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Here is the Summary Report from the Fall Task ForceMeeting. We encourage you to forward this to other interested parties and to post it to other lists(in full or edited form).

Coalition for Networked Information - Fall 1995 Task Force Meeting

SUMMARY REPORT

INTRODUCTION

Three hundred ten people attended the Coalition for Networked Information's Fall Task Force Meeting, which was held on October 30-31, 1995 in Portland, Oregon. The theme of the meeting was "Campus / Community Networking Partnerships." In his introduction to the meeting, Paul Evan Peters, Executive Director of the Coalition for Networked Information, commented that we are now near the end of the year in which the U.S. portion of the Internet was privatized and during which commercial users and applications have garnered the majority of the media's attention. We are now at one more major point of transition. The pendulum has swung away from campus-based strategies to commercial sector strategies. The pendulum is ready to swing again, this time to campus / community networking enterprises in which higher education institutions have much less control than they had in the days of campus-based strategies but through which they exercise more influence, and experience much greater returns on their networking and networked information investments, than they do at present. The meeting focused on these partnerships as an effective middle ground between purely campus-based versus purely commercial networking and networked information strategies. It is becoming clear to many higher education institutions that although the Internet provides them with global presence and reach, it also provides them with the means to broaden and deepen their relationships with and services to their existing, predominantly local communities.

PARTNERSHIPS FOR HIGHER EDUCATION AND LOCAL COMMUNITIES

The first plenary speaker, Mario Morino, Chairman of the Morino Foundation and the Morino Institute, presented his views on the opportunities and challenges that the communications / information revolution presents to enterprises of all types. Mr. Morino, retired co-founder of LEGENT Corporation, is actively involved with projects and investments in the information technology sector. In his talk, "Partnerships for Higher Education and Local Communities in the Knowledge Age," Morino described the technological and economic landscape of the 1990s. His premise was that we are in an unstable economic time and the unimaginable can happen and will happen consistently. His phrase, "imagine the unimaginable," was endorsed and commented upon by a number of subsequent speakers.

Morino noted that while there have been enormous changes taking place in most arenas of our society, higher education has been in one of the safest places of any sector, but that is no longer the case.

Morino pointed to 1993-4 as the most significant year of change in the telecommunications revolution. He described four events that created the crux of the change: 1)Vice President Gore kicked off the concept of the National Information Infrastructure (NII), which created a significant movement worldwide; 2) the Internet reached a point where it had a critical mass of users; 3) the FUD factor - fear, uncertainty, and doubt - was reflected in the business community by major corporate mergers and deals, which did not advance technological developments but created enormous media attention; and, 4) the emergence of populist networking - the increased use of networks by citizens in their local communities.

While many writers describe the change as a telecommunications revolution, Morino feels that the essence of the movement is communication among people. He encouraged the audience to view the current environment from that perspective and warned that if we use an information model to chart our course into the future, we will sub-optimize our model. The premise of the development of networked services should be that individuals will want to find information which will lead to their doing new things which involve communication.

Morino described the triggers for this revolution as three pattern changes:

• o a shift from constrained access to information to open, immediate, access to multifaceted information;
• o a shift from the organization controlling the message to each individual in the organization having the potential to become a publisher or broadcaster; and,
• o a shift from organizational control to constituent empowerment in the political sector.

He described the transforming effects of the revolution on institutions: institutional communication truly becomes a strategic imperative; knowledge is recognized as an asset and information as the raw material of knowledge; there is a redefinition of distribution; there is a new order of competitiveness - business is ruthless in the global market; traditions are at risk and cultures are challenged; and, there is a vital need for collaboration.

Turning his attention to higher education, Morino reviewed the forces affecting higher education, including: decrease in traditional funding; greater demand for faculty in the business sector; increased competition for the education consumer dollar; pressure to reduce costs; a growing demand for advanced education for professionals that is often unmet; and, a new communication medium that is altering the education landscape. He warned the audience that the traditional higher education structure is generally not adapting to the changes in the society. However, he noted that higher education is, in fact, the sector of society that does understand this revolution, and he called this understanding our "intellectual capital."

