From beadle@cc.uow.edu.au (Henry (Peter) Beadle)
Subject: MCAT'93 Multimedia Communications Applications and Technology Workshop
Message-ID: <1992Dec1.054215.21594@cc.uow.edu.au>
Summary: Advance Notice and First Call for Papers
Keywords: multimedia hypermedia communications broadband video applications
Organization: University Of Wollongong
Date: Tue, 1 Dec 92 05:42:15 GMT
Lines: 118


MCAT'93

ADVANCE NOTICE & FIRST CALL FOR PAPERS

3rd Australian Multi-Media Communications, 
Applications and Technology Workshop

14th-15th July 1993
University of Wollongong,
Wollongong, New South Wales
AUSTRALIA

Following the success of the first two Australian Multi-Media
Communications, Applications and Technology Workshops, we are pleased
to announce the Third Workshop will be held at the University of
Wollongong on Wednesday, 14th and

Thursday, 15th July 1993.  The Workshop will coincide with the
Australian Broadband Switching and Services Symposium (ABSSS) 1993 to
be held at the University from Monday, 12th to Wednesday,
14th of July 1993.

The two-day Workshop will enable researchers, users, manufacturers and
others with interest in multi-media to meet and exchange information,
discuss applications, and take stock of the latest research and
development in this fast-growing and exciting field. The program is
expected to be complemented by demonstrations of latest equipment from
manufacturers and other organisations.

Papers are invited for presentation in the Workshop in the following
areas:

        -       applications of multi-media systems
        -       multi-media communications on existing and future networks
        -       human factors in multi-media interactions
        -       multi-media software developments and utilities
        -       multi-media hardware
        -       standards related to multi-media                        
        -       miscellaneous topics in multi-media technology

Papers will be refereed from extended abstracts.  Authors whose papers
are accepted will be expected to present them in person. The proposed
schedule is as follows:

12th April 1993         Extended abstracts (500 words) giving results 
                        and conclusions         
 1st   May 1993         Notification of acceptance
 1st  June 1993         Completed Papers Received

A fee of $200 will be charged to cover Workshop Proceedings, morning
and afternoon teas, lunches and organisational expenses.  For those
registering for both MCAT'93 and ABSSS'93, a special combined rate of
$350 will apply.  Discounts will be available for early registration.
A combined ABSSS/MCAT Conference Dinner is being organised.

Demonstrations of equipment or research prototypes are invited and
exhibitors are asked to contact the Workshop Chairman  as soon as
possible for reservation of floor space.  AARNet (Internet) access will be
available.

For further information, to have your name added to mailing lists, or
to submit an extended abstract please contact:

        Dr H.W. Peter Beadle, 
        MCAT'93 Chairman,
        Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
        University of Wollongong, 
        Northfields Avenue,
        Wollongong.  N.S.W.  2522.
        AUSTRALIA

        Tel:    +61-42-21-3412
        Fax:    +61-42-21-3236 or +61-42-21-3408
        E-mail: beadle@uow.ed.au

This Workshop may be eligible to be included in a Structured Training
Program under recent legislation for The Australian Government Training
Guarantee.


When responding please copy, complete and return the following form (by
post, fax or e-mail).

Responses are required by 1st February 1993.

______________________________________________________
MCAT'93 PRELIMINARY REGISTRATION

NAME:   
ORGANISATION:   
ADDRESS:        
Tel:            
Fax:            
E-mail: 

(Please place a X in the appropriate boxes bleow)

Prefered communication method: 
        [  ] Post, 
        [  ] FAX, 
        [  ] E-mail.

[  ]    Include me on the mailing list to receive further information 
[  ]    I expect to attend the dinner on July 13, 1993.
[  ]    I expect to present a paper.

                Tentative Title:


______________________________________________________


-- 
Peter Beadle
Electrical and Computer Engineering
The University of Wollongong
Northfields Avenue


From david@ruc.dk (David Stodolsky)
Newsgroups: comp.groupware
Subject: Invitational Journals based upon Editorial Consensus
Summary: New procedure for network publishing of scientific work.
Keywords: Editorial Role in Electronic Journal Publication
Message-ID: <1992Dec1.214716.17979@ruc.dk>
Date: 1 Dec 92 21:47:16 GMT
Organization: Roskilde Universitetscenter, Danmark
Lines: 139


This article will appear shortly in sci.psychology.digest,
but you see it first in comp.groupware ;-)

===========================================


Invitational Journals based upon Editorial Consensus:
A New Editorial Role in Electronic Journal Publication

David Stodolsky
Dept. of Computer Science, Bldg. 20.1
Roskilde University
DK-4000 Roskilde, Denmark
david@ruc.dk (or david@mcsun.eu.net)
(+45) 31 95 92 82

Objectivity has long been an ideal in scientific communication, and the
basis for accreditation claims by authors of journal articles. However,
evaluation of articles for publication proceeds on a mostly subjective
basis. This has particularly been true with invitational journals, where
an unassisted editorial judgement may determine publication. A
"consensus journal" has been proposed, that uses a rigorous measurement
model based upon multi-dimensional peer judgements for generation of
invitations. This model assumes an infrastructure not currently
available. However, an invitational system, based upon similarity
judgements, could also yield objective performance measurements. This
system can be seen as transitional between currently existing editorial
mechanisms and those of a consensus journal.

0.0  Keywords: invitational journal, editorial role, electronic
publication,
accreditation, measurement, peer review, consensus


1.1  A major challenge in the transition from paper to electronic
journals is effective use of judgmental resources. Intensity of
evaluation is much greater with electronic journals. Each article can be
reviewed by dozens or even hundreds of persons before it is seen by an
average reader. The typical process of review by two or three referees
prior to publication, common with paper journals, is inappropriate in
the computer-network environment.

1.2  Stodolsky (1990) presented a role free model for invitational
journals based upon peer consensus. This model is limited in assuming
preexisting dimensions for evaluative judgments and the availability of
a robust statistical procedure for calculating consensus positions among
reviewers. The objective of issuing invitations to the most
knowledgeable proponents of different consensus positions can also be
achieved through creation of an editorial role. This may require a
redefinition of what is meant by a "consensus" position and a "most
knowledgeable" proponent. It is not clear that the same performance can
be achieved with this new model. However, the new model can be used to
build the set of preexisting dimensions needed for operation of the
"fully automatic" invitational journal. The approach discussed here is
"manual", because editorial intervention is required before invitations
can be issued. However, as with the earlier model, statistical measures
of performance are available. We can call this new model an
"invitational journal based upon editorial consensus".

1.3  For the purpose of this discussion, we assume that articles persist
in a database until they are withdrawn. Editorial expertise is measured
by analyzing, in the first instance, the agreement of editors in issuing
of invitations. The final criteria are what articles are actually
submitted, whether any are determined to be redundant, and how long
articles persist before they are withdrawn.

1.4  After reading a published article, potential authors submit short
(e.g., single paragraph) reactions to the target article. Theses
reactions are treated as proposals for new articles and directed to a
jury of editors (This could be done by a set of corresponding editors if
more then one jury was available). The editors then independently select
a subset of the proposals, thought to be mutually exclusive and
representing the most competent opinion. The judgment of mutual
exclusivity can be performed by sorting of proposals into groups. Within
each group, the potential authors would be addressing the same question.
Between groups there would be a significant difference in what question
was being treated (or how it was to be treated). Discrepancy among
groupings by editors would require a "consensus" set of groupings to be
calculated. Editors' performance could be calculated from their
judgements using rater reliability statistics. Later articles and
responses to them would be the final criterion as to whether two
articles were, in the final analysis, distinctive (addressing different
questions or the same question in a different way).

1.5  When two or more proposals were sorted into the same group, an
author would be selected on the basis of expertise. In the simplest
case, the editorial choice could also include a judgement of author
expertise, based upon the proposal submitted. A more objective mechanism
would base choice on previous demonstrated performance. For instance, an
author might be issued a credential for each week a submitted article
was maintained in the database. Then, in the case of non-exclusive
proposals, the author with the largest number of credentials (in that
subject area) would automatically be issued an invitation. A further
consideration could be the past performance of the author in responding
to invitations. For example, an author who failed to respond to
invitations 10% of the time might loose future invitations one of ten
times to less competent peers.

1.6  Similar objective mechanisms could be applied to editorial
responses, allowing editors' judgments to be weighted according to
previous performance. A system of credentials and selection mechanisms
could also be developed, as suggested above for authors. The final
criterion for editorial performance could be the number of article-weeks
generated by invitations.

1.7  Given a history of operation for the journal structure described,
the groupings made by editors could be used as a basis for generation of
dimensions for evaluative judgments. A reliable set of such dimensions
would permit more efficient sorting of proposals within the framework of
an invitational journal based upon editorial consensus, and also permit
the testing of the more powerful invitational structure based upon peer
consensus.

1.8  Thus, the invitational journal based upon editorial consensus can
be viewed as a stepping stone between current invitational journals such
as the Sci.psychology.digest and the more advanced invitational
structures proposed by Stodolsky (1990). The transition from current
practice requires employment of more people in the editorial process.
However, it also permits greater automation in the administration of a
journal. A very important benefit is the quantitative measurement of
editorial performance, that could be used to support claims of journal
quality.


2.0 Reference

2.1  Stodolsky, D. S. (1990). Consensus Journals: Invitational journals
based upon peer consensus. _Datalogiske Skrifter_ (Writings on Computer
Science). No. 29 / 1990. Roskilde University Centre, Institute of
Geography, Socioeconomic Analysis, and Computer Science. (ISSN
0109-9779-29) ([1990, Nov.19]. _Psycoloquy_, 1[15]. [Available by
anonymous ftp from PRINCETON.EDU in directory /pub/harnad at Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University, Dept. of Psychology.])
-- 
David S. Stodolsky                            Tel: + 45 31 95 92 82
Department of Computer Science                Fax: + 45 46 75 42 01
Bldg. 20.1, Roskilde University              Internet: david@ruc.dk
Post Box 260, DK-4000 Roskilde, Denmark      or: david@mcsun.EU.net


From david@ruc.dk (David Stodolsky)
Newsgroups: comp.groupware,news.answers
Subject: Introduction to comp.groupware (Periodic informational Posting)
Summary: Guidelines for posting to the Usenet newsgroup comp.groupware.
Keywords: CSCW, orgware, group, interactive, shared, environments
Message-ID: <groupware-intro_723276131@athena.mit.edu>
Date: 2 Dec 92 06:02:22 GMT
Expires: 30 Dec 1992 06:02:11 GMT
Followup-To: comp.groupware
Organization: Roskilde University
Lines: 321
Approved: news-answers-request@MIT.Edu
Supersedes: <groupware-intro_722066417@athena.mit.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: pit-manager.mit.edu
X-Last-Updated: 1992/10/06

Archive-name: groupware-intro
Last-modified: 1992/10/6
Version: 1.2

Please read carefully:
Any article posted to comp.groupware uses a minimum of ten hours of
readers' time. Do not post test messages to comp.groupware (see section
5 below). 

This article is posted automatically every 14 days to introduce the
group to the more than one thousand new readers that have subscribed
during that period. 

---------------- Contents (and revision information) ------------

Sections in this article (Revised in last modification)

0. Groupware is software and hardware for shared interactive
environments. (Revised ordering of paragraphs)
1. Set your distribution to "world".
2. Sign your article.
3. Comp.groupware is being archived. (Revised)
4. If you are posting copyrighted work...
5. Authors should refer to "Guidelines for posting on Usenet"...
(Revised)
6. When you reply to a message, do not change the subject line...
7. Comp.groupware is read by over 47,000 people.

------------ End of Contents (and revision information) ----------


0. Groupware is software and hardware for shared interactive
environments.

The term "environment" includes software and hardware that sets the
context for interaction. Hardware can include specially designed
furnishings and architectural spaces that are considered integral to
correct utilization of a given software application. A groupware
application may require a specific organizational environment to
function as expected. More powerful applications can adapt to, or
overcome limitations of, their environments.

The term "interactive" is used to indicate that time constraints are
managed by the system. Many groupware applications appear to support
real-time interaction. Others merely enforce deadlines that can span
weeks. In either case, the technical limitations on the pace of
interaction are made (to appear) negligible in terms of the objectives
of the application. Systems that exclude reference to real time are not
groupware applications.

The term "shared" indicates that two or more participants interact with
one another in such a manner that each person influences and is
influenced by each other person. No upper limit in the number of
participants is indicated, because mediated groups, as opposed to
natural ones, can maintain joint awareness with very large numbers of
persons. (Joint awareness is one way that "group" is defined.) An
objective of some groupware applications is to increase the number of
persons that can interact "as a group".

Some definitions of groupware include the notion of a common goal. While
all systems require some agreement among participants (at minimum that
they should be jointly used), interactions can be predominately
conflictual. Management of conflict is often a crucial feature of a
groupware system. Vote collecting systems are an example.

Definitions:

Group - Two or more persons who are interacting
with one another in such a manner that each person
influences and is influenced by each other person
(Shaw, M. E. _Group dynamics: The psychology of
small group behaviour_. 1976, p. 11).

