Subject: CAETI general mail
From: Jan Prins <prins>
To: stotts, nyland
Date: Mon, 17 Jul 1995 16:54:30 -0400

>From [email-masked] Wed Jun 28 16:31:44 1995
Date: 28 Jun 1995 15:20:32 -0500
From: "SSTO-Sum" <[email-masked]>
Subject: FW: Project Summary Request!!
To: "SISTO PI" <[email-masked]>
Status: RO

REMINDER
The FY95 Project Summary Web Form is now up. Sorry for the delay. The due date
for submitting summaries is July 5. Just cut and paste what youve been working
on into the form. If you do not have a forms capable browser please send a msg
to: [email-masked].

the URL for submitting summaries is:

        http://www.arpa.mil/sisto/project-sum.html

Attached here is a copy of the message sent to you a couple weeks ago...
_______________________________________________________________________________
This message is an advanced notice for the project summaries which are due
back to ARPA/SISTO by July 5.  This year, project summaries will be submitted
by form on the web to make it easier for us to collect and compile the
information. The project summary home page will be up next week and the URL
will be:   http://www.arpa.mil/sisto/project-sum.html.  A reminder e-mail will
be sent when the page is up.

____________________________________________________________
ARPA/SISTO is sending this message to all Principal Investigators whose
ARPA-funded projects are continuing or are about to start.  We need
information from you (described below) to conduct ARPA internal reviews. 

Material extracted from this information is also used to prepare funding
documentation for FY96, which means that we cannot begin to process payments
to your organization until this is received as specified in this document.
ARPA records show you as the active Principal Investigator, if this
information has changed please send the current Principal Investigator's name
and e-mail address to [email-masked].

As explained below, we need the following SEVEN items:

   (a) Project Summary (1 - 2 pages max.). -- (which includes an executive
   summary paragraph (50 - 100 words)

   (b) Administrative data.

   (c) Significant Event -- one paragraph description of the most
   significant accomplishment of the fiscal year now ending.  You
   can send one or two of these.

   (d) Most significant accomplishments anticipated in FY 96.

   (e) Technical Transition--a brief description of who is going to use the
   results of your work, when, why and how this is to take place
   (commercialization, joint funding, etc.)?

   (f) "Quad chart" -- this information will help us present your
   work to others.  Examples of each of these are provided below.

   (g) If available, an address for anonymous FTP, Gopher and/or a
   URL for World Wide Web/Mosaic access to program  related
   documents.

Please respond by July 5, 1995.  If you lack some information or are
experiencing any problems, please submit what you have, indicate any problems
and when the rest will follow.

Also, please send any videos that you may have available showcasing your work.
 We are building a video repository of SISTO sponsored efforts and would like
to include one representing your area.

Thanks for your help.

        Edward W. Thompson
        Director, Software & Intelligent Systems Technology Office

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

                       GENERAL GUIDELINES

A separate project summary with associated administrative data is needed for
each contract/grant/effort.  The instructions below are designed to make
submissions consistent and effective.

A short well-written project summary will help your program manager explain
and defend your project and the overall program into which it fits. An
accurate set of administrative data will help us reconcile our books and speed
payment of future funds.

STYLE.  Each summary should be compact and technically interesting, drafted so
as to be comprehensible to any SISTO program manager.  Please make it strong
and positive, but without hyperbole.  Give a clear, top-level view. Avoid
jargon.  Write in the third person.

FORMAT.  To help us quickly put many such summaries into the proper format for
ARPA internal use, please be sure to:

  (a) Include the capitalized titles used below, substituting your
  words for the lower case instructions.

  (b) Avoid ANY indentation and any extra embedded white space.  No leading
white space, please.  (This message does not conform to the format guidelines,
for example.)

  (c) Limit each project summary to a MAXIMUM of 150 lines of text. (This will
let us reformat your text to fit within 2 pages. Summaries for small efforts
should be even shorter.  These limits do not apply to the separate
administrative data.)

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

                  === PROJECT SUMMARY ===

ORGANIZATION:   University or company name

SUBCONTRACTORS:  List all (if there are any; otherwise type none).

PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR(S):  Names, e-mail, telephone

TEAM MEMBERS / GRADUATE STUDENTS:  Names

TITLE OF EFFORT:  The title of the original project on the contract

SUBTITLE:  A more accurate descriptive title, if appropriate. (Short - one
line only.)
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY PARAGRAPH:  A concise top level description of your overall
program.  This should be 50-100 words maximum.

OBJECTIVE:  A concise statement of what you are attempting to accomplish and
why.  Try to be as quantitative as possible so that is easier to determine
when you have succeeded.   At most a few sentences.

APPROACH:  A high-level description of your approach, both technical and
procedural.  Give enough context to make sense, but be brief.  Emphasis must
be on what you are doing.  Indicate what is innovative and why it is
promising.  Break into short paragraphs if appropriate.

PROGRESS:  A brief discussion of how far you have come and where you are
headed in the total contract.  Include quantitative results (here and below)
if appropriate.  Perhaps a few sentences overall.

PRODUCTS:  List military or commercial products since inception of effort.  If
none, type none.

FY95 ACCOMPLISHMENTS:  A crisp list of your most significant
technical accomplishments (by date) during this fiscal year.  One bullet per
item.
Aim for 3 to 5 items.  Must include important new ideas and important examples
of exploitation's of your work by others.  Examples may include Technological
breakthroughs, technology insertion into operational / commercial programs,
significant demos, and technology transfer.  (List publications below)

        NOTE: Emphasize technical results with externally recognizable impact
(military and/or civilian spin-off), phrasing your sentences like the two
examples below and inserting a blank line between each sentence (but don't
indent):

        "Developed a message understanding system (PUNDIT) to extract
key data (e.g., who did what to whom) from telegraphic military messages and
improved accuracy by 15%.

        Ported PUNDIT to several Navy domains (CASPREPS, 
RAINFORMS, OPREPS), to maintenance reports, to natural language 
database queries, to medical abstracts, and to air   traffic control
transmissions.
Significant reductions (7%-12%) in processing time were reported."

PUBLICATIONS:  A list of publicly accessible papers published in technical
journals, conference proceedings, magazines, etc.  Give full citation as in a
reference list for a technical publication. (and if possible URL to the
document)

DATE PREPARED:  Date.

(NOTE: This entire summary should not be more than about 150 lines
in length.)

=============================================================================
                     === ADMINISTRATIVE DATA ===

1.  ARPA ORDER NUMBER:  This is a 4-character alphanumeric example:  "Z123"

2. BAA NUMBER (if possible):  "BAA 93-01"

3.  CONTRACT/GRANT NUMBER: (or "In-house" if a government laboratory)

4.  AGENT:  The agency that administers your contract (e.g. ONR, Rome Labs,
Wright Labs).

5.  CONTRACT TITLE:  Same title as used in project summary (plus
official title, if different).

6.  CONTRACTOR/ORGANIZATION:  (Your university, government organization, or
company name)

7.  SUBCONTRACTORS:  (List all; otherwise type none.)

8.  CO-PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATORS:

9.  ACTUAL START DATE:  If your contract has not yet been signed,
please estimate when it will be. For new efforts, if you have an
early start authorized, say so, and include the start date.

10.  EXPECTED END DATE:  If this differs from the date in the
contract, please include both dates and explain difference.

11.  FUNDING PROFILE:

11.1. Current contract:  List the total negotiated cost for the base contract
and any contract add-ons or options which have been negotiated and exercised.

11.2. Options (Not exercised):  List all options which have been negotiated,
but not exercised (from contract).  List each option on a separate line with a
total at the bottom.
         FY     FY     FY    FY    TOTAL

11.3. Total funds provided to date for all years _________.

        Total funds expended to date _________.

        As of date __________.

11.4. Date total current funding will be expended:
       (i.e., when you run out of funds)

11.5. Funds required in FY96:
       (i.e., funds needed to fund you through 11/30/96)

Note:  The Government Fiscal year is 1 Oct. - 30 Sept.

11.  ANYTHING ELSE YOU NEED (from ARPA):

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

                    ===SIGNIFICANT EVENTS===

These are very helpful for reminding others in the government, such as the
ARPA front office, of the important contributions from the community.
Obviously this is not required if the work is not yet on contract.  An example
of a significant event report from another SISTO supported program follows.

