CURRENT_MEETING_REPORT_ Reported by Kevin Gamiel/MCNC - CNIDR and Janet Marcisak/FTP Software Minutes of the Networked Information Retrieval Working Group (NIR) Agenda and Minutes The agenda of the meeting and the minutes of the last meeting were approved. Reports on CNIDR and RARE-related Activities o Clearinghouse for Networked Information Discovery and Retrieval Kevin Gamiel reported that CNIDR is continuing its role of promoting the use and development of NIDR standards by working on such projects as the Global Schoolhouse, Z39.50 client, server and gateway software. o RARE The European Commission is currently in the process of defining a work program for the 12BXEU (approximately 12 billion US dollars) IVth Framework initiative. One of the programs within the IVth Framework comprises around 50MXEU in the area of Telematics for Research. RARE and its various working groups intend to develop and submit a large coordinated bid under this. A key point of the program is the transition from text-based to multi-media-based communication and information services. The RARE MMEP group, a task force of the Interactive Multi-Media Working Group (WG-IMM) and Information Services and User Support Working Group (WG-ISUS), has already generated ideas for possible proposals, including: - Multi-media chemistry - Networked CAD/CAM - Dental training - Multi-media conferencing for language teaching - A network interactive learning resource for environmental design - Live interactive teaching of surgery between remote centers - Telepublishing Internet-Draft: Status Report on NIR Tools and Groups Jill reported that the NIR report had been independently reviewed by volunteers from around the world. The volunteers took two or three of the templates each, contacted each template owner and updated the template. They also checked for bad software and document links referenced throughout the document. The group agreed to the changes and the over 200 page report has been forwarded to the area director for submission as an RFC. Update Schedule for Report and Parts of Report CNIDR had offered at the last meeting to maintain the document on-line. Jane Smith said that CNIDR would undertake this on a best-effort basis. The InterNIC also agreed to maintain the document at their sites for public access. Updates for individual templates should be sent to nir-updates@cnidr.org. Availability of the Report in Various Formats The intention has always been to move to having this document on-line in HTML. There had been offers from around the world (including early offers from CNIDR and the InterNIC) to mark up the document in HTML. It obviously makes sense now to wait for the final RFC version before doing this. ``April's Checklist'' on Various NIR Tools April Marine reported on her continuing NIR checklist work. She said that the problem in creating such a checklist lies in the cross-platform nature of the up-and-coming tools and the difficulty in maintaining such a checklist. Also, April felt that any benefits the checklist would have offered above and beyond those of the NIR report could not justify the expense of creating the checklist. The group decided not to pursue work on the checklist based on these reasons. It was noted that the matrix of NIR tools and platforms had initially been rather sparse (this was the original reason for wanting the checklist) but was now pretty complete. What Next Jill queried the group for input on what should be the future of NIR. She felt that, having met its chartered goals, the group should conclude; the working group agreed. Quality Issues The remainder of the NIR meeting was devoted to part of a Quality BOF chaired by Mitra. (The other part was held during the IIIR Working Group meeting.) Quality issues in providing information services were discussed, including: o ``Pointers to nowhere'' o Access fails (server moved or denied access) o Lack of administrator information o Incomplete or lossy gateways o Inefficient gateways o Loss of context information (veronica/archie) o Poor titles o Misleading information (file extensions not standard types) o Expired information The problem is that there are no formal procedures in place to deal with any of these problems. Mitra said that the brainstorming document and two documents from last time can be obtained from ftp.path.net:/pub/ietf/Quality. There was some discussion as to whether NIR should continue in order to discuss quality issues. It was agreed that this was not appropriate. We should spawn a new group to keep all the issues together and to keep the motivation. Alternatively, another BOF could be held next time to define the range of issues and possible need for several sub-groups. This was a free ranging brainstorming session and no attempt is made to capture that here. Mitra will be putting together a document based on these discussions. Further discussion will take place on the ``quality'' mailing list, quality@sunsite.unc.edu. To join, send mail to listserv@sunsite.unc.edu. Attendees Farhad Anklesaria fxa@boombox.micro.umn.edu Alexis Bor bora@ct.si.cs.boeing.com Sepideh Boroumand sepideh@jacks.gsfc.nasa.gov Mic Bowman Gregg Brekke gbrekke@mr.net Jodi-Ann Chu jodi@uhunix.uhcc.hawaii.edu Bruce Davie bsd@bellcore.com Michael Elkins elkins@areo.org Michael Erlinger mike@jarthur.claremont.edu Richard Everman reverman@ka.reg.uci.edu Jill Foster Jill.Foster@newcastle.ac.uk Lois Frampton frampton@mitre.org Kevin Gamiel kgamiel@cnidr.org Arlene Getchell getchell@es.net Shawn Gillam shawn@timonware.com Anders Gillner awg@sunet.se Judith Grass grass@cnri.reston.va.us Sally Hambridge sallyh@ludwig.intel.com Deborah Hamilton debbieh@internic.net Art Harkin ash@cup.hp.com Alisa Hata hata@cac.washington.edu Roland Hedberg Roland.Hedberg@umdac.umu.se Jeff Hodges hodges@jessica.stanford.edu Richard Huber rvh@ds.internic.net Barbara Jennings bjjenni@sandia.gov Brewster Kahle Brewster@wais.com Padma Krishnaswamy kri@cc.bellcore.com John Kunze jak@violet.berkeley.edu Walter Lazear lazear@gateway.mitre.org Janet L. Marcisak jlm@ftp.com April Marine april@atlas.arc.nasa.gov Marilyn Martin martin@netcom.ubc.ca Ken Masica masic@es.net Mark McCahill mpm@boombox.micro.umn.edu Michael McLay mclay@eeel.nist.gov Mitra mitra@pandora.sf.ca.us Mark Needleman mhn@stubbs.ucop.edu Clifford Neuman bcn@isi.edu Pete Percival percival@indiana.edu Marsha Perrott perrott@prep.net George Phillips phillips@cs.ubc.ca Thomas Powell sestrada@aldea.com Joyce K. Reynolds jkrey@isi.edu Deb Rodgers deb@cac.washington.edu Steven Russert srussert@atc.boeing.com Jane Smith Jane.Smith@cnidr.org Patricia Smith psmith@merit.edu Milan Sova sova@feld.cvut.cz David Staudt dstaudt@nsf.gov Phil Trubey ptrubey@netcom.com Chris Weider clw@bunyip.com Linda Winkler lwinkler@anl.gov