Editor's note: These minutes have not been edited. Minutes of the Internet School Networking WG (isn) Monday, December 9, 1996 Reported by Pat Smith, Merit (edited by Sepi and Jodi) The ISN working group was called to order by Sepi Boroumand and Jodi Ito co-chairs of ISN. The following agenda was approved by attendees. 1) Introductions 2) Review Charter 3) ISN Web Site 4) Help Desk Plan 5) Local Internet Activities, NetDay, etc 6) AOB Attendees were invited to introduce themselves and briefly describe their interests in ISN. Next, some time was spent on reviewing the ISN charter. The goals and milestones listed on-line were out-of-date and needed to be revised. The directory of projects was killed at the last IETF. Since then, John Clement from CICnet is working to start a similar project - a global registry. John Clement is working with people in Japan and any other interested parties. There was some discussion regarding the architecture of such an endeavor, when it would live, etc. (i.e. distributed model single entry point) At this point things are very vague. RFC1941/FYI 22 are done & html'd thanks to Jennifer Sellers and Janet Max. The document is available at ISI: ftp.isi.edu/fyi22.html or ftp.isi.edu/fyi22.txt. It is also at: http://www.isi.edu/rfc-editor The ISN web site is currently hosted at Merit. Comments and feedback are needed on what is there and what else needs to be done. Specific tasks need to be establish in goals and milestones. A date needs to be set when web site will be "official". URL is: http://campus.merit.edu/iswg Volunteers are needed for setting up and maintaining the website. Chris Rapier kindly offered his services. Additional suggestions for the web site include: -Guide to "What to avoid"/List of common pitfalls There is a need to consider "non-Internet" means of getting information to schools as not all schools have Internet access. For example, members of ISN can pass information along. Other suggestions included: connect with teacher conferences like TEL-ED either by attending or just by making contact with them; publish informational FYI's as "news releases". Joyce related that last year at Tel-Ed there was confusion which resulted in low attendance. But, from few that attended there was strong support. No one in group had contacts w/ any of the ed organizations. Sepi will find contacts w/in teacher organizations. Other questions were brought up: What about contacts w/ NEA who can then filter this information down to states & local schools?; Can this stuff - like ISN's RFCs - be found thru the popular search engines? (Doug Nicklow from Lycos says probably "yes" if the info is registered with different search engines.); How can people find the ISN site? One thought was to register a domain such as ISN.ORG but working groups usually close down. There may be general k12 sites that might be willing to incorporate this page. Jennifer Sellers may have some contacts/ information from Tel-Ed last year. Additional comments were that if we make it a great page, then users will come. We need to provide useful current, pertinent information. Goals and milestones were amended as follows: April 97: Identify host of site August 97: Formalize Initial Web content and relationship of working group w/ host organization December 97: Draft RFC/FYI Some ideas of what kind of info should be on webpage were discussed What do schools need? - how to add workstations to LAN - how to administer sites - help guide for teachers - step-by-step to getting schools on-line? Who is the audience? Teachers/admins charged with setting up connectivity. (Info needs to be in modules with links to existing documents) Broad areas in which the ISN web site might be organized into are: Technical, Types of connectivity (modem, Lan/Direct connections, etc.), AUPs, Security, Funding, Legal Issues. Suggested websites to browse were: Tech.ckp.edu and www.ckp.edu. It was brought up that the ISN web site needs to point most comprehensive groups handling these issues. Other thoughts were the ISN web page should be a dynamic site with low maintenance. A suggestion was that a reader be allowed to add links automatically but then there needs to be a reviewer to check material. It was also brought up that there is a need "meta-info" - need to know what people want to do but can't. (i.e. comment sheets/feedback section. But, who's going to be responsible for reading and responding.) Other things that can be included on the web site are: - How about hosting discussion group? (it could be a close-ended topic with a specific focus for a limited amount of time.) - How about linking to other audiences for development requests and other developers of collaborative tools? Discussion arose regarding the need for a document that continues on after a school is networked, an FAQ II: "Now what can I do?" This topic will be discussed in more depth on the list as time was getting short. Another topic was the need for information regarding setting up nets for disabled children. A reality check was made re-iterating that ISN generally does not have many teachers participating which can be a limiting factor as to what ISN can really do. The purpose of the Help Desk document was to describe possible ways to structure a school help desk. The goal/date was set to have the draft completed by Apr '97 - Chris Rapier volunteered to help Sepi. The group discussed the usefulness of having Local Internet Activities advertised by state on the ISN site. But the group thought that it would be more useful to talk about "Now that I have NetDay what do I do?? One suggestion was to put up a list of those willing to tell of their experiences and find organizations willing to sponsor portions of webpage. Going back to the document on "Common Pitfalls", Sue Lebeck & Chris Rapier volunteered to work this item. The meeting was finally adjourned at 5:30pm.