---OPERATING SYSTEM FOR REAL-TIME CONTROL OF DYNAMIC SYSTEMS

A computer programming environment and operating system called
Chimera II has been developed by ARPA-funded researchers for implementing
control of real-time, multi-sensor, multi-processor systems.  Chimera II will
reduce the time required to develop computer software to control autonomous
vehicles, automated fire control, flexible automation equipment, and robotic
manipulators.  We have developed Chimera II, tested it successfully on three
different systems, and started distribution of the documented system to
universities and industry.

Chimera II is notable in that it was designed especially to meet the broad
needs of sensor-based control.   Sensor-based control is performed at three
levels: the servo level, the supervisory level, and the planning level.  At
the servo level, Chimera II provides the extremely fast response required to
evaluate sensed conditions and recompute efforts at rates up to 1000 Hz.  Fast
response is achieved by providing deadline and priority scheduling,
low-overhead communications, fast context switching and interrupt latency time
through simple but rich operating system features.  Device drivers are
provided for hiding the hardware details of special-purpose processors and I/O
devices from the user.  At the supervisory level, Chimera II provides
constructs for communication and synchronization among processors and
constructs for storage of a world model in a file system and its maintenance
in a distributed environment.  At the planning level, Chimera II provides
features for accessing the full range of a Unix computing environment.
Chimera II utilizes UNIX for software development, debugging and simulation.

You can send one or two event reports.

===============================================================================
                             ===FY 96 EVENTS===

A concise one paragraph description of the most significant accomplishment
expected in FY 96.   Aim for 2 to 3 events.

NOTE: Emphasize technical results with externally recognizable impact
(military and/or civilian spin-off).

================================================================================
                            ===TECHNOLOGY TRANSITION===

TECHNOLOGY TRANSITION:  A brief description of specific technology
transition activities (military/civilian).

(1) State specifically how results of this research are being exploited by
others, including other researchers.  (It is not sufficient just to say which
sites have your technology, but describe the impact that the insertion of your
technology has made; what was the value added.)  Also, who is your primary
customer?  If you haven't transitioned anything yet, what is your plan to do
so and when?

(2) How is the impact of this work measured?

(3) What key technologies are exported, including to other ARPA, Service,
commercial, or university efforts.

(4) For each system or prototype available for dissemination, provide system
name, its purpose, environment requirements, and point of contact phone and
e-mail address.

NOTE: Emphasize technical results with externally recognizable impact
(military and/or civilian spin-off).

===============================================================================
                                ===QUAD CHARTS===

A quad chart is a landscape oriented page that allows us to quickly and
efficiently brief a program.  We are requesting that you provide the following
six fields to enable us to quickly customize a chart with any four fields.

PICTURE:
Remember a picture is worth a thousand words so we would like a picture
suggestive of the research (or application of the research) being performed.

SCHEDULE:
At least 4 scheduled events or project milestones depicted on a 3 year
horizontal timeline with at least one milestone per year.

BACKGROUND / HISTORY:
A brief description of the background of the project, possible including any
previous project(s) who's technology led to this project or the driving force
that initiated the program.

TECHNICAL APPROACH:
Bulletized description of the technical steps leading toward the final product
/ goal.  Answer the question:  how will your goals and objectives be achieved?

OBJECTIVES or GOALS / PAYOFF or BENEFITS:
3-4 quantitative goals to be achieved by the effort and corresponding
quantitative benefits or payoff to DoD interests.  Answer the questions: what
are you trying to do and why?

TECHNICAL CHALLENGE & KEY IDEAS or CONCEPTS:
A brief description of the technical challenges or "hurdles" facing you right
now.  In other words, "why is this difficult?"  Also, what are the key ideas /
concepts your technical approach brings in addressing these "hurdles"?

Instructions for sending the picture will follow when the Project Summary Web 
page is up next week. 

================================================================================
                                   ===ADDRESSES===

If available, a URL  address for anonymous FTP, Gopher and/or World Wide Web
access to program  related documents.

>From [email-masked] Tue Jul 11 12:51:32 1995
From: <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 11 Jul 95 09:40:25 PDT
To: [email-masked]
Subject: while I'm on vacation
Status: RO

While I'm on vacation (or anytime you can't reach me and need something
soon) please email [email-masked], or contact Rich Laverty at
619-553-2918 ([email-masked]).  You are also welcome to continue with any
working relationship you have with Frank Schindler (619-553-2845,
[email-masked]) or Steve Fujii (619-553-1435, [email-masked]).  

