@ftp.com
April Marine april@atlas.arc.nasa.gov
Marilyn Martin martin@netcom.ubc.ca
Ken Masica masic@es.net
Mark McCahill mpm@boombox.micro.umn.edu
Michael McLay mclay@eeel.nist.gov
Mitra mitra@pandora.sf.ca.us
Mark Needleman mhn@stubbs.ucop.edu
Clifford Neuman bcn@isi.edu
Pete Percival percival@indiana.edu
Marsha Perrott perrott@prep.net
George Phillips phillips@cs.ubc.ca
Thomas Powell sestrada@aldea.com
Joyce K. Reynolds jkrey@isi.edu
Deb Rodgers deb@cac.washington.edu
Steven Russert srussert@atc.boeing.com
Jane Smith Jane.Smith@cnidr.org
Patricia Smith psmith@merit.edu
Milan Sova sova@feld.cvut.cz
David Staudt dstaudt@nsf.gov
Phil Trubey ptrubey@netcom.com
Chris Weider clw@bunyip.com
Linda Winkler lwinkler@anl.gov