Ware - 1 a) manufactured articles, products of art
or craft.... b) an article of merchandise.... 3) an
intangible item (as a service) that is a marketable
commodity. (_Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary_,
1976, p. 1319).


1. Set your distribution to "world". Comp.groupware is delivered to all
continents. Do not limit your chances for feedback by restricting
distribution. Restricted distribution can cause confusion when people
read responses to articles they have not seen. If you notice an article
has a restricted distribution, inform the poster by mail.

If you are restricted from posting to "world" by your administrator,
request a change in your privileges, at least for this newsgroup. If
refused, determine what your rights are in terms of appeal, based upon
information available at your site. An alternative is to use the Net to
find information and persons to contact concerning your rights. 
Try the newsgroups:

comp.org.eff.news
comp.org.eff.talk
misc.legal.computing
alt.society.civil-liberty
alt.comp.acad-freedom.news
alt.society.cu-digest

A frequently asked questions file can be retrieved by sending email to:
archive-server@eff.org, 
include the line "send caf-faq netnews.writing".
Information about the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) can be
requested from eff@eff.org. You can also retrieve information about EFF
and its projects via anonymous FTP from ftp.eff.org.

As a final resort, send a summary of your case to:

Carl Kadie (kadie@eff.org)
Electronic Frontier Foundation
155 Second Street
Cambridge, MA 02141, USA
Tel.: +1 (617) 864-0665
Fax: +1 (617) 864-0866.

If you can send email off-site, you can post using a Usenet-news mail
server. Email to "comp-groupware@ucbvax.berkeley.edu" is posted with the
subject line of your letter becoming the subject line of the article.
(Note: "." in the newsgroup name is written as "-".) This allows you to
post to a newsgroup even if you have read-only access to Network News.


2. Sign your article. Each name should have one and only one user. If
the article is a joint product, indicate this at the beginning and end
of the article. Some news reading programs allow certain names to be to
be automatically selected. Help the reader by using the same name at all
times. This will improve the chances that people will read your
articles.

The signature should include complete name, address, and telephone
number (this allows quick verification in case forgery is suspected).
E-mail addresses ought to be included in the signature in case headers
get munged. Another nice feature is geographical coordinates, so the
time zone can be determined (useful in telephoning). The signature
should be limited to four lines as is suggested practice on Usenet.


3. Comp.groupware is being archived. Selected discussions will be
reprinted in the _Writings on Computer Science_ (_Datalogiske Skrifter_)
working paper series available from the Institute of Geography,
Socio-economic Analysis, and Computer Science, Roskilde University, Post
Box 260, DK-4000 Roskilde, Denmark (ISSN 0109-9779-xx). Material
appearing in the series can be published elsewhere.

Authors will not be contacted individually before publication, but the
draft will be posted to comp.groupware for comment and correction before
being sent to the printer. All articles will be reproduced exactly as
posted (headers may be included, and parts (e.g., data sets) may be
moved to appendices and other changes making the articles more suitable
for printing may be made).

tvv@ncsc.org (Terry Myerson) began archiving comp.groupware 92.10.6.
The archive is available by anonymous ftp from: 
avs.ncsc.org ( 128.109.178.23 )

in the directory:
~ftp/newsgroups/comp.groupware

The archives are in mail folders named MONTH_YEAR.
For example, to peruse all of the postings in the month of
October, you could download the archive Oct_92, and execute

%       Mail -f Oct_92

Articles from comp.groupware are also available by anonymous FTP from: 
gorm.ruc.dk

in the directory:
~groupware/art/comp/groupware/

Login as "anonymous" and give your user name as your password.
Those without FTP access should send e-mail to:
mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu

with "send usenet/news.answers/finding-sources" in the body to find out
how to do FTP by e-mail.


4. If you are posting copyrighted work, indicate at the beginning of the
article whether permission has been obtained. If you do not want an
article reproduced, indicate this (e.g., Copyright - Net distribution
only).


5. Authors should refer to "Guidelines for posting on Usenet" in the
newsgroup "news.announce.newusers" to make sure they know to spell check
their articles, etc. "Answers to Frequently Asked Questions",
"Introduction to news.announce", "Hints on writing style for Usenet"
available in the same newsgroup also contain information for new users.

Do not post test messages to comp.groupware. There are special groups
for testing. And tests should be as limited in their distribution as
possible. This is basic information from "Guidelines for posting on
Usenet". Posting of test messages inappropriately is considered abusive
and will cause a loss of readership for your articles.

Always use your Subject line to state the *topic* of your article as
completely as possible (e.g., "Macintosh II voice-mail based real-time
meeting software ready.", rather than "Meeting software"). Summary lines
should indicate *what* your message says about the topic (e.g., "New
meeting coordination software available via anonymous FTP"). Statements
should always end with periods, questions with question marks
(typically), and high energy, high impact declarations with exclamation
points. These rules makes articles much easier for recipients to handle
appropriately. 

If you ask a question, your subject line should include "question",
"query", "(Q)" or should end with a "?". Questions should clearly
explain your problem and surrounding issues. Otherwise, you will simply
waste the time of those who want to help you. Tell people the kind of
work you are doing or contemplating doing. This helps them provide the
information you need. Indicate what efforts, if any, you have made thus
far, and what information was found.

Subject, Summary, and Keyword headers are scanned by many news reading
programs, thus permitting readers to find your article easily. You will
have your articles read more often if you select these carefully.


6. When you reply to a message, do not change the subject line or
redirect follow-ups (unless you are changing the subject).  Such changes
make it harder for some news readers to follow the threads in a
discussion. Include a "Summary" line which indicates specifically what
your message says. This permits your article to be found even if it is a
follow-up to an article with poorly chosen subject and keyword
information.

Please, do not post responses to articles you feel are inappropriate or
abusive. (If you can not resist, consider alt.flame as an alternative
newsgroup for your article [it has greater readership than
comp.groupware]). If the author is not saying anything worth reading,
enter the name in your "kill" file, and then no more of your time will
be wasted by that person. If you feel that the author is saying
something worth reading, but in an inappropriate way, respond by mail.
Tell the author what you think is incorrect about the article. If
possible, suggest how to accomplish the objective in an appropriate way
(e. g., post to another newsgroup). If you have responded to a person by
mail a few times without the desired effect, and you feel that the group
as a whole could benefit by a solution to the problem, only then should
you post an article.  The nature of your article should be a suggestion,
if possible, of how such problems can be avoided in the future.


7. Comp.groupware is read by over 47,000 people. Consider the cost to
readers of any post. If even an obviously inappropriate article is
distributed, one that just takes readers a few seconds to scan, and then
skip or kill, the total time used is still large. With 36,000 readers, a
post that takes an average of 1 second for each reader to deal with (i.
e., examining the subject line) means a total of ten hours used (36,000
seconds / 3,600 seconds/hour = 10 hours). If the article uses up an
average of four seconds, then the total time expenditure is 40 hours,
the equivalent of a work week. This is probably the minimum time
expenditure on any article that is even selected for scanning. So, if
you spend a week preparing an article and then post it to
comp.groupware, there will be a balance between your time investment and
that used by readers, even if they only scan your article and make no
response. The lack of a separate feedback channel is an unfortunate
deficiency in the Network News system as it is currently structured.

This analysis should not discourage anyone from posting a simple
question. Some of the most interesting and valuable exchanges in
comp.groupware have resulted from such questions. However, authors must
not make such requests unnecessarily. On the other hand, a carefully
prepared article or a report of an extensive project may not receive any
comment at all. This could mean that the article is clear and error
free. It could also mean it was not of sufficient interest to anyone to
be read in detail. What can be assumed is that it was seriously
considered. This is a result of the currently low traffic level in
comp.groupware and high quality of articles posted.

If your email reply to an author fails, try again using information in
the signature lines. An X.500 directory information server can be
consulted to find a person's email address. Read the informational
article, "How to find people's email addresses" (in the newsgroup
"news.answers"), so you know to contact the postmaster at the site of
the person you are trying to reach, and so on. Do not post a reply until
you have tried to reach the author by telephone, facsimile, or paper
mail. If these fail, ask yourself if getting the reply through is worth
ten hours of readers' time. If so, post the message. Do not post a
message asking a person to send you an email address, unless your letter
must be kept private (If this is true, consider using encryption). If it
is not of general interest, use only the person's name as the subject
(e.g., "To: Foo Bar"). If other readers might find it interesting, also
give full subject information. 

Similarly, do not broadcast requests for information you can obtain from
a known source. Requests such as, "What are the contents of book Foo
published by Bar" are not appropriate. This information can normally be
obtained by a short telephone call and a few minutes of work by someone
being paid to provide that service. Let's not deprive someone of a job
and at the same time get comp.groupware readers fired because they are
wasting all their time reading unnecessary articles :-).

Post long articles as a single unit if they are less than 30,000
characters. Otherwise, post separate sections as follow-ups to the
first, breaking at meaningful places. This permits the sections to be
treated as a single unit, thus minimizing expenditure of attention on
the article. The cost of transmitting articles is negligible, so long
posts that take one second to delete "cost" the same as short ones.

Disregarding these considerations or a lack of self discipline in
following them will result in defensive attention management. That is,
certain authors will not be read at all by many readers or valuable
discussions will take place by email instead of being posted. This would
have the unfortunate effect of fractionating the joint awareness that
permits the comp.groupware readership to function as a group. Thus, it
is recommended that authors who prefer entertainment to rigor in their
news reading, post to other newsgroups.

-------

This article compiled with assistance from numerous readers of
comp.groupware.

Corrections, comments, and suggestions to:

David S. Stodolsky                Messages: + 45 46 75 77 11 x 24 41
Department of Computer Science                 Tel: + 45 31 95 92 82
Bldg. 20.1, Roskilde University Center        Internet: david@ruc.dk
Post Box 260, DK-4000 Roskilde, Denmark        Fax: + 45 46 75 42 01


From erik@naggum.no (Erik Naggum)
Newsgroups: comp.groupware
Subject: Re: Introduction to comp.groupware (Periodic informational Posting)
Message-ID: <19921202.013@erik.naggum.no>
Date: 2 Dec 92 19:35:22 GMT
References: <groupware-intro_723276131@athena.mit.edu>
Reply-To: Erik Naggum <enag@ifi.uio.no>
Lines: 30

[David Stodolsky]
|
|   Please read carefully:
|   Any article posted to comp.groupware uses a minimum of ten hours of
|   readers' time.

How many thousands of hours do you think your "introduction" uses, if
you add the reader time together?  By your own token, you should
definitely abstain from posting your introduction.

You can't add (or multiply) reader time per message by the number of
readers and expect to get total time.  You _can_ multiply reader time
per message by the number of messages, to get the total reader time for
each individual reader.  You can't add together two reader times unless
they're sequentially dependent, as in one user standing behind another,
waiting for him to finish reading articles in comp.groupware.

I'm _totally_ amazed that a person with a doctorate in computer science
is still able to think that there's NO difference between parallel and
serial execution of a given task, such as reading news.

Besides, posting this introduction every 14 days is no more than
annoying, and any changes you may have made will never be read by any of
the existing users, and new users who can think at all won't read beyond
the "we can add parallel time together as if it were serial time"
silliness.

Geez.

</Erik>
--
Erik Naggum             International Standards:             +47 295 0313
                        8879 SGML   10646 UCS
<erik@naggum.no>        9899 C      10744 HyTime       Memento, terrigena
<enag@ifi.uio.no>       9945 POSIX                   Memento, vita brevis


From srogers@tad (Steve Rogers)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.multi-media,comp.groupware,comp.misc,comp.mail.misc
Subject: Multi-Client Distributed Calendar Systems Info Req.
Summary: Request for information on server based calendar systems with multiple clients
Keywords: calendar mail MAC DOS Unix server client
Message-ID: <1992Dec2.170837.11623@tad>
Date: 2 Dec 92 17:08:37 GMT
Followup-To: comp.groupware
Organization: EDS Technology Architecture, Dallas
Lines: 24

I have read through the various groups that this request is being directed towards
and have found no discussion in them regarding this topic.  While I know this may
be pushing the limits of a definition of multi-media, I am still posting this in
comp.mail.multi-media on the off chance that someone out there has dealt with this
problem.

I am looking for information on workgroup calendar packages that provide
a consistant interface and interoperability across multiple client platforms to
include DOS, MAC, and UNIX clients at a minimum.  I don't really care if the 
server runs on a MAC, DOS, Unix, or whatever as long as it is scalable (kind of
leaves off DOS), runs over a LAN, and is integrated with a mail package.

I have considered using the SUN Calendar Manager with DOS and MAC machines using
X-Windows but would like to find a nicer solution if it exists.

Please direct all responses to me via e-mail and I will summarize them if
appropriate.  Response should go to srogers@tad.eds.com.  Thank-you in advance
for your assistance.  If there is a better group to ask this question, please
let me know.