He suggested that higher education respond to the changing environment by:

• o Reducing costs or making more money through alternative income sources;
• o Developing innovative ways to deliver education and advance research; and,
• o Increasing opportunities through partnerships.

Morino feels that while networking is global, it will still have the most impact in local communities; the physical place will remain important. Peoples, cultures, and communities are the deciding factors in the success in this revolution. The local community is a necessary partner for higher education for several reasons. One is that public utility commissions at the state, regional, and local level will define many of the rules and laws that will affect telecommunications. Also, there is a shared economic risk between the university and its local community. Morino described the opportunities for higher education in this environment: to provide leadership in guiding regions into the knowledge age by communicating to the community the advantages of the network and the problems they may encounter with it; to leverage the university's knowledge assets to advance the community's understanding of the impact of networking by using ourselves as a testbed to help us understand how the technology will change things; and to demonstrate the collaborative model made possible by the new communications medium.

Morino then described the regional collaboration that he is helping to develop, the Potomac Knowledge Way Project, dedicated to understanding and communicating the potential rewards and risks of the knowledge revolution, and inspiring the community to seize its economic opportunities. He cited the unique strengths of the Washington Metropolitan Area, in which the project is being developed: the concentration of knowledge, an indigenous network culture, and, experience with knowledge analysis. The program is developing in four areas: community awareness and education; regional collaboration; regional networking; and, an information entrepreneurship program.

In closing, Morino strongly urged the audience to act in an environment where change is no longer a debate and where participation is a necessity, not an option. He stated that we need to help prepare our higher education institutions, which are steeped in tradition, to understand the lightning speed in which this change is happening. We need to help people focus on the real issues and recognize the competitive landscape. There is no better base of knowledge to help us understand the current changes than the networking community in higher education, which has a sociological understanding of this phenomenon. Morino exhorted the audience to understand both the potential and the risks of the current environment and to recognize the importance of key skills - communication, facilitation, and collaboration. He encouraged the audience to imagine new possibilities and fulfill their potential. He said, "We will be remiss in our responsibilities if we don't help ensure that the best decisions are made for society in this area." He encouraged the audience to think boldly, to think in terms of quantum change, to embrace change, and to seize opportunities.

PORTALS: A REGIONAL INFORMATION NETWORK

The second plenary session featured a panel of key individuals who have collaborated to develop the Portland Area Library System (PORTALS). PORTALS is an organization of public and private institutions committed to working cooperatively to expand and to enrich information resources and services necessary for the scholarly activities of the Portland, Oregon metropolitan area. Member institutions include public and private colleges and universities, public libraries, and other institutions such as historical societies in the region which encompasses portions of two states. The panelists were introduced by Howard McGinn, Executive Director of PORTALS, who described his organization as unique in the U.S.

The first speaker, Joyce Chen, Commissioner of the Pacific Northwest Power Planning Council and a former Oregon State Senator, described how her interest in economic and health issues made her an advocate for the development of PORTALS. She commented that the seemingly disparate topics of regional economics and health issues are in fact tied together by the necessity of access to information in order for people to increase their productivity, make better judgments, and use their creativity. As a State Senator, she sought ways to enhance higher education resources and better serve both urban and rural regions of the state since the economic development of the region depended on the ability of local institutions to produce a better educated workforce where those people were located. She realized that they needed a high quality information system that could be used by all the institutions in the surrounding area and she supported the development of PORTALS.

Judith Ramaley, President of Portland State University and a leader in the development of a new model of the urban university, described her interest in the reform of higher education access and opportunity. She noted that Oregon is a state that never invested heavily in higher education until very recent years. In the past five years, the state economy has changed drastically so that the natural resources jobs thatwere once the mainstay of the economy have now been taken over by industrial jobs and professional services. Now the need for graduate education, research, and continuing professional education are recognized. In 1991, Portland State obtained one of the first federal grants to assist urban universities, which they developed as a collaborative model with the community. A key ingredient of their model was the development of public-private partnerships, which they operationalized through their partnerships with libraries. In an area that had no research library, they have developed an online information environment for a rapidly growing population with increasing information needs. Grants have assisted them in providing links to library catalogs and in building online access to state government documents and materials in the Oregon Historical Society. The seed money of federal grants created an incentive for local foundations and groups to support the project, and PORTALS became an attractive site for local investment.