>From [email-masked] Thu Jul 13 00:21:45 1995
Date: Thu, 13 Jul 1995 00:21:24 -0400 (EDT)
From: Mark Pullen <[email-masked]>
Subject: Caper Cluster Participation in MUDshop II (fwd)
To: [email-masked]
Status: RO

CAPER folks,

Based on input from more experienced MUD hands, I have 
concluded that it does not make sense to attempt a
cluster meeting at either the Phoneix event or the
San Diego MUDshop.  I would encourage each of you to
consider attending either or both of these.  A note on
the MUDshop from Wally Feurzeig is appended; I hope we
will hear more about Phoenix from Vijay Saraswat shortly 
(including how we may best participate electronically if
we are not present physically).

As to a physical, in-person cluster meeting, we do need
to have one of those soon to get on with planning for
our colsolidated effort.  My current thought is to 
have a meeting some time in September at GMU (in Fairfax
VA, near DC).  I will get back to you opn this when I am able to 
coordinate the date with other CAETI activities.  If you
have hard constraints on meeting dates in September, please let
me know by email.

Mark

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 12 Jul 1995 16:46:41 -0500
From: Wally Feurzeig <[email-masked]>
To: Mark Pullen <[email-masked]>
Subject: Caper Cluster Participation in MUDshop II 

Mark,

All those in the Caper cluster are potential invitees to MUDshop II, which
will be at NRaD, San Diego September 6 - 8.  Those who are interested in
attending will need to send me a brief message -- one or two lines --
expressing their specific interest in MUDs and schools and any relevant
work they've done in the area.  This will get them on the invitee list.
They will then have to send in a 1 - 3 white paper describing their work
interests as per the attached message from Chris Landauer, who is working
with Kirstie and a small program committee on the MUDshop arrangements.

Wally

                                -------

Date:   Fri, 7 Jul 1995 07:44:14 -0700
From:   [email-masked]
To:     [email-masked]
Subject: MUDshop II nominations

MUDshop II: Learning Spaces
ARPA Workshop on Muds in Education, Training, and the Workplace
6-8 September 1995
San Diego, California
co-hosted by NRaD and SAIC

schedule of preparation events

collect initial invitee list
        (this means name, e-mail address,
        and a one sentence description of who they are -
        i do plan to invite everyone who was invited last time)
compose invitation with program committee
i will send invitations to submit white papers
program committee chooses 100 attendees

requirements

this time we will insist on a 1-3 page white paper from each participant,
and we will choose the invitees using them
(these will be like the introductions we got for the first MUDshop)

i plan to send out the original announcement and invitation next friday,
and ask that the white papers be sent to me by august 8
(the idea is that we mainly want folx who are already working in this area,
and they should be able to describe their work interests relatively quickly)

program

monday, september 4 is labor day,
tuesday, september 5 reserved for travel,
        but just like last time,
        there will be an informal get-together in the evening -
the conference is all day wednesday and thursday,
and either all day or only until noon friday (we need to choose) -

either way,
this workshop will be shorter than the first one,
so the structure must be more focussed -
since it is also larger,
we think we will need some parallel tracks

there will be some common discussion wednesday morning,
then working groups wednesday afternoon and all day thursday,
then report back friday morning -
wednesday and thursday evenings are reserved for demos
and other informal discussions

this time there will be an ARPA-published proceedings,
containing all the (possibly revised) white papers and working group reports

we believe that the working groups will be generally the same as last time,
one for computer stuff,
one for people stuff,
one for administration stuff
(the groups overlap, but they do have different concerns)

the working groups may include some talks and will include discussion
of questions collected during the morning,
and also seeded by the issues that were raised in the first MUDshop -
we will send out those group reports before the workshop,
so folx can think about them

some questions

how much effort should we expend on making MUDs more visual?
how much effort should we expend on making MUDs distributed?
conflict between evaluation and privacy
challenges for information management in simulations

how are MUDs being used in education, training, and work environments?