-- 
Steve Rogers		srogers@tad.eds.com
EDS
Dallas, Texas		M Go Blue


From freytag@seas.gwu.edu (Richard Freytag)
Subject: Need workgroup S/W recommendations!!??
Message-ID: <1992Dec3.190156.8689@seas.gwu.edu>
Followup-To: freytag@seas.gwu.edu
Summary: Looking for g-ware to support interaction on a variety of products
Sender: Richard Freytag
Organization: George Washington University
Date: Thu, 3 Dec 1992 19:01:56 GMT
Lines: 12

I am looking for a workgroup-like product that works like souped-up BBS 
software.  The software should simultaneously share:

1. the users discussion amongst themselves, 
2. a picture (map) on which any user may draw,
3. a spreadsheet into which any user may enter number and see results.  

If you know of a package that in whole or part resembles the above description 
please email me at: freytag@seas.gwu.edu

Thanks in advance,
Richard Freytag


From srikanth@garnet.berkeley.edu (Rajan Srikanth)
Newsgroups: comp.groupware
Subject: study on replacement of old technology with new
Date: 4 Dec 1992 07:28:20 GMT
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
Lines: 32
Message-ID: <1fn1akINN16j@agate.berkeley.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: garnet.berkeley.edu


At the Haas School of Business, University of California at Berkeley,
we are doing a study of what factors influence the decision to replace
old information technology/products with new information technology/
products.

If you were involved with such a technology replacement situation, we
would like to include you in our study. Decisions to reject are as
important as decisions to accept.

In exchange for your participation, we would be happy to give you
information about our findings- which might help you in future decision
making.

For example, we are looking for companies who considered replacement of
a non-relational database with a relational database. Or, replaced older
financial/other applications with new generation (e.g. client-server)
applications. We are interested in all technology areas and are particularly
interested in the areas of database technology, imaging, and client-server
software.

If you are able to help, please contact us. Depending on what suits you, we 
can exchange information with you either by phone, or by mailing you a
questionnaire, or visiting your offices. To contact us, send email to
(Asst. Professor) Rajan Srikanth at srikanth@garnet.berkeley.edu or call him
at 510-643-9994 or call (MBA Student) Rehan Syed at 415-312-8420. If we are
not in when you call, please leave a message indicating when you can be
called back.

Thanks for your interest!

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------


From vandeweg@cs.utwente.nl (Rob Vandeweg)
Subject: Call for papers 4th European workshop on the Next Generation of CASE Tools
Message-ID: <1992Dec4.125713.2453@cs.utwente.nl>
Sender: usenet@cs.utwente.nl
Nntp-Posting-Host: utis141
Reply-To: vandeweg@cs.utwente.nl
Organization: University of Twente, Dept. of Computer Science
Date: Fri, 4 Dec 1992 12:57:13 GMT
Lines: 65


PRELIMINARY CALL FOR PARTICIPATION AND CALL FOR PAPERS



4TH EUROPEAN WORKSHOP ON THE NEXT GENERATION  OF CASE TOOLS

Held in association with CAISE-93


On June 6 - 8, 1993, the 4th NGCT Workshop will take place in Paris at the Sorbonne 
University in association with the CAISE-93 conference.

The workshop brings together leading European researchers on Computer Aided Software 
Engineering. The first three workshops held at Noordwijkerhout (the Netherlands), 
Trondheim (Norway), and Manchester (UK) were attended by 25 - 30 researchers, and 
have laid the groundwork for continuing exchange of research ideas in this area.
Attendance at the workshop will by invitation only and is limited to 25 delegates to 
promote effective discussion and exchange of ideas in a small group. The programme
has been arranged to encourage informal exchange of ideas. 

Themes of the workshop will be focussed on architectural specification of aspects of
new generation CASE environments with special emphasis on:
- Development process support
- Group software development
- Meta-modelling
- Repositories
- Meta-CASE.

The format of the workshop will consist of short paper presentations and thematic 
discussions plenary as well in subgroups.

Two types of submissions are invited:
Full papers, length not more than 6,000 words,
position papers, length not more than 2,500 words.
Papers will reviewed by the program committee, and attendance at the workshop is 
conditioned on acceptance of either a position or a full paper.

The deadline for paper submission will be February 28th, 1993. The call for
participation for CAISE-93 can be obtained from the secretary of the workshop
committee.

Workshop committee:
Rudolf Andersen, University of Trondheim, Norway
Sjaak Brinkkemper, University of Twente, NL (chair)
Neil Maiden, City University, UK.
Colette Rolland, University of Paris, France
Alistair Sutcliffe, City University, UK
Veli-Pekka Tahvainen, University of Jyvaskyla, Finland
Babis Theodoulidis, UMIST, UK
Benkt Wangler, SISU, Sweden
Rob van de Weg, University of Twente, NL (secretary)
Gerard Wijers, SERC, NL


Those interested in participation and wishing to obtain the final call for
participation should contact the program committee:
Rob L.W. van de Weg,
Design Methodology Group, Department of Information Systems,
Faculty of Informatics, University of Twente,
Postbus 217, NL-7500 AE Enschede, The Netherlands,
e-mail: {vandeweg@cs.utwente.nl},
tel.nr:  +31-53-893690
fax-nr:  +31-53-339605 



From IMAGING.CLUB@OFFICE.WANG.COM ("Imaging Club")
Newsgroups: comp.groupware,biz.comp.software
Subject: Impressario software?
Message-ID: <199212041816.AA22652@tuna.wang.com>
Date: 4 Dec 92 18:17:31 GMT
Sender: news@wang.com
Organization: Mail to News Gateway at Wang Labs
Lines: 4

Would anyone be familiar with a product called Impressario?
I have heard it may have some aspects of workflow.

Michae.Willett@OFFICE.Wang.com


From gaines@cpsc.ucalgary.ca (Brian Gaines)
Subject: NCSA Collage Groupware
Message-ID: <BysyDD.F02@cpsc.ucalgary.ca>
Sender: news@cpsc.ucalgary.ca (News Manager)
Organization: University of Calgary Computer Science
Date: Sat, 5 Dec 1992 20:03:12 GMT
Lines: 36

Just a note suggesting that anyone who pulls NCSA's Collage across
the net and tries it on their Unix or Macintosh networks will find it a
rewarding experience. Collage is available by anon ftp from
  ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu
It uses NCSA's DTM protocol on top of TCP/IP to provide an
environment for interactive scientific collaboration.

It provides a shared white board, text editor, chat facility, and a
screen dump transmisssion facility. The last is designed for
sharing of image data but has many uses. For example one can
send collaborators screen dumps from other applications running,
and hence use Collage to discuss other programs.

It runs best over Ethernet and is somewhat slow running over
AppleTalk using MacTCP 1.1.1. However, one can experiment
with it on a simple Mac network.

Collage currently operates under XWindows and under the Mac
OS - a version for DOS is promised. It is inter-operable on
different platforms. In theory since it only requires TCP/IP
it could be used nationally and internationally over the net,
but the current bandwidth in most cases would be too slow.

In the past NCSA have released the source code of such software
and if they do with Collage it could provide a very nice platform
into which to incoporate other collaborative tools.

Collage is a very mice example of what can now be achieved
with existing protocols and user interfaces. NCSA ask in their
documentation for comments, examples of use, and general
encouragement. It would be very productive if the benefits
they have already provide through their Telnet software were
replicated through Collage.

b.



From rekers@elc2 (Jan Rekers)
Subject: Message for dvogel at mtgzy.att.com
Message-ID: <1992Dec7.075633.11109@rulway.LeidenUniv.nl>
Sender: rekers@rulwi.leidenuniv.nl (Jan Rekers)
Nntp-Posting-Host: rulwielc2.leidenuniv.nl
Organization: Dept of Mathematics and Computer Science, Leiden University
Date: Mon, 7 Dec 92 07:56:33 GMT
Lines: 14

Sorry net, but I cannot reach dvogel by mail. (your postmaster doesn't know
dvogel@mtgzy.att.com)

Regarding your question ``Seeking Info On We-Met System'':

Maybe it would be easiest to get in touch with one of the authors,
Jim Rhyne: jrhyne@watson.ibm.com

Kind regards,                                   Jan Rekers

-- 
J. Rekers, Department of Computer Science, Leiden University
P.O. box 9512, 2300 RA Leiden, the Netherlands
email: rekers@rulwi.LeidenUniv.nl, Phone: +31 71 277092, Fax: +31 71 276985


From news@massey.ac.nz (USENET News System)
Subject: Professor of Information Systems
Message-ID: <P.Blakey-081292141258@130.123.3.85>
Followup-To: comp.groupware
Organization: Massey University, New Zealand
Date: Tue, 8 Dec 92 01:12:51 GMT
Lines: 38

I would be very grateful if you would publicise this vacancy by circulating
the information to the appropriate departments within your University, and
by posting the advertisement on an appropriate noticeboard.
As part of our recruitment campaign, the advertisement will also be
appearing in prominent publications.  In addition, senior staff members
will be attending the upcoming ICIS and HICSS conferences.  These will
offer the opportunity for personal contact.

PROFESSOR OF INFORMATION SYSTEMS
AND HEAD OF DEPARTMENT
School of Mathematical and Information Sciences
Department of Information Systems

Massey University wishes to appoint a leading scholar in the field of
Information Systems to a Chair in the School of Mathematical and
Information Sciences.  Applications are invited from suitably qualified
persons for the position of Professor of Information Systems and Head of
Department. 

This is a new position in a young and growing academic department.  The
appointee must be able to present evidence of a distinguished research and
teaching record in the field of Information Systems or in a closely related
discipline.  Preference will be given to applicants who can show an ability
to lead, inspire and supervise research in Information Systems and build
the research profile of the Department.

Enquiries of an informal nature should be made to the Head of the School,
Professor Mark D Apperley  (e-mail:  M.Apperley@Massey.ac.nz).

An information package, including Conditions of Appointment, is available
from Mrs VB Bretherton, Personnel Section, to whom applications, including
a full curriculum vitae, and the names, addresses and fax numbers of three
referees should be sent before the closing date of 28 February 1993. 
Reference number EM 96/92 must be quoted.

The University reserves the right to appoint by invitation.

Massey University is an Equal Opportunity Employer


From tommy@eimoni.tuwien.ac.at
Subject: CFP: VCHCI 93, Fin de Siecle, Vienna Conference on HCI
Message-ID: <1992Dec8.133504.1946@email.tuwien.ac.at>
Sender: news@email.tuwien.ac.at
Nntp-Posting-Host: eimoni.tuwien.ac.at
Reply-To: tommy@eimoni.tuwien.ac.at
Organization: Computer Science, Vienna, Austria
Date: Tue, 8 Dec 1992 13:35:04 GMT
Lines: 257


                          VIENNA CONFERENCE ON
                      HUMAN COMPUTER INTERACTION 93

                             FIN DE SIECLE

                  September 20-22, 1993 Vienna, Austria 
           University of Technology Vienna, University of Vienna


                            CALL for PAPERS


The Vienna Conference on Human Computer Interaction (VCHCI) is an inter-
national conference which will bring together researchers and practitio-
ners interested in the area of Human Computer Interaction. The goal of 
the VCHCI is to serve the community with a balanced program of reviewed 
technical papers, demonstrations, posters, exhibitions and invited lec-
tures that represent in one meeting current research results, the best
new ideas, how to apply them, and the most comprehensive overviews of
current technology and practice.

Vienna in the FIN DE SIECLE was a place of intensity, disputes and rapid 
development in culture, politics and science. MODERNISM provoked both 
the moral-scientific tradition as well as the aesthetic-aristocratic 
ideal. E.g., by absorbing the fashionable poetic and plastic culture of
all Europe in his language glowing darkly with purple and gold, the ado-
lescent narcissus Hugo von Hofmannsthal became the idol of Vienna's cul-
ture-ravenous intelligentsia. Karl Kraus, the city's most acidulous
moralist, poured contempt upon "THAT GEM-COLLECTOR" Hofmannsthal, who
"FLEES LIFE AND LOVES THE THINGS WHICH BEAUTIFY IT".

A century later, in today's fin de siecle, the VCHCI will emphasize on
showing that

      - HCI is more than AN AREA TO BEAUTIFY interaction with computers
      - HCI PROVOKES DISPUTES among its different contributing fields
      - HCI does not FLEE THE VITAL QUESTIONS for people using computers
      - HCI provides RADICALLY NEW opportunities for users


The VCHCI Program Committee will solicit original technical papers and 
posters. All contributions will be judged primarily on soundness, origi-
nality, and relevance to Human Computer Interaction. The program commit-
tee anticipates that many submissions will describe ongoing work that
will appear in more polished and complete form in the scientific and
technical journals, and will therefore place an emphasis on evaluating
papers and posters on the basis of potential interest to VCHCI 
attendees.