Kristine Hudson, who had served as an Interim Director of PORTALS, represented citizen access to PORTALS. She described the strong support for the development of PORTALS by the alumni of Portland State University. She also noted that citizens are concerned withhaving access to information that will assist them in their local businesses.

McGinn closed the panel by describing future directions: a distribution system through public libraries in the state; merging the needs of the community with the delivery of information through PORTALS; and, tying elements of PORTALS into the curriculum at Portland State University.

SCALING ISSUES IN COMMUNITY NETWORKING

Ken Klingenstein, Director of Computing and Network Services, University of Colorado, Boulder, presented his views on developing networked information resources and services in a community context in the third plenary session. Klingenstein is co-principal investigator on both the Boulder Valley School District Project, a national testbed for the deployment and utilization of K-12 networking and the Boulder Community Network, an effort intended to provide a sustainable model for community networking. Klingenstein has also played an active role at the federal level, serving as a member and chair of the FederalNetworking Council Advisory Committee (FNCAC) and as a member of the board of the Federation of American Research Networks (FARNET). He is also currently serving as a member of the Steering Committee of the Coalition for Networked Information.

Klingenstein provided a cogent and thoughtful overview of the issues involved in providing a community information network and he also articulated many of the values that he feels are important for the community network to embody and preserve. He feels that the seminal role of community networks is to act as beacons in the Inter net ocean by creating some structure for users. Klingenstein described the goals of the Boulder Community Network (BCN):

• o to build a distributed information service for the community;
• o to provide target community groups with network training and access;
• o to create an online community discussion forum; and,
• o to assess the impacts of technology on the community;

His talk, "Scaling Issues in Networked Information," described the issues that BCN has grappled with, many of which are the same as those faced in university environments. Scalable approaches to access are a key issue for the community network, and BCN has found that they need more than one access option to serve the wide variety of users and institutions, e.g. senior citizen centers, households, and schools. Managing the diversity of access mechanisms is difficult and creates user support costs. A high percentage (60%) of households in their area use networks, but BCN still needs to address public access issues, and they are looking at building Web kiosks for public access.

Klingenstein reviewed the complex issues related to providing information in the community network context. Working with agencies and businesses with a wide range of expertise and ensuring that the information is up-to-date and from an authoritative source are key challenges. He noted that if the people who are providing the information are also using it themselves on the network, they will be more motivated to provide it quickly and accurately. BCN has needed to assume a role in integrating the information provided by the many community agencies in the area. BCN is also assisting with the development of state information resources and is responsible for the State of Colorado homepage. He noted that to make all this work has required a lot of distributed authority.

Organizing information provided by agencies in a variety of formats is also a difficult task. The need to structure data for integration is critical. The data needs to be provided in a form that will permit itsuse and display for a variety of purposes.

Among the issues that should be considered in the design of information for community networks are: the judicious use of graphics, ensuring that the information is designed for the screen, and designing for the trailing edge so that users don't need to have the most sophisticated equipment or network access in order to use the information resource. Klingenstein said that he feels that the greatest overall needs are for the development of a distributed information services environment, theneed for automated processing of information, the need for post- processing, and the need for a protocol that is open, extensible, and public.

In his discussion of navigation issues, Klingenstein noted that his experience showed that people want three types of integration - geographic, topical, and chronological. There is also a need for the localization of information in the global Internet environment. He feels that it is particularly important for organizers of community networks to manage the top three levels of the information space, e.g. the top three menus, since that is where most of the integration of information takes place. Other navigation issues he identified were the need for common search engines and the question of "what 'home' means" for the community WorldWideWeb user.

Many policy issues need to be addressed in the organization of community networks, including individual expression in the public forums of the network and disclaimers for the information on the network.

Klingenstein described organizational models to consider in the long-term as community networks mature. They include profit options, including cable and newspaper; public sector choices, including government and commerce; and, non-profit sector structures with the support of grants.