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

>From [email-masked] Fri Jul 14 09:20:35 1995
Date: Fri, 14 Jul 1995 09:15:45 -0400
To: [email-masked]
From: [email-masked]
Subject: CAETI Team E-mail Routing
Status: RO

CAETI Team members:

In order to manage the large amount of e-mail traffic going to Dr. Bellman
during the initial phases of the CAETI program, her address will be taken
off the alias for caeti ([email-masked]). Her traffic on these alias' will
now go to [email-masked].  To assist her in bringing her e-mail load
into manageable limits, you are requested to send any traffic you have for
Dr. Bellman regarding the CAETI project, to [email-masked] address.
She asks that all of you please try to use this approach so that we can
better manage the voluminous amounts of information received while making
sure that we can still respond quickly to your needs.  Your information,
issues, and concerns will still be addressed by Kirstie, but without having
to sort through the myriad of messages that normally transpires over the
net regarding the program.

Gary Bridgewater
phone (703)998-1313
fax   (703)379-3778
e-mail [email-masked]

>From [email-masked] Fri Jul 14 14:37:10 1995
Date: Fri, 14 Jul 1995 14:22:25 -0400
To: [email-masked], [email-masked], [email-masked],
        [email-masked], [email-masked], [email-masked],
        [email-masked], [email-masked], [email-masked],
        [email-masked], [email-masked], [email-masked],
        [email-masked], [email-masked], [email-masked]
From: [email-masked]
Subject: US HR Marks FY96 (fwd)
Status: RO

>X-POP3-Rcpt: gbridge@triton
>Date: Fri, 14 Jul 1995 13:27:54 -0400 (EDT)
>Reply-To: [email-masked]
>Sender: [email-masked]
>Precedence: bulk
>From: [email-masked]
>To: Multiple recipients of list <[email-masked]>
>Subject: US HR Marks FY96 (fwd)
>Mime-Version: 1.0
>X-To: [email-masked]
>X-Sender: iste@felix
>
>
>
>---------- Forwarded message ----------
>Date: Fri, 14 Jul 1995 13:13:40 -0400 (EDT)
>From: [email-masked]
>To: [email-masked], [email-masked]
>Subject: US HR Marks FY96
>
>From:  D. Bybee at ISTE USA National Office
>
>The following table of issues and appropriations provides detail on US
>House of Representatives' Labor, HHS, Education, and Related Agencies
>Appropriations Sub-committee action on 7/12/95 with respect to the FY96
>House appropriations for ed tech and related programs.
>
>Major points to note include --
>
>1.  Zero budgeted for Goals 2000
>2.  $100 million added for Tech-Prep which was $108 in FY95 and cut to
>    Zero in the FY95 Recissions process (Tech-Prep is a Voc Ed Program)
>3.  Eisenhower Prof Devel and Chapter II programs combined and funded for
>    $500 million -- probably will go from Federal Govt as "block grant"
>4.  Technology Challenge Grant Program (K-12) survives at $25 million
>5.  Dept of Education's Office of Educational Technology is ABOLISHED as
>funding is cut to Zero (i.e., Title III, Part A, "Natl Pgms" Cut $3million)
>6.  Regional Tech Centers are ABOLISHED as funding is cut to Zero
>7.  Star Schools program is ABOLISHED as funding is cut to Zero
>8.  Regional Technical Assistance Centers supporting improvement of
>ESEA programs are ABOLISHED as funding is cut to Zero
>
>*************************************************************************
>Goals 2000, Improving America's Schools Act of 1994, Tech-Prep,
>and Related Education Technology Program Funding Targets for FY1996
>(in $millions)
>
>Topic(s)                                     FY'95     FY'96  FY'96
>                                             BASE      Admin  House
>                                             Appro     Req    MARK
>Total(s)
>Goals 2000:Educate America Act               $371.87   $   750   0
>Improving America's Schools Act of 1994      ------SEE BELOW------
>Tech-Prep (in Vocational & Adult Ed)         $    0    $    0    $100
>Telecom Infrastructure (Commerce/NTIA/TIIAP) $ 45      $  99.9
>
>IASA of 1994 Breakout(s)      108 Stat. Pgs
>Title II, Part B, Sec. 2207        3626      $251.3    $   735*  $500
>Eisenhower Professional Development
>[FY'96 incl. Program Innovation -- i.e., Chapter II]
>
>Title III                     3636-3672
>Part A - Technology for Educ Act   3637      $22.5     $    83   $25
>
>  National Programs                          [$3]      [     3]  [$0]
>     National Long-Range
>       Technology Plan
>     Study, Evaluation &
>       Report on Funding
>       Alternatives
>  State & Local Programs
>     School Technology Resources             [$0]      [    $0]  [$0]
>     National Challenge [K-12]               [$9.5]    [    50]  [$25]
>     National Challenge [Adult Ed]           [$0]      [    20]  [$0]
>  Regional Technical Support &               [$10]     [    10]  [$0]
>     Professional Development
>  Product Development                        [$0]      [    $0]  [$0]
>
>Part B - Star Schools              3654      $25       $    30   $0
>Part C - Ready to Learn TV         3663      $7        $     7   $0
>Part D - PBS Mathline Project      3666      $1.125    $    2.3  $0
>Part E - Elem/Sec Science Equip    3667      0         0    0    $0
>Part F - Elem/Sec School Lib/Media 3671      0         0    0    $0
>
>Title VI, Part C.                  3711      $347.3    $*0.0     [SEE
>                                                                 ABOVE
>(Innovative Education Pgms -- i.e., Chapter II)                  in
>                                                                 $500]
>
>Title XIII, Part D.                3886      $29.641   $    55.0 $  0
>(Technical Assistance for Improving ESEA Programs -- Including
> Comprehensive Reg. Asst. Centers)
>
>NOTE:  FY'95 BASE APPROpriation includes FY'95 Recissions Passed by
>the House of Representatives in H.R. 1944
>*************************************************************************
>