TECHNICAL PAPERS AND POSTERS may describe, but are not limited to,

INTERACTIVE ARCHITECTURES
	(user interface management systems; user interface toolkits and
	 frameworks; hypertext; hypermedia; design environments; proto-
	 typing tools)

HCI APPLICATION AREAS
	(knowledge-based and intelligent systems; computer supported
	 cooperative work; process control and automation; software
	 engineering, systems engineering; office automation; education;
	 geography; medicine)

COGNITIVE MODELS
	(task and user analysis; user models; learning models; performance
	 models; interaction models; mental models, metaphors; psychology
	 of design)

WORK WITH DEVICES
	(hardware ergonomics; workplace environment; workload, stress and
	 strain; psycho-physiological aspects; work analysis; group work)

DESIGN AND EVALUATION
	(formal methods; notations; requirement capture methods; rapid
	 prototyping; user participation; usability and acceptability
	 metrics; evaluation methods and tools; standards and guidelines)

CULTURAL, SOCIAL, AND GLOBAL HCI ASPECTS


PAPERS should be written in English. They are limited to 6000 words with
full page figures counting 400 words and should include a short abs-
tract, list of keywords, email-number and lead author's address. Submit-
ted papers should have been neither published nor submitted for publi-
cation elsewhere. Research papers should clearly indicate the relevance
of the results to HCI. Experimental papers should, in addition, contain
clear descriptions of experimental methods used in obtaining the men-
tioned results. Experience and case study papers should discuss the
relevance/applicability of the results to other environments and should
not be used to advertise or promote specific commercial products or ser-
vices. All papers should explain what is new and significant about the
work presented and how it compares with related work. Accepted papers
will be published in the conference proceedings.

POSTERS can be written either English or Austrian. They will be limited
to two 60 by 90 centimeter panels at the most and should include enough
material to allow attendees to determine the goals, methods and results
of the work described. Poster sessions will be scheduled in public exhi-
bition and demonstration areas throughout the conference meeting days.
Posters will be considered in any of the areas described above, but may
be most suitable for early phases of work-in-progress, topics of highly
specialized interest, new or controversial ideas, and work that has not
yet attained a "critical mass" of results. Posters will be reviewed pri-
marily on the basis of originality, relevance and potential interest to
the conference attendees. Poster presenters should submit a two pages
abstract at the most describing the contents and significance of the
proposed poster to be included in the conference proceedings.


SUBMISSIONS and DEADLINES: Five (5) copies of TECHNICAL PAPERS should be
submitted to one of the conference chairs

      by March 1, 1993.

Two (2) copies of POSTER ABSTRACTS should be submitted to one of the
conference chairs

      by March 31, 1993.

Authors will be notified of acceptance or rejection by April 30, 1993.


The LOCATION of VCHCI 93 will be the Technical University of Vienna
situated right in the heart of the old town. One is directly in touch
with Vienna's history, art, music, and architecture. It is the area
where at the turn-of-the-century out of a crisis of political and
social disintegration much of modern culture and thought was born.
FREUD, MAHLER, SCHNITZLER, KLIMT were all working within a few steps
from one another. ADLER, LOOS, SCHOENBERG at the same time discovered
and developed their talents. KOKOSCHKA, SCHIELE and WITTGENSTEIN spent
an inspiring youth then. For sure it will also be interesting to find
out, whether in this century's fin de siecle Vienna, modern and
progressive on one hand, narrow and illiberal on the other, can cope
with the vitality of that time.


Conference Chairs:

Thomas Grechenig
Department of Computer Science
University of Technology Vienna
A-1040 Vienna, Austria
grechenig@eimoni.tuwien.ac.at

Manfred Tscheligi
Department of Applied Computer Science
University of Vienna
Lenaugasse 2/8
A-1080 Vienna, Austria
tscheligi@ani.univie.ac.at


ORGANIZING CHAIR:

Monika Fahrnberger
Department of Computer Science
University of Technology Vienna
Resselgasse 3/188
A-1040 Vienna, Austria
VCHCI@eimoni.tuwien.ac.at
Tel: ++43 1 58801 4082
Fax: ++43 1 5041580



Programme Committee

Beth Adelson            Rutgers University, Camden, USA
Bengt Ahlstrom          Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, SWE
Sandrine Balbo          LGI, Grenoble, FRA
Sebastiano Bagnara      University of Siena, ITA
David Benyon            Open University, Milton Keynes, UK
Meera M. Blattner       Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, USA
Ahmet Cakir             Ergonomics Institute, Berlin, GER
Gilbert Cockton         University of Glasgow, UK
Prasun Dewan            Purdue University, West Lafayette, USA
Gitta Domik             University of Colorado, Boulder, USA
Sarah Douglas           University of Oregon, Eugene, USA
Wolfgang Dzida          GMD, Sankt Augustin, GER
Scott Elrod             Xerox PARC, Palo Alto, USA
Tom Erickson            Apple Computer, Cupertino, USA
Giorgio P. Faconti      CNR, Pisa, ITA
James Foley             Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, USA
Andrew U. Frank         University of Technology Vienna, AUT
William W. Gaver        Xerox EuroPARC, Cambridge, UK
Peter Gorny             University of Oldenburg, GER
Richard A. Guedj        Institut National des Telecomm. Evry, FRA
Nuno M. Guimaraes       INESC, Lissabon, POR
Judy Hammond            University of Technology Sydney, AUS
Tom Hewett              Drexel University, Philadelphia, USA
James D. Hollan         Bellcore, Morristown, USA
Bradley Hartfield       University of Hamburg, GER
Ulrich Hoppe            GMD-IPSI, Darmstadt, GER
Robert J.K. Jacob       Naval Research Laboratory, Washington DC, USA
Peter Johnson           University of London, UK
Clare-Marie Karat       IBM United States, Greenwich, USA
John Karat              IBM Watson Res. Center, Yorktown Heights, USA
Wendy A. Kellogg        IBM Watson Res. Center, Yorktown Heights, USA
Werner Kuhn             University of Technology Vienna, AUT
David Kurlander         Microsoft Research, Redmond, USA
Clayton Lewis           University of Colorado, Boulder, USA
Jonas Lowgren           Linkoping University, SWE
Allan MacLean           Xerox EuroPARC, Cambridge, UK
David Maulsby           University of Waikato, Hamilton, NZL
James R. Miller         Hewlett-Packard Laboratories, Palo Alto, USA
Michael J. Muller       US WEST Advanced Technologies, Boulder, CO, USA
Dianne Murray           University of Surrey, UK
Robert Neches           University of South. Calif., Marina del Rey, USA
Gary M. Olson           University of Michigan, USA
Paolo Paolini           Politecnico di Milano, ITA
Franz Penz              INESC, Lissabon, POR
Christian Rathke        University of Stuttgart, GER
Matthias Rauterberg     ETH, Zurich, CH
Harald Reiterer         GMD, St. Augustin, GER
Mary Beth Rosson        IBM Watson Res. Center, Yorktown Heights, USA
Gavriel Salvendy        Purdue University, West Lafayette, USA
Dominique L. Scapin     INRIA, Le Chesnay, FRA
Helmut Schauer          University of Zurich, CH
Franz Schiele           GMD-IPSI, Darmstadt, GER
Chris Schmandt          MIT Media Laboratory, Cambridge, USA
Chris Shaw              University of Alberta, CAN
John Stasko             Giorgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, USA
Tom Stewart             System Concepts, London, UK
Martha R. Szczur        NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, USA
Pedro Szekely           University of South. Calif., Marina del Rey, USA
Michael Tauber          University of Paderborn, GER
Jo Tombaugh             Carleton University, Ottawa, CAN
Thomas S. Tullis        Canon Information Systems, Costa Mesa, USA
Andrew Turk             University of Melbourne, AUS
Gerrit van der Veer     Free University, Amsterdam, NLD
Ina Wagner              University of Technology Vienna, AUT
Yvonne Waern            Linkoping University, SWE
Pierre Wellner          Xerox EuroPARC, Cambridge, UK
Alan Wexelblatt         MIT Media Laboratory, Cambridge, USA
Juergen Ziegler         Fraunhofer-Institut IAO, Stuttgart, GER



SUMMARY:
========
Deadline for papers:    March 1,  1993
Deadline for posters:   March 31, 1993
Conference date:        September 20-22, 1993

Address for contacts:   Department of Computer Science
                        University of Technology Vienna
                        Resselgasse 3/188
                        A-1040 Vienna, Austria
                        VCHCI@eimoni.tuwien.ac.at
                        Tel: ++43 1 58801 4082
                        Fax: ++43 1 5041580


...when will you realize, Vienna waits for you...




From mklein@atc.boeing.com (Mark Klein)
Subject: CFP: IJCAI-93 Conflict Management Workshop
Message-ID: <1992Dec8.234554.23172@grace.boeing.com>
Sender: usenet@grace.boeing.com (For news)
Organization: Boeing Computer Services
Date: Tue, 8 Dec 1992 23:45:54 GMT
Lines: 140

                         Call For Papers
                         ===============

                       IJCAI-93 Workshop on
            Computational Models of Conflict Management
                 in Cooperative Problem Solving


Description
-----------

A central aspect of cooperative problem solving by groups is the avoidance,
detection and resolution of conflicts among the participants. This is of
great theoretical interest in such research areas as distributed artificial
intelligence. It is also of considerable practical importance because of
the key role conflict management plays in cooperative problem solving e.g.
in concurrent engineering. Work on conflict management has occurred in a
variety of settings including concurrent engineering, multi-agent planning
& design, AI and Law, distributed AI (including game theory), GDSS (group
decision support systems), CSCW (computer-supported cooperative work),
software engineering, sociology, organizational science, public policy and
international relations. This work thus includes theoretical groundwork,
empirical studies and implemented conflict management systems for human and
computational agents. Despite wide-spread interest, however, there have
been few opportunities for researchers addressing these issues in different
areas to explore commonalities and benefit from the differing insights each
have achieved. The goal of this workshop is to facilitate this kind of
cross-fertilization process.

The workshop will focus on several key themes:

* What lessons do empirical studies of conflict management have to offer
for the development of computational models?

* What are the current theoretical underpinnings for conflict management,
and how can they be applied to practical problems?

* How can computers support group conflict management with both human and
computational participants? What are the benefits and challenges of the
different approaches?

* What aspects of conflict management are generic and what are
domain-specific? Can the same techniques work with human and computational
participants?

* How do computational models of conflict management fare in real-world
social and organisational settings?

Through exploring such themes it is hoped the participants will have a
better idea about how they can use related work from other areas, and can
begin to outline a single general theory of conflict management that works
across multiple domains.

Workshop Information
--------------------

This single-day workshop is part of the Workshop Program for IJCAI-93 (the
International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence) which is to be
held in Chambery, France between August 29 - September 3, 1993. The exact
workshop date has not been decided yet and will be announced when it
becomes available.

The workshop will consist of four moderated 75 minute sessions, each made
up of:

* a brief (5-10 minute) moderators' overview of common themes and key
issues

* four 10 minute presentations (including questions): presenters will be
asked to follow a results-oriented format and to address key issues
identified by the moderators.

* a discussion panel wherein presenters field questions from the audience
and each other. This should be focused on shared issues rather than further
explanation of the participant's individual work.

Workshop participants will also be invited to display posters describing
their work.

Please note that each attendee must have registered for the main conference
and is required to pay an additional 300 FF (about $60 US) fee for the
workshop. IJCAI has offered to exempt the workshop fee for one student
attendee if he or she agrees to be in charge of taking notes for the whole
day. Please let me know if you are interested.

Submissions
-----------

Participation is by invitation only, and will be limited to approximately
35 people of which 16 will be presenters. Those who wish to attend the
workshop should submit four copies of a research abstract no more than 5
pages long focusing on the main contribution of their work in preference to
general introductory material, literature review etc. All submissions will
be reviewed by researchers working in a related area. Please include a
brief abstract, the author's electronic and physical address information,
and indicate if you would like to display a poster on your work at the
workshop. Electronic submissions will be accepted only if they are in pure
ascii or binhexed Macintosh Word/MacWrite format.

Submission deadline:		March 1, 1993
Notification date:		April 1, 1993
Final date for revised papers:	June 1, 1993

We expect that revised versions of the best papers from the workshop will
be considered for inclusion in an appropriate journal or published
collection.

Submissions and questions regarding the workshop should be directed to:

Mark Klein
Boeing Computer Services
PO Box 24346, 7L-64
Seattle, WA 98124-0346 USA
mklein@atc.boeing.com
Voice: (206) 865-3412
Fax:   (206) 865-2964

Organizing Committee
--------------------

Steve Easterbrook
University of Sussex
Easterbrook@cogs.susx.ac.uk

Mark Klein
Boeing Computer Services
mklein@atc.boeing.com

Victor Lesser
University of Massachusetts
lesser@cs.umass.edu

Stephen C-Y. Lu
University of Illinois
lu@kbesrl.me.uiuc.edu

Katia P. Sycara
Carnegie Mellon University
katia@cs.cmu.edu



From JBOSTERS@KUBVX1.KUB.NL (Jeroen Bosters)
Subject: Groupware tools?
Message-ID: <1992Dec10.110147.26360@kub.nl>
Date: Thu, 10 Dec 92 11:01:47 GMT
Organization: Tilburg University, The Netherlands
Nntp-Posting-Host: kubvx1
X-News-Reader: VMS NEWS 1.24
Lines: 24

Dear Networders,

all the messages about existing groupware tools that use LAN or even WAN are 
about tools running on workstations and up. Now this raised a question: 
does any-one know of a tool that runs on small machines, such as pc's and uses
networks.
Any clues would  be greatly appreciated.


