American Mathematical Society/Mathematical Reviews
A Hands-On session was held in University College, at the University of Maryland, in College Park. Participants were bused to and from the facility. Buses left the hotel at approximately 8:30 a.m. on Sunday, December 6, and returned at approximately 5:30 p.m. The purpose of the session was to introduce popular tools in use by Internet sites and then to use them to explore some representative applications. The goal was to lower the barrier to experimentation and to encourage participants to share experiences, successes, and frustrations.
Drew Burton welcomed participants and gave an overview of upcoming events. He emphasized the organization of the tools and resources, and e-mail as the lowest common denominator application. A show of hands disclosed that the group was approximately 70% MSDOS users, 20% Macintosh users, and 10% terminals. A sprinkling of people used X-Window devices. The vast majority, perhaps 80%, used e-mail. Fewer, but a majority, were familiar with telnet, ftp, and Listserv. There was enthusiasm for GOPHER and interest in WAIS. There was eagerness to learn more about existing Internet Resources.
David Rodgers described the various means for getting connected to the Internet: (1) guest accounts and (2) service providers. He called attention to a file called /netinfo/internet-access-provides-us.txt, containing information about service providers that is available by anonymous FTP from ftp.nisc.sri.com using the login "anonymous" and your e-mail address as the password. He identified e-mail, telnet, and FTP as building blocks and Listserv, WAIS, GOPHER and WIDE WORLD WEB as specialized applications. The availability of starter grants from the National Science Foundation was mentioned.
E-Mail, telnet, and FTP were briefly described. The role of TCP/IP as a protocol suite that defines standard mechanisms for network transport was also described. The notion of virtual connection between TCP/IP hosts as the basis for telnet (interactive computing) and FTP (file transfer) was explained. The requirement for remote login privilege and the role of "anonymous" accounts were described. The existence of differences in capabilities among different implementations, for different operating system platforms, was noted.
Listserv, GOPHER, and WAIS were presented as different models for electronic distribution. LISTSERV is subscriber-based. GOPHER and WAIS are demand-based; GOPHER is best suited to browsing while WAIS is intended for indexed searching. The benefits of Z39.50 as a standard way to encode queries and retrieve results, and to facilitate cross-searching databases, were stressed. The model that uses an FTP tree, GOPHER, WAIS, and LISTSERV as an integrated set of tools for electronic publishing applications was recommended.
David Sewell characterized the differences between synchronous and asynchronous communication with traditional technologies, using the one-to-one, one-to-many, and many-to-many models. He described "traditional" e-network publishing by mode of distribution, one copy to each reader as in journal subscription and book sales, one copy to a site as in library purchases, and one copy on archive as in special collections. These models were then extended to computer network technologies, using Listserv, USENET NEWS, and anonymous FTP as example applications.
Then, Internet resources by amount of text/data sent or retrieved were described, as whole files/documents or selected information as well as by informational purpose: general conversation, published material, people, text, data, software. At this point, the group headed to the University College computing laboratories to explore a graded set of exercises that relied on telnet and FTP to navigate selected Internet resources. A special room was designated for those who wanted some experience using Listserv. There were deliberately more exercises than could be completed in the allotted time. The Internet Hunt exercises for November and December were also made available. The lab setups gave people a choice and a representative set of applications and encouraged them to try some additional exercises from their home site.
Many people found the hands-on session frustrating. Load balancing the facilities, working on unfamiliar equipment, with unfamiliar procedures, and normal start-up proved to be barriers for some. People who had some experience overcame the barriers; those who did not felt their impact directly. One trainer per ten workstations was not optimum for the half of the group that was inexperienced with the tools.
At lunch, there was lots of talk about the frustrations associated with computer networks. [One irony was that a MAJORITY of participants said the University College facilities were superior to what they had access to on their home site!]
Leading off in the afternoon, John Price-Wilkin addressed GOPHER. He began by describing the client-server model and the role of protocols (rules used to process transactions). GOPHER was described as a browsing tool as well as in terms of classes of transactions it supports: display of text files, display of directory trees in menu form, telnet and ftp, indexed searches using selected engines (e.g., WAIS, CSO) and retrieval operations (e.g., WHOIS, FINGER, NEWS). The advantages of GOPHER, ease of learning and use, simple installation, identical user interface, popularity, wide accessibility, and variety of clients were discussed. The disadvantages: its lack of scalability, locally developed protocol, awkwardness for highly volatile applications, susceptibility to rat's nest organization, non-secure environment, and uncertain future were identified.
Next, Drew Burton provided a symmetrical description of WAIS. He differentiated WAIS as a client-server tool for indexed searches and characterized its reliance on an international standard protocol, Z39.50. WAIS and GOPHER share similar advantages. Disadvantages include: a suspect search engine for large databases, lack of boolean search capability, lack of field searching, clients offering widely differing capabilities, lack of a clean application program interface, and an uncertain future. [Since the Symposium, there have been announcements from the WAIS community that indicate that a number of these disadvantages will be addressed.]
At this point, it was back to the University College computer facilities for graded exercises that relied on GOPHER and WAIS. Again, more exercises were provided than could be completed in the allotted time, for the same reasons given for the morning session. The afternoon hands-on session was considerably more successful than the morning session. The success in part was because people were returning to a more familiar environment, and part because GOPHER and WAIS are easier to learn and use.
The following people served in the roles of trainer, assisting participants with the laboratory exercises:
Tim Arnold
North Carolina State University
John Black
University of Guelph
Drew Burton
American Mathematical Society
Daphne Fallieros-Potter
American Mathematical Society
Michael Jensen
University of Nebraska
Kevin Curnow
American Mathematical Society
John Price-Wilkin
University of Virginia
David Rodgers
American Mathematical Society
David Seaman
University of Virginia
David Sewell
University of Arizona/Rochester
Drew Burton retrieved copies of handouts from network archives which were available to all Symposium participants. Drew Burton, John Price-Wilkin, David Sewell, Kevin Curnow, and David Rodgers collaborated on selecting the graded exercises.
The closing paper of the hands-on day was given by John Black, Chief Librarian at the University of the Guelph, a political scientist, and a comunications consultant. Black presented the architecture of the Internet, describing it as a network of networks. He discussed the relationships among various pieces of it and described some of his experiences with the "last-mile" problem, along with the critical economic and technical barriers that prevent people and communities from establishing connectivity to electronic networks.
University College at the University of Maryland, College Park, has four computer laboratories, in close proximity, configured for instructional activity. Approximately 80 workstations were available, each a PS/2 attached by an ethernet card to a local network. The local network was gatewayed to to the University of Maryland backbone with a 56 KB connection. The workstations had telnet capability as well as GOPHER and WAIS clients. Response was not optimal; nonetheless it was very good given the 80+ individuals logged on at the same time.