Gary Bridgewater
phone (703)998-1313
fax   (703)379-3778
e-mail [email-masked]

>From [email-masked] Sat Jul 15 11:46:37 1995
From: <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 15 Jul 95 08:36:19 PDT
To: [email-masked], [email-masked]
Subject: UNIX WEEPS AS US GOVERNMENT VALIDATES NT AS OPEN 
Status: RO

>
>Subject: UNIX WEEPS AS US GOVERNMENT VALIDATES NT AS OPEN 
>X-Mailer: <Windows Eudora Version 2.0.2>
>
>>CS107-01 UNIX WEEPS AS US GOVERNMENT VALIDATES NT AS OPEN SYSTEM
>>
>>The United States Government has formally ruled that Windows NT meets the
>>definition of an open system. In a little-noticed landmark decision the
>>General Services Administration's Board of Contract Appeals overturned
>>protests lodged by Unix vendors and upheld an NT bid by Unisys that gets
>>Unisys and its team, including Microsoft, the $187 million Coast Guard
>>Standard Workstation III contract (CSN No 92). The ruling opens the door
>>for NT to replace Unix in almost any government contract mandating open
>>systems, which is most of them these days. Sources indicate the next big
>>win could be a US Marine Corps contract covering that service's worldwide
>>computer network. The GSA's ruling came as Unisys - with help from
>>Microsoft that included testimony by Redmond executives at GSA hearings -
>>fended off protests by a Unix crowd screaming about NT's rudimentary Posix
>>compliance. Unix integrators got the same kind of help in their protests
>>from Sun Microsystems. The protests were filed even before the contract
>>was awarded and necessitated hearings akin to a trial. The Coast Guard
>>will become the first US government agency to fully deploy Microsoft
>>Exchange over a network of 25,000 clients running NT Workstation on three
>>different Unisys desktops, NT Server on four Unisys box models and, as an
>>added fillip, NT on notebooks. Unlike many government contracts, which are
>>essentially nothing more than glorified hunting licenses, the Coast
>>Guard's installation of all 25,000 workstations could be completed by the
>>end of this year, making it one helluva a plum for the Unix community to
>>lose. The elements trying to head Unisys and Microsoft off at the pass
>>included C3 and Tisoft, both federal systems integrators. C3 bid Sparc-
>>based Posix-compliant Axil Computer Inc servers running Solaris and Mac
>>clients with a Posix-compliant interface. Tisoft bid SCO Unix running on
>>Intel boxes. The two hoped to overturn NT's 1994 federal certification as
>>Posix-compliant (CSN No 49). Now that argument can never be used again.
>>The lucrative Coast Guard contract, awarded by the Federal Computer
>>Acquisition Center, called for open systems based on commercial off-the-
>>shelf hardware (COTS), a Posix-compliant operating system, communications
>>gear and related software. The Coast Guard is going to replace its Unisys-
>>sold CTOS legacy systems with the new Unisys hardware as well as enhance
>>its overall DP capabilities. It also plans to add new capabilities in
>>command and control operations, office automation, finance, logistics,
>>inventory, engineering and training. Meanwhile, the next big NT win could
>>be the Marine Corps contract. As far back as last August sources reported
>>that the Marines had settled on NT and Banyan Vines to replace their Unix-
>>based worldwide network (CSN No 63). Word then had it the Marines were
>>only waiting for NT Server and NT Workstation to be given a C2 security
>>rating and validated as Posix/COTS-compliant.