Thanx in advance,

Jeroen Bosters 



*******************************************************************************
* Jeroen Bosters            * Student of Information Management & Technology  *
* Schoolstraat 363          * at Tilburg University, the Netherlands          *
* 5038 RL  Tilburg          ***************************************************
* The Netherland            * " Dies nox et omnia, mihi sunt contraria,       * 
* JBOSTERS@KUB.NL           *   virginum colloquia, me fay planszer,          *
* jbosters@nyx.cs.du.edu    *   oy suvenz suspirer, plu me fay temer    "     *
* jeroen@kubil1.kub.nl      *            Dies, nox et omnia - Carmina Burana  *
*******************************************************************************


From sphipps@vnet.ibm.com (Simon Phipps)
Message-ID: <19921211.044524.97@almaden.ibm.com>
Date: Fri, 11 Dec 92 12:41:52 GMT
Newsgroups: comp.groupware
Subject: Re: Groupware tools?
Reply-To: sphipps@vnet.ibm.com
Organization: IBM UK Laboratories Ltd, Hursley Park
Disclaimer: This posting represents the poster's views, not those of IBM
News-Software: UReply 3.0
References: <1992Dec10.110147.26360@kub.nl>
Lines: 15

In <1992Dec10.110147.26360@kub.nl> Jeroen Bosters writes:
>does any-one know of a tool that runs on small machines, such as pc's and uses
>networks.

Far be it from me to engage in self-publicity, but out Person To Person product
is just such a tool.  I posted a description to this newsgroup recently but
would be pleased to mail a copy to anyone who missed it!  We have released a
product running on OS/2 (being greatly enhanced in February) and declared an
intention to support other platforms soon.

\\\  Simon Phipps, External Technical Liaison    p2p@vnet.ibm.com    ///
\\\  IBM Person To Person/2 Development Team     +44-962-844433x8339 ///
>>>  Hursley Park, Winchester, SO21 2JN, UK                          <<<
/// . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .\\\
///          Developing Tomorrow's CSCW Solutions Today!             \\\


From tomasc@ida.csd.uu.se (Tomas Carlsson)
Newsgroups: comp.groupware
Subject: Shared windows
Date: 11 Dec 1992 11:18:10 GMT
Organization: Uppsala University
Lines: 62
Distribution: world
Message-ID: <1g9tdiINNirq@corax.udac.uu.se>
NNTP-Posting-Host: ida.csd.uu.se

I am currently writing a paper on sharing parts of a workspace
between several users. In some cases the word 'sharing' means
"beeing able to see" rather than "beeing able to use" someone
else's window (or whatever).

I'm now looking for articles, papers, books, comments etc. 
about the following issues:

	Ways of sharing
		- a system of different programs specially written
		  to support sharing
		- modifying the window system to allow sharing of
		  any program running under it
		- a single program that makes it possible to share
		  "any" other program

	What to share
		- window-based sharing
		- sharing a freely selected area of the display

	Selecting what to share
		- Automatic; the CSCW-system manages everything
		- Active; one user selects what to share with the
		  others. Selecting by window name, window id or
		  (naturally) with the mouse.
		- Passive; a user interested in someone else's 
		  display can 'reach out and grab' a piece or a 
		  window of it. How to select? How do the user
		  being watched know that he is watched and what
		  is beeing watched?

	Selecting who (whom?) to share with
		- Should all members of a group be able to see the
		  same thing? If not, how to select who gets to see
		  what?

	Telepointing
		- One-way; the owner of the original is the only one
		  who can point. His pointer is reproduced in all 
		  copies.
		- Two-way, one-to-one; like one-way, but the owner of
		  the original can also see all other's pointers. The
		  copy-owners can not see each others pointers.
		- Two-way, one-to-all; like one-to-one, but the copy-
		  owners CAN see each others pointers, i.e. everyone
		  sees ALL pointers.

	Working with the copy
		- Scaling; to be able to zoom in and out of a copy
		  of someone elses display.
		- Saving; beeing able to save a copy as a file.
		- Using the copy; an owner of a copy can actually
		  USE the copy, as if it was the original program.
		  Mainly concerns the third way of sharing.


Comments, suggestions, questions etc on the issues and/or useful 
material can be given here or by email.


Tomas Carlsson			email:  tomasc@ida.csd.uu.se



From davenewman@cix.compulink.co.uk (David Newman)
Subject: Re: Groupware tools?
Cc: davenewman@cix.compulink.co.uk
Reply-To: davenewman@cix.compulink.co.uk
Date: Fri, 11 Dec 1992 18:36:00 +0000
Message-ID: <memo.803795@cix.compulink.co.uk>
Sender: usenet@demon.co.uk
Lines: 27

In-Reply-To: <1992Dec10.110147.26360@kub.nl> JBOSTERS@KUBVX1.KUB.NL (Jeroen Bos
ters)

There are plenty of groupware tools that run on microcomputers -
although it depends on what you mean by groupware.

I am writing this on a computer conferencing system called Telepathy.
It runs on our LAN, with 50 staff and students using it. In addition
to local conferencing, it drives communications scripts to exchange
messages with commercial conferencing systems (CIX, BIX, Compuserve,
Greennet/Econet, Usenet). Richer organisations use Lotus Notes to
share information and ideas among workgroups.

There are many commercial and shareware shared diary applications
that run on LANs - and there are a few shared editing tools. And of
course many email programs.

Help desk software (perhaps the earliest workflow information
systems) is often implemented on PC networks, such as HEAT (which was
commissioned to meet the working practices and needs of the major US
help desk operators).

I don't know of any groupware construction kits for PCs or Macs, but
would like to hear of any.
-----
Dave Newman, Queen's University Belfast, Information Management Dept.
Preferred email: d.r.newman@qub.ac.uk


From nlc@vulcan.xtel.co.uk (Neil Cook)
Newsgroups: comp.groupware
Subject: Re: Shared windows
Message-ID: <1992Dec14.101547.10628@cs.nott.ac.uk>
Date: 14 Dec 92 10:15:47 GMT
References: <1g9tdiINNirq@corax.udac.uu.se>
Sender: news@cs.nott.ac.uk
Organization: X-Tel Services Ltd.
Lines: 37

In article <1g9tdiINNirq@corax.udac.uu.se>, tomasc@ida.csd.uu.se (Tomas Carlsson) writes:
|> I am currently writing a paper on sharing parts of a workspace
|> between several users. In some cases the word 'sharing' means
|> "beeing able to see" rather than "beeing able to use" someone
|> else's window (or whatever).

We have a program called XT-Confer which provides an environment for writing CSCW
applications under X-Windows. The program is the "glue" that binds it together,
and it provides an API and data structures to enable "tools" to be written.
It currently supports 10 tools, including text conferencing, shared editing, 
shared sketch-tool, shared shell, vote tool, shared calendar, and finally a 
"watcher" tool which enables arbitrary X-WIndows to be watched and "shared" with
the other "delegates" in the "conference". All of the tools apart from the watcher
are fully interactive, and support multiple users of a single tool. For example,
the edit tool enables different users to have their own insertion points into a
document.
It supports floor control, as a layer above the tools provided by the core 
program. Tools are just notified when the floor changes. Floor can be either open 
or closed. Closed floor is when one user has control of the floor. Floor Control
is on a per-tool-basis.
Sharing is automatic, but the watcher tool is active (you choose what to share).

It supports different views on a tool, for example when the floor is closed to
you, many of the buttons on the tool will be greyed out. As another example, the
text conferencing tool has a "private" coomposition area for each user, and a
shared speech area.

See the Proceedings of the 1992 European X Users Group Conference for a paper
written by myself about XT-Confer. Also, contact support@xtel.co.uk for info
about availability of  XT-Confer, or contact me.

Neil Cook.
n.cook@xtel.co.uk

or

nlc@cs.nott.ac.uk


From S.M.Clark@lut.ac.uk (Sean Clark)
Subject: Long distance modem links?
Message-ID: <S.M.Clark-141292110325@eta.lut.ac.uk>
Followup-To: comp.groupware
Sender: @lut.ac.uk
Nntp-Posting-Host: eta.lut.ac.uk
Organization: LUTCHI
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 92 11:02:30 GMT
Lines: 20


All,

Has anyone experience in setting up high speed modem connections over
*very*
long distances? I am interested in linking two Macs, one in the UK and one
in Australia (roughly 10,000 miles) via Hayes Optima 144 (v32bis) modems
and
would like to know what problems to expect. Is the link likely to work?
Will
there be a serious network latency (i.e. over half a second)? Will it be
robust?

At Loughborough University we have successfully run ISDN over the same
distance without problems.

Any advice would be most welcome.

Sean Clark,
Loughborough University


From david@ruc.dk (David Stodolsky)
Newsgroups: comp.groupware,news.answers
Subject: Introduction to comp.groupware (Periodic informational Posting)
Supersedes: <groupware-intro_723276131@athena.mit.edu>
Followup-To: comp.groupware
Date: 15 Dec 1992 18:59:52 GMT
Organization: Roskilde University
Lines: 321
Approved: news-answers-request@MIT.Edu
Distribution: world
Expires: 12 Jan 1993 18:59:02 GMT
Message-ID: <groupware-intro_724445942@athena.mit.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: pit-manager.mit.edu
Summary: Guidelines for posting to the Usenet newsgroup comp.groupware.
Keywords: CSCW, orgware, group, interactive, shared, environments
X-Last-Updated: 1992/10/06

Archive-name: groupware-intro
Last-modified: 1992/10/6
Version: 1.2

Please read carefully:
Any article posted to comp.groupware uses a minimum of ten hours of
readers' time. Do not post test messages to comp.groupware (see section
5 below). 

This article is posted automatically every 14 days to introduce the
group to the more than one thousand new readers that have subscribed
during that period. 

---------------- Contents (and revision information) ------------

Sections in this article (Revised in last modification)

0. Groupware is software and hardware for shared interactive
environments. (Revised ordering of paragraphs)
1. Set your distribution to "world".
2. Sign your article.
3. Comp.groupware is being archived. (Revised)
4. If you are posting copyrighted work...
5. Authors should refer to "Guidelines for posting on Usenet"...
(Revised)
6. When you reply to a message, do not change the subject line...
7. Comp.groupware is read by over 47,000 people.

------------ End of Contents (and revision information) ----------


0. Groupware is software and hardware for shared interactive
environments.

The term "environment" includes software and hardware that sets the
context for interaction. Hardware can include specially designed
furnishings and architectural spaces that are considered integral to
correct utilization of a given software application. A groupware
application may require a specific organizational environment to
function as expected. More powerful applications can adapt to, or
overcome limitations of, their environments.

The term "interactive" is used to indicate that time constraints are
managed by the system. Many groupware applications appear to support
real-time interaction. Others merely enforce deadlines that can span
weeks. In either case, the technical limitations on the pace of
interaction are made (to appear) negligible in terms of the objectives
of the application. Systems that exclude reference to real time are not
groupware applications.

The term "shared" indicates that two or more participants interact with
one another in such a manner that each person influences and is
influenced by each other person. No upper limit in the number of
participants is indicated, because mediated groups, as opposed to
natural ones, can maintain joint awareness with very large numbers of
persons. (Joint awareness is one way that "group" is defined.) An
objective of some groupware applications is to increase the number of
persons that can interact "as a group".

Some definitions of groupware include the notion of a common goal. While
all systems require some agreement among participants (at minimum that
they should be jointly used), interactions can be predominately
conflictual. Management of conflict is often a crucial feature of a
groupware system. Vote collecting systems are an example.

Definitions:

Group - Two or more persons who are interacting
with one another in such a manner that each person
influences and is influenced by each other person
(Shaw, M. E. _Group dynamics: The psychology of
small group behaviour_. 1976, p. 11).

Ware - 1 a) manufactured articles, products of art
or craft.... b) an article of merchandise.... 3) an
intangible item (as a service) that is a marketable
commodity. (_Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary_,
1976, p. 1319).


1. Set your distribution to "world". Comp.groupware is delivered to all
continents. Do not limit your chances for feedback by restricting
distribution. Restricted distribution can cause confusion when people
read responses to articles they have not seen. If you notice an article
has a restricted distribution, inform the poster by mail.

If you are restricted from posting to "world" by your administrator,
request a change in your privileges, at least for this newsgroup. If
refused, determine what your rights are in terms of appeal, based upon
information available at your site. An alternative is to use the Net to
find information and persons to contact concerning your rights. 
Try the newsgroups:

comp.org.eff.news
comp.org.eff.talk
misc.legal.computing
alt.society.civil-liberty
alt.comp.acad-freedom.news
alt.society.cu-digest

A frequently asked questions file can be retrieved by sending email to:
archive-server@eff.org, 
include the line "send caf-faq netnews.writing".
Information about the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) can be
requested from eff@eff.org. You can also retrieve information about EFF
and its projects via anonymous FTP from ftp.eff.org.

As a final resort, send a summary of your case to:

Carl Kadie (kadie@eff.org)
Electronic Frontier Foundation
155 Second Street
Cambridge, MA 02141, USA
Tel.: +1 (617) 864-0665
Fax: +1 (617) 864-0866.

If you can send email off-site, you can post using a Usenet-news mail
server. Email to "comp-groupware@ucbvax.berkeley.edu" is posted with the
subject line of your letter becoming the subject line of the article.
(Note: "." in the newsgroup name is written as "-".) This allows you to
post to a newsgroup even if you have read-only access to Network News.


