CURRENT_MEETING_REPORT_ Reported by Ellen Hoffman/Merit Minutes of the Network Training Materials Working Group (TRAINMAT) Old Business Minutes of the previous meeting were reviewed. The group thanked Ellen Hoffman, who has resigned as co-chair. A new co-chair is expected to be appointed soon. Template Jill Foster presented the latest round in data elements for a template to collect information about training materials. This template has been reviewed by others, including Pete Percival of the Top Node project. Efforts will contine to coordinate this with other projects including NIR. The template has fields for describing the material and optional fields for types such as FTP, Gopher, etc. Jill noted that while such templates may eventually be maintained by professionals such as librarians, the first attempt to use them would be through volunteer efforts. The template was generally approved by the attendees and Jill will post this version to the mailing list. Catalog A first attempt to develop the catalog using an earlier version of the template was distributed. This used materials that were already included in the training catalog done by Margaret Isaacs at the University of Newcastle. About fifteen people are working on this effort, testing the template design and verifying entries. Once the initial effort of cataloging the existing materials from Margaret's research is completed, new materials will be sought for inclusion. The results will be published as an RFC. Subject Headings Margaret has made a first effort at categorizing the materials, and the group noted that many of the materials included were either documentation or resource guides rather than training materials. After some discussion about scope, it was agreed that such materials should be included as a bibliography but that the catalog should focus on training even if it were shorter that way. A statement at the beginning could be used to define the focus. Available Materials Jill raised the issue of what kinds of training materials are needed and where gaps exist. The discussion focused on videos and their usefulness. Jill noted that one trainer had indicated videos were very helpful because students could take them home to study. Updating was done by handouts with the video. Jill suggested discussing the video topic on the mailing list. Liaison with Other Groups Jill noted that Susan Harris at Merit was continuing to post relevant materials from the nettrain mailing list to the trainmat group. Jill also described the efforts at Newcastle to develop network training materials for network trainers. These are available for anyone (for non commercial use) from the Newcastle server and include overheads, speaker notes, and handouts. One module covers general networking and the other is on network information retrieval tools. An experimental ``training materials Gopher'' is being set up at Newcastle. Gopher to trainmat.ncl.ac.uk 70. Subject Resource Guides Jill raised the topic of tailoring training for specific disciplines, giving an example of the top twenty resources for a particular group. She noted several existing efforts and suggested this as an area for some future work by the group. Training on the Net The idea of a hypertext document which could be used for training was discussed. Generally, the issue of interactive training on the network was discussed, and while some efforts are underway, there currently no good source for this. April and Ellen agreed to talk more about developing something. Roundtable Discussion The group closed with the traditional roundtable discussion of what each person is doing in terms of training and other efforts in which the group would be interested. Attendees Sepideh Boroumand sepi@aol.com Hallie Carlson hallie@nsipo.arc.nasa.gov Henry Clark henryc@oar.net Sallie Fellows sallie@ed.unh.edu Jill Foster Jill.Foster@newcastle.ac.uk Ellen Hoffman ellen@merit.edu Lenore Jackson jackson@nsipo.arc.nasa.gov Brendan Kehoe brendan@zen.org April Marine april@atlas.arc.nasa.gov Wayne McDilda wayne@dir.texas.gov Marsha Perrott perrott@prep.net Jennifer Sellers sellers@quest.arc.nasa.gov Raymond Vega rvega@cicese.mx