He described what he referred to as the "hidden agenda" of the BCN project. One of his key interests is in tying the community network to the schools, and they are developing a curriculum which involves local data and issues, for example, a module on working with a GIS system coupled with a discussion of zoning issues. In addition, they are involved in a reengineering of social processes in the community by providing new ways of access to information. By providing the local United Way "Red Book" over the network, they are providing a view and access of the local social service agencies that is different from what existed in the print environment. They are also building a physical community, which involves creating a number of cross-community teams, supporting the shared necessities, and displaying the diversity of the community in the information commons.

Klingenstein also described the Boulder Valley School District Project in which he is involved, which is attempting to:

• o build a scalable model for deployment of networking in K-12, including technology and teacher training;
• o develop a curriculum which utilizes the particular characteristics of networking to reform education; and,
• o assess the impact of the technology in education.

He noted that while the community is deeply divided about many educational issues, they have found that a common ground is the community's interest in technology in education. Significant resources have been invested in teacher training, but they have found that while teachers can learn to use the network, the real reform of education is difficult to achieve. Schools need to go beyond pedestrian uses of networking to achieve educational reform and the full benefits of the technology.

Klingenstein's projects have received support from the University of Colorado, the National Science Foundation, the TIIAP program of the U.S. Department of Commerce, and the Boulder community. He characterized the grants as catalytic to the projects, not as major sources of funding.

Klingenstein closed his presentation by encouraging the members of the audience to assist their communities to balance local, global and personal citizenry in the network environment and to ensure that the traditional guideposts of humanity are maintained since the network is ultimately such a powerful tool that we must have a human perspective and we must nurture it.

FUTURE SCHLOCK

The luncheon speaker, Milton Wolf, Professor and Director of Collection Development, University of Nevada, Reno, presented an entertaining and erudite talk "Future Schlock: How to Enjoy It!" He described how the Victorian educational system created a market of new readers and a market for new types of publications, including science fiction and fantasy. Some of those works depicted a brave new world in which knowledge and technical ability were intertwined.

Through an historical review of technology themes in literature, beginning with Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Wolf demonstrated how science fiction helped make people aware of the technological changes taking place in society and illuminated the increasing gulf in terms of understanding and attitudes towards technology between the generations.

In most science fiction and fantasy, the real concern with technology is dehumanization, the impact of the unspoken values behind the interface. Computers are transforming the human race daily. The human race is now in a binding partnership with its technology; pulling the plug would be the equivalent of social suicide. The re-wiring of humanity is taking place, with the Internet as the first mass medium for serious discourse.

Wolf stated that science fiction is the sociology of the future; it helps us foresee the consequences of present actions. Society must simulate possible alternatives and extrapolate the future. He encouraged us to recognize the value of the genre and to make mistakes in the imagination and in virtual reality. Wolf closed by reminding us that each year brings us into more intimate contact with our technological creations. We will have to explain ourselves to our robots as we do with our children, and in the process, we may get to know ourselves better.

PROJECT BRIEFINGS AND SYNERGY SESSIONS

A number of the project briefings reflected the meeting theme of campus / community networking partnerships and also included partnerships between state and public libraries and their communities. These included

• "Community Networks and a Model for Technology Transformation," by Vicki Suter and Joan Gargano, University of California, Davis;
• "Utah Library Network Project: Lessons from the Trenches," by Amy Owen, Utah State Library;
• the "Maryland SAILOR Project," by Barbara Smith, Maryland State Department of Education;
• "Academic Outreach at the University of Michigan," by Douglas Van Houweling, University of Michigan;
• "Education versus Technology: the Evolution of the Blacksburg Electronic Village," by Andrew Cohill, Virginia Polytechnic and State University;
• "Public Libraries and Public Access to the Internet," by Dan Iddings, Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh; and,
• "Lane Education Network," by J.Q. Johnson and Joanne Hugi, University of Oregon.

Several sessions focused on technical and service issues related to networked information discovery and retrieval:

• "Nordic Net Centre: Nordic Centre of Excellence for Networked Information Services," by Anders Ardo and Kerstin Dahl, Lund University (Sweden);
• "The InterNIC: Year Three and Beyond," by Tom Newell and Susan Calcari, InterNIC;
• "Networked Information Discovery and Retrieval: A Summary of the findings of CNI's NIDR Research Initiative," by Clifford Lynch, University of California, Office of the President, Avra Michelson, Mitre Corporation, Craig Summerhill, CNI, and Cecelia Preston; and,
• "Network Skills in a Networked Information World: Latest Tips and Tools," by Susan Calcari, InterNIC.