>From [email-masked] Sat Jul 15 15:42:58 1995
Date: Sat, 15 Jul 1995 15:39:29 -0400 (EDT)
From: Daniel D Suthers <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]
Subject: Shareable document formats and communal server for CAETI
Cc: [email-masked], [email-masked], [email-masked],
        [email-masked], [email-masked]
Status: RO

Core team (and others): 

Below is a summary of why we are considering using SGML-based documents
and the Hyper-G server to meet our WWW and communal hypermedia database
needs in the CAETI project.  Although I'm not sure what kind of
decisions your team makes, I submit this to you because I feel that this
framework could meet the needs of most other CAETI contractors for a
communal hypermedia database and server, and to solicit feedback on the
acceptability of this choice.  Use of better known first-generation
servers such as NCSA or CERN would require that we reinvent some of this
existing functionality (a 5 year project now involving tens of
programmers), so we would prefer to go with the second generation
server, but would like some idea of the chances of being able to install
it in the DoDDS sites.

One reason for choosing Hyper-G was our commitment to SGML-based formats
for instructional material, including documents supplied by us and
created by students and teachers, as well as object descriptions,
simulation scenarios, advice strategies, etc. Such material, being
expensive to construct, should be treated as a long term resource.
Reuse of this material may be desired on different platforms and by
different software, possibly for unanticipated purposes.  Such reuse
requires representations that are readable by a wide variety of media
tools already available today and being developed for a variety of
future applications, and that support easy translations from one form to
another.  Clearly, representational standards are desired, but we don't
want standards to limit future functionality either. The solution is to
standardize the meta-language for describing media formats, rather than
to standardize the formats themselves.  The Standard Generalized Markup
Language (SGML) is a widely used meta-language for defining annotation
languages in publishing and network applications.  It provides a
standard way to define document types and to define translations between
document types.  Thus, by using SGML as a standard encoding scheme, our
architecture (1) is protected from being locked into any proprietary
vendor format, (2) is guaranteed to be able to take advantage of any
evolving technologies involving SGML, and (3) allows information to be
stored, re-used and exchanged between different components that may be
used with the framework. SGML-based tools are available on a variety of
platforms, with a noticeable recent surge in releases of GUI SGML tools
for Windows platforms.

See http://etext.virginia.edu/bin/tei-tocs?div=DIV1&id=SG for a primer
on SGML and http://www.sil.org/sgml/sgml.html for access to a variety of
SGML resources. Other project leaders interested in using SGML-based
documents (regardless of your interest in Hyper-G) are invited to
contact me so I can provide assistance and we can work together towards
interoperability.

We need a server capable of supporting a shared database for
collaborative learning activities, and capable of serving and linking
multimedia as well as capable of providing standard WWW service.  There
are already a number of servers that have been developed for HTML based
documents on the WWW (e.g., the NCSA HTTP server, the CERN server,
Netscape's server, etc.).  However, the current WWW servers suffer from
some critical limitations in the context of our needs:

 1.  They were not designed to handle more than a few hundred documents.
 2.  Facilities for access control are inadequate.
 3.  Clients cannot edit the documents that they are viewing.
 4.  There is no inherent support for attribute and content searches. 
 5.  They do not serve arbitrary SGML documents.
 6.  They all store the annotations as part of the document itself,
     rather than separately, and thus only link between portions of
     texts, cannot follow links in reverse, and cannot guarantee link
     consistency. 

