CURRENT_MEETING_REPORT_ Reported by Joyce K. Reynolds/Information Sciences Institute Minutes of the User Services Working Group (USWG) Reports on IETF User Services Area activities and progress of USWG projects since the Toronto IETF were presented by Joyce Reynolds. The USERDOC2 Working Group has closed down. Three new working groups have been formed: Responsible Use of the Network (RUN), Site Security Handbook (SSH) (SEC/USV Area effort), and Quality of Information Services (QUIS) (APP/USV Area and TERENA ISUS Working Group co-effort). Four FYI RFC documents have been published since the Toronto IETF: ___________________________________________________________________________ || FYI 27 |RFC 1713 |``Tools for DNS debugging'' |November 1994 || || | | | || || FYI 26 |RFC 1709 |``K-12 Internetworking Guidelines'' |November 1994 || || | | | || || FYI 25 |RFC 1689 |``A Status Report on Networked |August 1994 || || | |Information Retrieval: Tools and | || || | |Groups'' (Also, RTR 13) | || || | | | || || FYI 17 |RFC 1718 |``The Tao of IETF - A Guide for New |November 1994 || || | |Attendees of the Internet Engineering | || || | |Task Force'' | || ||________|_________|______________________________________|______________|| Reports on International Liaison Groups were presented. Network Services Conference A brief report on on EARN's Network Services Conference (NSC) held in London, England, 28-30 November 1994 was discussed. NSC plenaries included World Wide Web, Publishing on the Net, and School Networking. RARE + EARN = TERENA Joyce announced the recent merger between RARE (Reseaux Associes pour la Recherche Europeenne) and EARN (European Academic Research Network). The new organization is called TERENA (Trans-European Research and Academic Networking Association). The two RARE and EARN staffs will be merged into one staff centrally located in Amsterdam. Assets of RARE and EARN will migrate to TERENA. TERENA's ``governing body'' is called the ``General Assembly.'' It is made up of representatives of the members of TERENA. The new president of TERENA is Frode Greisen (DK). The TERENA ISUS meetings were held in at the end of the NSC conference in London. At this meeting, EARNINFO ``officially'' merged with RARE ISUS and these groups now operate as the TERENA ISUS Working Group. Jill Foster gave an overview, status update, and implications for the TERENA ISUS Working Group report regarding the RARE-EARN merger. The current, new and proposed task forces within the ISUS Working Group were discussed. Two new task forces in the ISUS Working Group include TIP (Tools for Information Providers) and QUIS (Quality of Information Services). As a result of the RARE/EARN merger, the new TERENA Technical Committee will be going over the role of each of the working groups. Jill and Joyce both voiced that the IETF USV Area and the TERENA ISUS Working Group will continue to liase as they have in the past. USV-TV There has not been much accomplished on this subjuct since Toronto. The major concern when contacting sites from the technical community is the stress on the already overloaded bandwidth. The ``surges'' of users coming on to the MBone was particularly a concern. Joyce is continuing to discuss with experts what we can do with USV-TV. Also, Mark Prior and Jill, co-chairs of the TRAINMAT Working Group, are exploring ideas on how to broadcast training over the net. HTMLing FYI RFCs Progress has been made in the HTMLing of the FYI RFC series of notes. Janet L. Marcisak is almost finished with her endeavors at FTP Software. April Marine and Carol Ward are working on some HTMLing of FYI RFCs at NASA. Glee Cady of NetCom voiced that her site could contribute, also. Establishing a central site to house these FYI RFC HTMLs is being worked on by Joyce. There was a brief discussion about FYI RFC translations from English into other languages. Joyce stated that for some time now, many countries have been translating FYI RFCs into their native language. She also mentioned that the RFC Editor is keen to have folks contribute their translations to the RFC repositories. If interested parties submit their FYI RFC translations to the rfc-editor@isi.edu, the RFC Editor can announce their availability to the RFC repositories and the community. USV-WEB Susan Calcari presented an update and discussion on the USV-WEB that she and the InterNIC are assisting the USWG with. Folks who volunteered at the Toronto IETF to continue the USV-WEB work with Susan, April, and Joyce include: Sally Hambridge, Barbara Jennings, Suzanne Smith, Terry Kuny, David Sitman, and Jodi Chu. There was not much progress to report from the committee. However, Susan reported on where items currently stand: 1. The address for the page is: http://www.internic.net/usv-web. 2. The page has been improved since Toronto to be a series of links, the first to the brief ``About the IETF US Area,'' with a return arrow back to the USV-Web home page. Then all the working groups are listed, with a link to the CNRI page for that working group. There is also a link to the chart of working groups, chairs, and lists. 3. Items suggested in Toronto which have been completed are: o Menus instead of long text entry on the home page. o Updated look and feel -- similar to InfoGuide homepage, with colored markers and return arrows. o Links to CNRI pages for each working group -- the CNRI pages had been completed immediately before the Toronto IETF. 4. Items we discussed in Toronto in addition to the basic improvements we have already made here, are: o Add a `welcome' page or link, which tells folks more about how the work of the IETF User Services Working Groups affect them, and why they might want to participate. o Add a few nice graphics. o Possibly add photos and/or an audio message from Joyce. Discussion with USWGers on the USV-WEB effort included a suggestion that the USV-WEB home page should be made up of menus, instead of long text. Jill suggested that USV-WEB pages should have a page of each working group in the USV area. This is what is being done with the TERENA ISUS Web efforts. Susan mentioned the work that the InterNIC has been doing on their Starter Kit which is currently called Briefcase. This topic was discussed further in the NISI Working Group. (Susan's slide presentation in both the USWG and NISI sessions are included in these proceedings for further information.) UserDoc2 Working Group Documents - Unfinished Business Lenore Jackson led a discussion on what to do with the bibliography the UserDoc2 Working Group did not complete. General consensus of the USWG is that there is no need to keep working on an updated FYI RFC bibliography when there are so many high quality bibliographies now available on-line for the community. A suggestion was taken that a small document could be produced replacing the outdated FYI RFC. This will be an annotated replacement, with pointers to the best bibliographic documentation for users to consult. Joyce will work on this document.