2. Sign your article. Each name should have one and only one user. If
the article is a joint product, indicate this at the beginning and end
of the article. Some news reading programs allow certain names to be to
be automatically selected. Help the reader by using the same name at all
times. This will improve the chances that people will read your
articles.

The signature should include complete name, address, and telephone
number (this allows quick verification in case forgery is suspected).
E-mail addresses ought to be included in the signature in case headers
get munged. Another nice feature is geographical coordinates, so the
time zone can be determined (useful in telephoning). The signature
should be limited to four lines as is suggested practice on Usenet.


3. Comp.groupware is being archived. Selected discussions will be
reprinted in the _Writings on Computer Science_ (_Datalogiske Skrifter_)
working paper series available from the Institute of Geography,
Socio-economic Analysis, and Computer Science, Roskilde University, Post
Box 260, DK-4000 Roskilde, Denmark (ISSN 0109-9779-xx). Material
appearing in the series can be published elsewhere.

Authors will not be contacted individually before publication, but the
draft will be posted to comp.groupware for comment and correction before
being sent to the printer. All articles will be reproduced exactly as
posted (headers may be included, and parts (e.g., data sets) may be
moved to appendices and other changes making the articles more suitable
for printing may be made).

tvv@ncsc.org (Terry Myerson) began archiving comp.groupware 92.10.6.
The archive is available by anonymous ftp from: 
avs.ncsc.org ( 128.109.178.23 )

in the directory:
~ftp/newsgroups/comp.groupware

The archives are in mail folders named MONTH_YEAR.
For example, to peruse all of the postings in the month of
October, you could download the archive Oct_92, and execute

%       Mail -f Oct_92

Articles from comp.groupware are also available by anonymous FTP from: 
gorm.ruc.dk

in the directory:
~groupware/art/comp/groupware/

Login as "anonymous" and give your user name as your password.
Those without FTP access should send e-mail to:
mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu

with "send usenet/news.answers/finding-sources" in the body to find out
how to do FTP by e-mail.


4. If you are posting copyrighted work, indicate at the beginning of the
article whether permission has been obtained. If you do not want an
article reproduced, indicate this (e.g., Copyright - Net distribution
only).


5. Authors should refer to "Guidelines for posting on Usenet" in the
newsgroup "news.announce.newusers" to make sure they know to spell check
their articles, etc. "Answers to Frequently Asked Questions",
"Introduction to news.announce", "Hints on writing style for Usenet"
available in the same newsgroup also contain information for new users.

Do not post test messages to comp.groupware. There are special groups
for testing. And tests should be as limited in their distribution as
possible. This is basic information from "Guidelines for posting on
Usenet". Posting of test messages inappropriately is considered abusive
and will cause a loss of readership for your articles.

Always use your Subject line to state the *topic* of your article as
completely as possible (e.g., "Macintosh II voice-mail based real-time
meeting software ready.", rather than "Meeting software"). Summary lines
should indicate *what* your message says about the topic (e.g., "New
meeting coordination software available via anonymous FTP"). Statements
should always end with periods, questions with question marks
(typically), and high energy, high impact declarations with exclamation
points. These rules makes articles much easier for recipients to handle
appropriately. 

If you ask a question, your subject line should include "question",
"query", "(Q)" or should end with a "?". Questions should clearly
explain your problem and surrounding issues. Otherwise, you will simply
waste the time of those who want to help you. Tell people the kind of
work you are doing or contemplating doing. This helps them provide the
information you need. Indicate what efforts, if any, you have made thus
far, and what information was found.

Subject, Summary, and Keyword headers are scanned by many news reading
programs, thus permitting readers to find your article easily. You will
have your articles read more often if you select these carefully.


6. When you reply to a message, do not change the subject line or
redirect follow-ups (unless you are changing the subject).  Such changes
make it harder for some news readers to follow the threads in a
discussion. Include a "Summary" line which indicates specifically what
your message says. This permits your article to be found even if it is a
follow-up to an article with poorly chosen subject and keyword
information.

Please, do not post responses to articles you feel are inappropriate or
abusive. (If you can not resist, consider alt.flame as an alternative
newsgroup for your article [it has greater readership than
comp.groupware]). If the author is not saying anything worth reading,
enter the name in your "kill" file, and then no more of your time will
be wasted by that person. If you feel that the author is saying
something worth reading, but in an inappropriate way, respond by mail.
Tell the author what you think is incorrect about the article. If
possible, suggest how to accomplish the objective in an appropriate way
(e. g., post to another newsgroup). If you have responded to a person by
mail a few times without the desired effect, and you feel that the group
as a whole could benefit by a solution to the problem, only then should
you post an article.  The nature of your article should be a suggestion,
if possible, of how such problems can be avoided in the future.


7. Comp.groupware is read by over 47,000 people. Consider the cost to
readers of any post. If even an obviously inappropriate article is
distributed, one that just takes readers a few seconds to scan, and then
skip or kill, the total time used is still large. With 36,000 readers, a
post that takes an average of 1 second for each reader to deal with (i.
e., examining the subject line) means a total of ten hours used (36,000
seconds / 3,600 seconds/hour = 10 hours). If the article uses up an
average of four seconds, then the total time expenditure is 40 hours,
the equivalent of a work week. This is probably the minimum time
expenditure on any article that is even selected for scanning. So, if
you spend a week preparing an article and then post it to
comp.groupware, there will be a balance between your time investment and
that used by readers, even if they only scan your article and make no
response. The lack of a separate feedback channel is an unfortunate
deficiency in the Network News system as it is currently structured.

This analysis should not discourage anyone from posting a simple
question. Some of the most interesting and valuable exchanges in
comp.groupware have resulted from such questions. However, authors must
not make such requests unnecessarily. On the other hand, a carefully
prepared article or a report of an extensive project may not receive any
comment at all. This could mean that the article is clear and error
free. It could also mean it was not of sufficient interest to anyone to
be read in detail. What can be assumed is that it was seriously
considered. This is a result of the currently low traffic level in
comp.groupware and high quality of articles posted.

If your email reply to an author fails, try again using information in
the signature lines. An X.500 directory information server can be
consulted to find a person's email address. Read the informational
article, "How to find people's email addresses" (in the newsgroup
"news.answers"), so you know to contact the postmaster at the site of
the person you are trying to reach, and so on. Do not post a reply until
you have tried to reach the author by telephone, facsimile, or paper
mail. If these fail, ask yourself if getting the reply through is worth
ten hours of readers' time. If so, post the message. Do not post a
message asking a person to send you an email address, unless your letter
must be kept private (If this is true, consider using encryption). If it
is not of general interest, use only the person's name as the subject
(e.g., "To: Foo Bar"). If other readers might find it interesting, also
give full subject information. 

Similarly, do not broadcast requests for information you can obtain from
a known source. Requests such as, "What are the contents of book Foo
published by Bar" are not appropriate. This information can normally be
obtained by a short telephone call and a few minutes of work by someone
being paid to provide that service. Let's not deprive someone of a job
and at the same time get comp.groupware readers fired because they are
wasting all their time reading unnecessary articles :-).

Post long articles as a single unit if they are less than 30,000
characters. Otherwise, post separate sections as follow-ups to the
first, breaking at meaningful places. This permits the sections to be
treated as a single unit, thus minimizing expenditure of attention on
the article. The cost of transmitting articles is negligible, so long
posts that take one second to delete "cost" the same as short ones.

Disregarding these considerations or a lack of self discipline in
following them will result in defensive attention management. That is,
certain authors will not be read at all by many readers or valuable
discussions will take place by email instead of being posted. This would
have the unfortunate effect of fractionating the joint awareness that
permits the comp.groupware readership to function as a group. Thus, it
is recommended that authors who prefer entertainment to rigor in their
news reading, post to other newsgroups.

-------

This article compiled with assistance from numerous readers of
comp.groupware.

Corrections, comments, and suggestions to:

David S. Stodolsky                Messages: + 45 46 75 77 11 x 24 41
Department of Computer Science                 Tel: + 45 31 95 92 82
Bldg. 20.1, Roskilde University Center        Internet: david@ruc.dk
Post Box 260, DK-4000 Roskilde, Denmark        Fax: + 45 46 75 42 01


From Christopher Allen <consensus@aol.com>
Subject: Re: bulletin board software wanted
Sender: news@gallant.apple.com
Message-ID: <1992Dec16.044645.4966@gallant.apple.com>
X-Useragent: Nuntius v1.1.1d12
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1992 04:46:45 GMT
X-Xxdate: Tue, 15 Dec 92 04:44:40 GMT
To: berman@gboro.glassboro.edu (Mike Berman)
X-Xxmessage-Id: <A753F43878010318@kip-24.apple.com>
References: <1992Nov27.171132.6055@gboro.glassboro.edu>
Organization: Consensus Development
Lines: 28

You might want to try (listing from Groupware Yellow Pages): 

*****

FirstClass (Version 2.0)

FirstClass is an integrated email and conferencing system with a
graphical user interface(similar to America Online or AppleLink.)
FirstClass provides threaded conferences, unlimited attachments, styled
text in messages, a powerful search engine, and gateways to other mail
systems such as the Internet, Usenet News, and CompuServe. FirstClass
runs equally well over modem or AppleTalk network, so employees on the
road and customers can keep in touch. Non-Macintosh users can access
via the PC Interface Option. COST: 5 network users $395, 25 users $995,
100 dial-in only users $395, PC Interface Option $295, 4 modem ports
with Hurdler card $895. SoftArc Inc.
(416) 299-4723; f(416) 754-1856; BBS (416) 609-2250 AL: CDA0674 AO:
SoftArc IN: sales@saolgate.softarc.com 

*****

There is reportedly a Windows version coming, and Unix users can use
VT100 emulation and connect via TCP/IP. 

| Christopher Allen	       America Online: Consensus |
| Consensus Development	 Internet: consensus@aol.com |
| 3182 Campus Drive #501	     Tel: (415) 345-1060 |
| San Mateo, CA 94403-3123	     Fax: (415) 3451-714 |


From a2824ag@sunmanager.LRZ-Muenchen.DE (Riaan de Jager)
Subject: Where can I get the FAQ file?
Message-ID: <a2824ag.724500223@sunmanager>
Sender: news@news.lrz-muenchen.de (Mr. News)
Organization: Leibniz-Rechenzentrum, Muenchen (Germany)
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1992 10:03:43 GMT
Lines: 15

Hi

I've looked on ftp.eff.org and could not find anything. I'd appreciate it
if anyone could tell me exactly where to get it, or even mail it to me.

Appreciated.
-- 
 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
|  Riaan de Jager           a2824ag@sunmanager.lrz-muenchen.de              | 
|  Leibniz Rechenzentrum    jager@informatik.tu-muenchen.de    |         /  | 
|  Barer Strasse 21 8000    Tel +49 89 2105 7402                \    *  /   | 
|  Muenchen 2                                                    \     /    |
|  Germany        - This part left blank intentionally -          ;___/     |
 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
                        


From erik@naggum.no (Erik Naggum)
Newsgroups: comp.groupware
Subject: Re: Introduction to comp.groupware (Periodic informational Posting)
Message-ID: <19921216.016@erik.naggum.no>
Date: 16 Dec 92 21:41:25 GMT
References: <groupware-intro_724445942@athena.mit.edu>
Reply-To: Erik Naggum <enag@ifi.uio.no>
Lines: 12

[David Stodolsky]
:
|   Please read carefully:
|   Any article posted to comp.groupware uses a minimum of ten hours of
|   readers' time. Do not post test messages to comp.groupware (see
|   section 5 below).

Bogus, bogus, bogus!  Remove that thing; it only distinguishes you as
highly confused about how people can work in parallel on something, as
they typically do in _groupware_ applications.

</Erik>


From hugues@dorilys.gna.org (Hugues Lafarge)
Newsgroups: comp.ai,comp.groupware
Subject: looking for information on "prescient agents"
Message-ID: <HUGUES.92Dec16131304@dorilys.dorilys.gna.org>
Date: 16 Dec 92 18:13:05 GMT
Sender: hugues@dorilys.gna.org (Hugues Lafarge)
Organization: GNU's Not Usenet
Lines: 14

Some days ago, posted a request for information about
the "prescient agents" concept: papers, projects using
that concept, contacts, ...

I didn't get any response, expect from people telling
me that they were interested too..

So i'm re-asking.

Aynone heard of the M.I.T's LENS project, for example?

Please reply via e-mail, i'll summarize to the net.

Thanks in advance.


From a2824ag@sunmanager.LRZ-Muenchen.DE (Riaan de Jager)
Subject: Task management platforms - question ?
Message-ID: <a2824ag.724580278@sunmanager>
Sender: news@news.lrz-muenchen.de (Mr. News)
Organization: Leibniz-Rechenzentrum, Muenchen (Germany)
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 08:17:58 GMT
Lines: 30

Hi there

Seeing that I cannot find the FAQ, I will post my question. (Could someone
please still tell me where the faq is?)