We are investigating the use of the Hyper-G server, developed at the
Graz University of Technology, in Austria.  Hyper-G provides several
enhancements over first-generatoin servers, enhancements that can be
used to the advantage of the CAETI project:

 1.  It handles thousands of documents efficiently, using its own
     object-oriented database and hierarchical clustering of documents. 
     Thus, large databases of instructional material and student and
     teacher authored documents can be supported. The server can handle
     the needs of multiple classes and of multiple CAETI contractors'
     software at once.

 2.  It provides for full access control at the document and cluster
     levels. Student privacy can be preserved as needed, and teachers
     can condition accessibility of materials based on prior work or on
     curricular requirements. 

 3.  Clients can edit documents and links remotely and reinsert the
     revisions in the database. Thus, teachers will be able to author
     new materials and students will be able to submit work from client
     machines at arbitrary locations (including home).  Active
     collaboration between teachers and students at different geographic
     locations will also be possible.

 4.  There is full support for keyword, title, and content searches,
     optionally focused on selected document clusters. The database can
     also be viewed and accessed as if it were a hierarchical file
     system, or traversed using hypermedia links, providing for three
     different methods of access. This can support facilities for
     students to find materials relevant to their projects, and teachers
     and developers to reuse materials authored by other teachers and
     developers.

 5.  It will soon support storage and serving of documents coded under
     arbitrary SGML DTDs. The database can contain images, video,
     postscript, and data documents as well as textual and SGML-based
     documents.  These can be served in their original form, or when
     contacted by a WWW client the SGML documents can be converted to
     HTML for viewing.  Thus the database should be able to support the
     requirements of most if not all CAETI projects requiring database
     server capabilities.

 6.  It stores hyperlinks separately from the documents, thus supporting
     links between segments of arbitrary media, such as portions of
     audio and video streams. (Links embedded in text documents, as in
     HTML, can only point to visual media documents as a whole, not to
     segments therein, and of course cannot originate from nontextual
     documents.) This approach also enables applications to follow links
     in both directions, and enables Hyper-G to guarantee link
     consistency.  Students and teachers will be able to construct more
     sophisticated document collections.  Automated analysis of the
     link database could support certain aspects of our evaluation of
     the use of the system.

Other functionalities of note that are either available or currently
under development in Hyper-G include support for HTML3.0, PDF, and VRML;
server support for scripts (similar to CGI), an SQL interface, and JAVA;
client support for local databases, access to email, news, and ftp; and
MS Word style sheets for authoring Hyper-G documents.

Hyper-G is freely available for academic research. The server available
on most if not all Unix platforms (including Linux), and is currently
being ported to Windows NT. Hyper-G clients are currently available on
Unix (both tty and X windows) and Windows platforms, with a port to
Macintosh underway.  Further information on Hyper-G can be obtained at
http://info.iicm.tu-graz.ac.at.  By accessing this site one also obtains
a demonstration of how Hyper-G translates SGML annotated information to
HTML on-the-fly for service to a WWW client.

Well, that's my argument; thanks for your consideration. 
================================================================
Dan Suthers         	| Learning Research & Development Center
[email-masked]   	| University of Pittsburgh
(412) 624-7036 voice	| 3939 O'Hara Street
(412) 624-9149 fax	| Pittsburgh, PA 15260
(412) 363-3992 home	| http://www.pitt.edu/~suthers/
================================================================

>From [email-masked] Mon Jul 17 11:44:28 1995
Date: Mon, 17 Jul 1995 10:43:03 -0500
To: [email-masked], [email-masked]
From: [email-masked] (Peg Syverson)
Subject: Re: Shareable document formats and communal server for CAETI (fwd)
Status: RO

Hyper-G seems promising.
I have two questions: *when* will the Macintosh version actually be available?
Are there any robust Hyper-G editors to simplify the task of coding documents?

I'm working on a Mac platform, and so are our students and teachers in many
cases.

Peg Syverson

>Hyper-G is freely available for academic research. The server available
>on most if not all Unix platforms (including Linux), and is currently
>being ported to Windows NT. Hyper-G clients are currently available on
>Unix (both tty and X windows) and Windows platforms, with a port to
>Macintosh underway.