Network policies and issues at both the institutional and national level were the topic of several synergy sessions:

• "Campus-wide Information Technology Issues: A Guide for Developing Policies," by Patricia Wand, American University and William Graves, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill;
• "Legislative and Technical Measures for Screening Networked Content and Contacts," by Paul Evan Peters, CNI and David Peyton, Economic Strategy Institute;
• "The NII & Higher Education: From Vision to Reality," by Jane Caviness, formerly of the National Science Foundation, Paul Evan Peters, CNI, and Jim Williams, Federation of American Research Networks; and,
• "Update on Federal Information Projects," by James Neal, Johns Hopkins University and Joan Cheverie, Georgetown University and Visiting Program Officer, CNI.

Three sessions focused on management issues:

• "Working Together: Information Resources and Institutional Priorities," by Dennis Aebersold, Gettysburg College, Sheila Creth, University of Iowa, Gerald Bernbom, Indiana University, and Susan Jurow, Association of Research Libraries;
• "Performance Measures for the Academic Networked Environment," by Charles McClure and Cynthia Lopata, Syracuse University; and,
• "Senior University Administrators for Information Resources and Technology Services," by Arnold Hirshon, Lehigh University.

Two project briefings focused on developments in the arts and culture:

• "The Swedish History on the Net: An Education experiment," by Anders Gillner, Swedish University Network and Swedish Agency for Schools; and,
• "Arts, Letters, and Culture," by Charles Henry, Vassar College.

Other project briefings included:

• "UWired: Teaching, Learning and Technology at the University of Washington," by Betty Bengtson, Geri Bunker, Bernice Laden, Jill McKinstry, Oren Sreebny, and Anne Zald, University of Washington;
• "Enterprise-Wide Information Strategies," by Paul Evan Peters, CNI, and Avra Michelson, Mitre Corporation;
• "Archiving Digital Information," by Donald Waters, Yale University;
• "Implementing National and International ILL/DD Standards: The North American Interlibrary Loan and Document Delivery Project," by Shirley Baker, Washington University, Mary Jackson, Association of Research Libraries, and Clifford Lynch, University of California, Office of the President;
• "Cost Centers and Measures in the Networked Information Value-Chain," by Paul Evan Peters, CNI, and Mark Tesoriero and Robert Ubell, Robert Ubell Associates;
• "Steps Toward Building Network-Coordinated Academic Resource Testbeds: Discussions with Potential Digital Industry Partners," by Mary Keeler, University of Washington, Charles Henry, Vassar College, Richard Hulser, IBM Higher Education, Kate Ehrlich, Lotus Development Corporation, and Keith Purdy, Direct Image; and,
• "The IEEE/UC Project," by Clifford Lynch, University of California, Office of the President and Patricia Walker, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc.

SPRING 1996 TASK FORCE MEETING

The Coalition's Spring Task Force Meeting will be held in Washington, D.C. on March 25-6, 1996. The theme of the meeting will be "The Networked Information User."

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Many documents from the Fall 1995 Task Force Meting are available on the Coalition's Internet server. If you choose to access the materials via WWW, you can use this URL to access an HTML formatted document: URL: http://www.cni.org/tfms/1995b.fall/www/index.html

If you access the Coalition's server by gopher, point your gopher client to gopher.cni.org 70 and follow this series of menus:

• Coalition FTP Archives (ftp.cni.org)
• Coalition Task Force Meetings (/CNI/tf.meetings)
• Fall, 1995 Meeting of the Coalition Task Force

If you choose to access the materials via FTP, browse the directory /CNI/tf.meetings/1995b.fall on the host ftp.cni.org.

If you need additional information, contact:

NOTE ON REDISTRIBUTION

You are encouraged to use this Summary Report to provide information to interested individuals in your organization or institution by, in part or in full, posting it to institutional and organizational electronic distribution lists or incorporating it into relevant newsletters, reports, and the like. Publishers of periodicals and other materials that cover networks and networked information are also encouraged to use this Summary Report in similar ways.--