I am looking for software which can be used in developing a task management
platform - preferably public domain. We are looking at implementing a 
task mangement system in our environment, but this sort of thing seems hard
to come by. What were looking at is something which supports things like
definition of individual tasks, construction of an entire group activity
and definition of roles with some role-resolution mechanism.

The user interface of our intended prototype will be integrated with other
applications, so this we intend to develop ourselves.

If anybody is interested to know more about our ideas and the application
area (which is network management incidentally), let me know and I can
provide such information.

Thank you.         

-- 
 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
|  Riaan de Jager           a2824ag@sunmanager.lrz-muenchen.de              | 
|  Leibniz Rechenzentrum    jager@informatik.tu-muenchen.de    |         /  | 
|  Barer Strasse 21 8000    Tel +49 89 2105 7402                \    *  /   | 
|  Muenchen 2                                                    \     /    |
|  Germany        - This part left blank intentionally -          ;___/     |
 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
                        


From martin@excalibur.crim.ca (Daniel Martin)
Newsgroups: comp.groupware
Subject: Info needed on window or screen sharing
Message-ID: <1992Dec17.164144.22164@clouso.crim.ca>
Date: 17 Dec 92 16:41:44 GMT
Sender: news@clouso.crim.ca
Organization: Centre de Recherche Informatique de Montreal
Lines: 21
Nntp-Posting-Host: babillard.crim.ca

Hello,

   I'm sure some of the GG ("groupware gods") can help...

   We are doing a study on softwares and protocols that allow sharing of
window(s) or section of screen between two or more computers (i.e. application
independent groupware).

   Our focus is on the PC/windows platform, but all pointers to relevant
information are welcome.  We already know about PC anywhere, CloseUp and
Epsitalk (mac).  If there's some interest, I can summarize to the net 
the information I'll gather.

   Thank you!
        Bye, Daniel.

--
oooo oooo ooo o   o  |  Centre de Recherche Informatique de Montreal (CRIM)
o    o  o  o  oo oo  |  Daniel Martin, Research Analyst
o    ooo   o  o o o  |  3744 Jean-Brillant, #500, Montreal (QC) Canada, H3T 1P1
oooo o  o ooo o   o  |  E-mail: martin@crim.ca,  Voice/Fax: (514) 340-5700/5777


From doc@intercon.com (Dave Kosiur)
Newsgroups: comp.groupware
Subject: U Mich CMI Report source?
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1992 10:23:34 -0500
Organization: InterCon Systems Corporation
Lines: 13
Distribution: world
Message-ID: <9212181023.AA34327@rx7.intercon.com>
Reply-To: doc@intercon.com (Dave Kosiur)
NNTP-Posting-Host: rx7.intercon.com
Keywords: meetings, Michigan, reports
X-Newsreader: InterCon TCP/Connect II 1.1b21

Can anyone tell me who to contact to get copies of reports from U. Michigan's 
Center for Machine Intelligence?  I'm particularly interested in a 1988 
report by P.D. Scott entitled "Formal models of protocols for computer 
supported meetings."

Many thanks,
Dave K.


Dave Kosiur
InterCon Systems Corp.




From doc@intercon.com (Dave Kosiur)
Newsgroups: comp.groupware
Subject: National collaboratory?
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1992 10:26:48 -0500
Organization: InterCon Systems Corporation
Lines: 13
Distribution: world
Message-ID: <9212181026.AA48947@rx7.intercon.com>
Reply-To: doc@intercon.com (Dave Kosiur)
NNTP-Posting-Host: rx7.intercon.com
X-Newsreader: InterCon TCP/Connect II 1.1b21

In Greenberg's annotated bibliography of CSCW, I've run across a reference to 
a 1989 Rockefeller University report called "Towards a national 
collaboratory". Has anyone ever seen this report, or heard of it? Is it  
worth looking at? Lastly, any ideas where I can get a copy?

Many thanks,
Dave K.


Dave Kosiur
InterCon Systems Corp.




From IMAGING.CLUB@OFFICE.WANG.COM ("Imaging Club")
Newsgroups: comp.groupware
Subject: The New Wang's BPM Re-engineering Recruits Get Trained in Brussels
Message-ID: <199212181809.AA21697@tuna.wang.com>
Date: 18 Dec 92 18:11:00 GMT
Sender: news@wang.com
Organization: Mail to News Gateway at Wang Labs
Lines: 28

To re-focus the new Wang's Business Process Management (BPM) re-
engineering consultants on Wang's new TQM-driven re-engineering
strategy, the Wang BPM Resource Center in Brussels recently conducted
formal Wang corporate BPM "Boot Camp" training sessions for Wang
Europe subsidiaries.

Guy Vanhomwegen, center director, said, "Our regional practice
managers said they needed more BPM consultants."

Twenty-seven people were trained during this particular session.
They came from Belgium, the Netherlands, the UK, Italy, Australia,
and the Wang US BPM Resource Center.  The US and Australian
representatives attended to become familiar with the Brussels courseware,
which they will teach at their home sites.  Wang Brussels developed the
courseware and course format.

Guy explained that the five phases of Wang BPM are: define the customer's
goals and identify business processes that could be improved; analyze
and quantify a selected business process; redesign the business
process; implement the new process, and lastly, measure the results
to see if they meet the goals established in Phase 1.

For BPM re-engineering technical reports or research studies in Europe,
you can Email Guy at Guy.Vanhomwegen@OFFICE.Wang.com or telephone him at
(32) 2 727 21 11.  Alternatively, you could phone (same number) or Email
Martin.De.Rover@OFFICE.Wang.com

Michael.Willett@OFFICE.Wang.com


From dmittleman@misvms.bpa.arizona.edu (Daniel Mittleman)
Newsgroups: comp.groupware
Subject: Re: Introduction to comp.groupware (Periodic informational Posting)
Message-ID: <19DEC199221141470@misvms.bpa.arizona.edu>
Date: 20 Dec 92 04:14:00 GMT
References: <groupware-intro_724445942@athena.mit.edu> <19921216.016@erik.naggum.no>
Distribution: world,local
Organization: University of Arizona MIS Department
Lines: 21
Nntp-Posting-Host: misvms.bpa.arizona.edu
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41

In article <19921216.016@erik.naggum.no>, Erik Naggum <enag@ifi.uio.no> writes...
>[David Stodolsky]
>:
>|   Please read carefully:
>|   Any article posted to comp.groupware uses a minimum of ten hours of
>|   readers' time. Do not post test messages to comp.groupware (see
>|   section 5 below).
> 
>Bogus, bogus, bogus!  Remove that thing; it only distinguishes you as
>highly confused about how people can work in parallel on something, as
>they typically do in _groupware_ applications.
> 
    I must be confused too as given the assumptions, I come to the same
    conclusion.  However, I question the assumptions.  David, could you
    demonstrate where you get the readership numbers that go into your
    calculations?  We seem to have well under 100 regular posters so I
    would guess (WITH NO INFORMATION TO BACK ME UP) that we have a couple
    hundred to at most a couple thousand readers.

===========================================================================
daniel david mittleman     -     danny@arizona.edu     -     (602) 621-2932


From johnh@macadam.mpce.mq.edu.au (John Haddy)
Subject: European Labs Visit Request
Message-ID: <1992Dec21.033613.21589@mailhost.ocs.mq.edu.au>
Sender: johnh@macadam (John Haddy)
Nntp-Posting-Host: macadam.mpce.mq.edu.au
Organization: Macquarie University, Sydney
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 1992 03:36:13 GMT
Lines: 67

(Apologies for this appearing in groups other than rec.travel - I just want
to reach people in the appropriate fields of study)

I will be in Europe next (northern) summer and in the US for a short period
after, for the purpose of researching methods of remote delivery of educational
material. I am interested both in existing systems (both educational and
commercial) as well as current research in the area. I am principally
interested in delivery of university level (undergraduate and postgraduate)
technology-based course material.

My reason for posting is to reach as many people as possible in my field of
study, and to ask whether you would mind having an Aussie stop by for a chat
sometime.

Topics of interest include:

	Interactive video distribution and control e.g. delivery of lectures
		to multiple sites (both on and off campus).
		
	Multi-media in its application to tertiary technology education.
	
	Integrated information systems.
	
	Commercial service provision by universities e.g. provision of lecture
		material to corporate sites (I'm interested in costing
		structures, growth patterns, student participation etc).
		
	Local / Wide area network service provisions for multimedia and
		interactive video distribution (e.g. dedicated lines vs
		packet switched networks etc).
		
	Management of interactive teaching networks.
	
	Methods of delivery of service e.g. satellite, fibre, etc.
	
	Commercial equipment related to service distribution.
	
	Any other related topics! My brief is extremely broad, with a goal of
	identifying an implementation strategy for my university which allows
	for campus-wide, city-wide and [intra/inter]national delivery of
	educational material, with the ability to target whichever sectors of
	the education market (undergrad, postgrad, corporate, community
	education) are required.
	
I am an engineer with a background in computer communications and
digital systems design, so I am more interested in the technical and
management aspects of service provision, rather than the pedagogy of remote
teaching. However, I would like to hold discussions, in broad terms, with
people experienced in the use of such systems from an educator's viewpoint.

Please mail me - this is not really a topic of world wide interest to be
kept on the net!

Thanks,

	JohnH
	
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

      |  _  |_   _   |_|  _   _|  _|              Electronics Department
    |_| (_) | | | |  | | (_| (_| (_| \/           School of MPCE
    ---------------------------------/-           Macquarie University
                                                  Sydney, AUSTRALIA 2109

    Email: johnh@mpce.mq.edu.au, Ph: +61 2 805 8959, Fax: +61 2 805 8983

----------------------------------------------------------------------------


From rlewis@csulb.edu (Ralph Lewis)
Newsgroups: comp.groupware
Subject: Re: National collaboratory?
Message-ID: <RLEWIS.92Dec21132340@beach.csulb.edu>
Date: 21 Dec 92 21:23:43 GMT
Article-I.D.: beach.RLEWIS.92Dec21132340
References: <9212181026.AA48947@rx7.intercon.com>
Sender: rlewis@csulb.edu (Ralph Lewis)
Organization: Cal State Long Beach
Lines: 5
In-Reply-To: doc@intercon.com's message of Fri, 18 Dec 1992 10:26:48 -0500

Dave, a copy of the RFP which includes the report "Towards a 
National Collaboratroy" is posted for my student on my
class information server BBS. Telnet to eis.calstate.edu and login as
lewisnts , the report is in menu 9 submenu 2.
hope this helps, Ralph Lewis, rlewis@csulb.edu
-- 
Ralph Lewis, Dept. Management/Human Resources Management, 
School of Business Administration, California State University,
Long Beach, INTERNET: rlewis@csulb.edu


From carm@cs.umd.edu (Richard Chimera)
Newsgroups: comp.groupware
Subject: Re: U Mich CMI Report source?
Keywords: meetings, Michigan, reports
Message-ID: <62984@mimsy.umd.edu>
Date: 21 Dec 92 22:11:12 GMT
References: <9212181023.AA34327@rx7.intercon.com>
Sender: news@mimsy.umd.edu
Organization: U of Maryland, Dept. of Computer Science, Coll. Pk., MD 20742
Lines: 24

In article <9212181023.AA34327@rx7.intercon.com> doc@intercon.com (Dave Kosiur) writes:
>Can anyone tell me who to contact to get copies of reports from U. Michigan's 
>Center for Machine Intelligence?  I'm particularly interested in a 1988 
>report by P.D. Scott entitled "Formal models of protocols for computer 
>supported meetings."

I have info on how to contact the University of Michigan Cognitive Science
and Machine Intelligence Lab.  Namely,
	CSMIL
	The University of Michigan
	701 Tappan Street
	Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1234

Apparnetly they also have their own internet node, @csmil.umich.edu, try
your favorite finger commands there.

Good luck, hope this is the same place you're asking about.....
+Rick

-- 
  Richard "carm" Chimera, Lab Manager   | A population of sheep will eventually
  Human Computer Interaction Lab, U Md. | beget a government of wolves.
  A.V. Williams Bldg                    |   -- William Sloan Coffin
  College Park, MD  20742-3255    USA   |  


From david@ruc.dk (David Stodolsky)
Newsgroups: comp.groupware,news.answers
Subject: Introduction to comp.groupware (Periodic informational Posting)
Supersedes: <groupware-intro_724445942@athena.mit.edu>
Followup-To: comp.groupware
Date: 30 Dec 1992 06:02:20 GMT
Organization: Roskilde University
Lines: 321
Approved: news-answers-request@MIT.Edu
Distribution: world
Expires: 27 Jan 1993 06:02:11 GMT
Message-ID: <groupware-intro_725695331@athena.mit.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: pit-manager.mit.edu
Summary: Guidelines for posting to the Usenet newsgroup comp.groupware.
Keywords: CSCW, orgware, group, interactive, shared, environments
X-Last-Updated: 1992/10/06

Archive-name: groupware-intro
Last-modified: 1992/10/6
Version: 1.2

Please read carefully:
Any article posted to comp.groupware uses a minimum of ten hours of
readers' time. Do not post test messages to comp.groupware (see section
5 below). 

This article is posted automatically every 14 days to introduce the
group to the more than one thousand new readers that have subscribed
during that period. 

---------------- Contents (and revision information) ------------

Sections in this article (Revised in last modification)

0. Groupware is software and hardware for shared interactive
environments. (Revised ordering of paragraphs)
1. Set your distribution to "world".
2. Sign your article.
3. Comp.groupware is being archived. (Revised)
4. If you are posting copyrighted work...
5. Authors should refer to "Guidelines for posting on Usenet"...
(Revised)
6. When you reply to a message, do not change the subject line...
7. Comp.groupware is read by over 47,000 people.

------------ End of Contents (and revision information) ----------


0. Groupware is software and hardware for shared interactive
environments.

The term "environment" includes software and hardware that sets the
context for interaction. Hardware can include specially designed
furnishings and architectural spaces that are considered integral to
correct utilization of a given software application. A groupware
application may require a specific organizational environment to
function as expected. More powerful applications can adapt to, or
overcome limitations of, their environments.

The term "interactive" is used to indicate that time constraints are
managed by the system. Many groupware applications appear to support
real-time interaction. Others merely enforce deadlines that can span
weeks. In either case, the technical limitations on the pace of
interaction are made (to appear) negligible in terms of the objectives
of the application. Systems that exclude reference to real time are not
groupware applications.

The term "shared" indicates that two or more participants interact with
one another in such a manner that each person influences and is
influenced by each other person. No upper limit in the number of
participants is indicated, because mediated groups, as opposed to
natural ones, can maintain joint awareness with very large numbers of
persons. (Joint awareness is one way that "group" is defined.) An
objective of some groupware applications is to increase the number of
persons that can interact "as a group".

Some definitions of groupware include the notion of a common goal. While
all systems require some agreement among participants (at minimum that
they should be jointly used), interactions can be predominately
conflictual. Management of conflict is often a crucial feature of a
groupware system. Vote collecting systems are an example.

Definitions:

Group - Two or more persons who are interacting
with one another in such a manner that each person
influences and is influenced by each other person
(Shaw, M. E. _Group dynamics: The psychology of
small group behaviour_. 1976, p. 11).

Ware - 1 a) manufactured articles, products of art
or craft.... b) an article of merchandise.... 3) an
intangible item (as a service) that is a marketable
commodity. (_Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary_,
1976, p. 1319).


1. Set your distribution to "world". Comp.groupware is delivered to all
continents. Do not limit your chances for feedback by restricting
distribution. Restricted distribution can cause confusion when people
read responses to articles they have not seen. If you notice an article
has a restricted distribution, inform the poster by mail.

If you are restricted from posting to "world" by your administrator,
request a change in your privileges, at least for this newsgroup. If
refused, determine what your rights are in terms of appeal, based upon
information available at your site. An alternative is to use the Net to
find information and persons to contact concerning your rights. 
Try the newsgroups:

comp.org.eff.news
comp.org.eff.talk
misc.legal.computing
alt.society.civil-liberty
alt.comp.acad-freedom.news
alt.society.cu-digest

A frequently asked questions file can be retrieved by sending email to:
archive-server@eff.org, 
include the line "send caf-faq netnews.writing".
Information about the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) can be
requested from eff@eff.org. You can also retrieve information about EFF
and its projects via anonymous FTP from ftp.eff.org.

As a final resort, send a summary of your case to:

Carl Kadie (kadie@eff.org)
Electronic Frontier Foundation
155 Second Street
Cambridge, MA 02141, USA
Tel.: +1 (617) 864-0665
Fax: +1 (617) 864-0866.

If you can send email off-site, you can post using a Usenet-news mail
server. Email to "comp-groupware@ucbvax.berkeley.edu" is posted with the
subject line of your letter becoming the subject line of the article.
(Note: "." in the newsgroup name is written as "-".) This allows you to
post to a newsgroup even if you have read-only access to Network News.


2. Sign your article. Each name should have one and only one user. If
the article is a joint product, indicate this at the beginning and end
of the article. Some news reading programs allow certain names to be to
be automatically selected. Help the reader by using the same name at all
times. This will improve the chances that people will read your
articles.

The signature should include complete name, address, and telephone
number (this allows quick verification in case forgery is suspected).
E-mail addresses ought to be included in the signature in case headers
get munged. Another nice feature is geographical coordinates, so the
time zone can be determined (useful in telephoning). The signature
should be limited to four lines as is suggested practice on Usenet.


3. Comp.groupware is being archived. Selected discussions will be
reprinted in the _Writings on Computer Science_ (_Datalogiske Skrifter_)
working paper series available from the Institute of Geography,
Socio-economic Analysis, and Computer Science, Roskilde University, Post
Box 260, DK-4000 Roskilde, Denmark (ISSN 0109-9779-xx). Material
appearing in the series can be published elsewhere.

Authors will not be contacted individually before publication, but the
draft will be posted to comp.groupware for comment and correction before
being sent to the printer. All articles will be reproduced exactly as
posted (headers may be included, and parts (e.g., data sets) may be
moved to appendices and other changes making the articles more suitable
for printing may be made).

tvv@ncsc.org (Terry Myerson) began archiving comp.groupware 92.10.6.
The archive is available by anonymous ftp from: 
avs.ncsc.org ( 128.109.178.23 )

in the directory:
~ftp/newsgroups/comp.groupware

The archives are in mail folders named MONTH_YEAR.
For example, to peruse all of the postings in the month of
October, you could download the archive Oct_92, and execute

%       Mail -f Oct_92

Articles from comp.groupware are also available by anonymous FTP from: 
gorm.ruc.dk

in the directory:
~groupware/art/comp/groupware/

Login as "anonymous" and give your user name as your password.
Those without FTP access should send e-mail to:
mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu

with "send usenet/news.answers/finding-sources" in the body to find out
how to do FTP by e-mail.


4. If you are posting copyrighted work, indicate at the beginning of the
article whether permission has been obtained. If you do not want an
article reproduced, indicate this (e.g., Copyright - Net distribution
only).


5. Authors should refer to "Guidelines for posting on Usenet" in the
newsgroup "news.announce.newusers" to make sure they know to spell check
their articles, etc. "Answers to Frequently Asked Questions",
"Introduction to news.announce", "Hints on writing style for Usenet"
available in the same newsgroup also contain information for new users.

Do not post test messages to comp.groupware. There are special groups
for testing. And tests should be as limited in their distribution as
possible. This is basic information from "Guidelines for posting on
Usenet". Posting of test messages inappropriately is considered abusive
and will cause a loss of readership for your articles.

Always use your Subject line to state the *topic* of your article as
completely as possible (e.g., "Macintosh II voice-mail based real-time
meeting software ready.", rather than "Meeting software"). Summary lines
should indicate *what* your message says about the topic (e.g., "New
meeting coordination software available via anonymous FTP"). Statements
should always end with periods, questions with question marks
(typically), and high energy, high impact declarations with exclamation
points. These rules makes articles much easier for recipients to handle
appropriately. 

If you ask a question, your subject line should include "question",
"query", "(Q)" or should end with a "?". Questions should clearly
explain your problem and surrounding issues. Otherwise, you will simply
waste the time of those who want to help you. Tell people the kind of
work you are doing or contemplating doing. This helps them provide the
information you need. Indicate what efforts, if any, you have made thus
far, and what information was found.

Subject, Summary, and Keyword headers are scanned by many news reading
programs, thus permitting readers to find your article easily. You will
have your articles read more often if you select these carefully.


6. When you reply to a message, do not change the subject line or
redirect follow-ups (unless you are changing the subject).  Such changes
make it harder for some news readers to follow the threads in a
discussion. Include a "Summary" line which indicates specifically what
your message says. This permits your article to be found even if it is a
follow-up to an article with poorly chosen subject and keyword
information.

Please, do not post responses to articles you feel are inappropriate or
abusive. (If you can not resist, consider alt.flame as an alternative
newsgroup for your article [it has greater readership than
comp.groupware]). If the author is not saying anything worth reading,
enter the name in your "kill" file, and then no more of your time will
be wasted by that person. If you feel that the author is saying
something worth reading, but in an inappropriate way, respond by mail.
Tell the author what you think is incorrect about the article. If
possible, suggest how to accomplish the objective in an appropriate way
(e. g., post to another newsgroup). If you have responded to a person by
mail a few times without the desired effect, and you feel that the group
as a whole could benefit by a solution to the problem, only then should
you post an article.  The nature of your article should be a suggestion,
if possible, of how such problems can be avoided in the future.


7. Comp.groupware is read by over 47,000 people. Consider the cost to
readers of any post. If even an obviously inappropriate article is
distributed, one that just takes readers a few seconds to scan, and then
skip or kill, the total time used is still large. With 36,000 readers, a
post that takes an average of 1 second for each reader to deal with (i.
e., examining the subject line) means a total of ten hours used (36,000
seconds / 3,600 seconds/hour = 10 hours). If the article uses up an
average of four seconds, then the total time expenditure is 40 hours,
the equivalent of a work week. This is probably the minimum time
expenditure on any article that is even selected for scanning. So, if
you spend a week preparing an article and then post it to
comp.groupware, there will be a balance between your time investment and
that used by readers, even if they only scan your article and make no
response. The lack of a separate feedback channel is an unfortunate
deficiency in the Network News system as it is currently structured.

This analysis should not discourage anyone from posting a simple
question. Some of the most interesting and valuable exchanges in
comp.groupware have resulted from such questions. However, authors must
not make such requests unnecessarily. On the other hand, a carefully
prepared article or a report of an extensive project may not receive any
comment at all. This could mean that the article is clear and error
free. It could also mean it was not of sufficient interest to anyone to
be read in detail. What can be assumed is that it was seriously
considered. This is a result of the currently low traffic level in
comp.groupware and high quality of articles posted.

If your email reply to an author fails, try again using information in
the signature lines. An X.500 directory information server can be
consulted to find a person's email address. Read the informational
article, "How to find people's email addresses" (in the newsgroup
"news.answers"), so you know to contact the postmaster at the site of
the person you are trying to reach, and so on. Do not post a reply until
you have tried to reach the author by telephone, facsimile, or paper
mail. If these fail, ask yourself if getting the reply through is worth
ten hours of readers' time. If so, post the message. Do not post a
message asking a person to send you an email address, unless your letter
must be kept private (If this is true, consider using encryption). If it
is not of general interest, use only the person's name as the subject
(e.g., "To: Foo Bar"). If other readers might find it interesting, also
give full subject information. 

Similarly, do not broadcast requests for information you can obtain from
a known source. Requests such as, "What are the contents of book Foo
published by Bar" are not appropriate. This information can normally be
obtained by a short telephone call and a few minutes of work by someone
being paid to provide that service. Let's not deprive someone of a job
and at the same time get comp.groupware readers fired because they are
wasting all their time reading unnecessary articles :-).

Post long articles as a single unit if they are less than 30,000
characters. Otherwise, post separate sections as follow-ups to the
first, breaking at meaningful places. This permits the sections to be
treated as a single unit, thus minimizing expenditure of attention on
the article. The cost of transmitting articles is negligible, so long
posts that take one second to delete "cost" the same as short ones.

Disregarding these considerations or a lack of self discipline in
following them will result in defensive attention management. That is,
certain authors will not be read at all by many readers or valuable
discussions will take place by email instead of being posted. This would
have the unfortunate effect of fractionating the joint awareness that
permits the comp.groupware readership to function as a group. Thus, it
is recommended that authors who prefer entertainment to rigor in their
news reading, post to other newsgroups.

-------

This article compiled with assistance from numerous readers of
comp.groupware.

Corrections, comments, and suggestions to:

David S. Stodolsky                Messages: + 45 46 75 77 11 x 24 41
Department of Computer Science                 Tel: + 45 31 95 92 82
Bldg. 20.1, Roskilde University Center        Internet: david@ruc.dk
Post Box 260, DK-4000 Roskilde, Denmark        Fax: + 45 46 75 42 01


From rwhitehead@cix.compulink.co.uk (Roger Whitehead)
Newsgroups: comp.groupware
Subject: Padding
Message-ID: <memo.835041@cix.compulink.co.uk>
Date: 31 Dec 92 14:54:00 GMT
Sender: usenet@demon.co.uk
Reply-To: rwhitehead@cix.compulink.co.uk
Lines: 33
Cc: rwhitehead@cix.compulink.co.uk


                         WASTING READERS' TIME
                         - - - - - - - - - - -

About once a month I archive the messages in this conference, ZIPping each
batch to economise on space.  Before I do so, I edit out the fortnightly
homily from David Stodolsky.  The difference is significant.

Here are the 'before and after' statistics for December (up to the 30th,
inclusive):

Complete database - 122,329 bytes (100%)
Purged database   -  74,523 bytes (61%)

The absolute figures will vary with the capture and storage mechanism used on
people's systems but the ratio of wheat and chaff will, I imagine, be broadly
the same for everyone.

Roger

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Roger Whitehead,
Director,
Office Futures,
14 Amy Road,
Oxted,
Surrey    RH8 0PX
England

Telephone:  +44 883 713074
Fax:  +44 883 716793
Email:  rwhitehead@cix.compulink.co.uk


