DESIRABLE FEATURES FOR COMPUTER CONFERENCING SYSTEMS
by Stuart Umpleby


The following list of planned or hoped-for features of computer conferencing systems was developed at the ENA meeting in April 1985, in New York:

1. Gateways between different conferencing systems permitting, for
example, the easy transfer of messages and conference comments between Unison and EIES.

2. Graphics, particularly a graphics capability that will operate on all types of equipment.

3. Notification, that is, a message left on one's machine (possibly even a light), indicating that messages or conference comments are waiting on the various systems on which one has accounts. This capability would require the conferencing host machine to dial up remote terminals, leave the needed notification and then hang up. It might be necessary for a telephone signal to be able to turn on the PC so that it could receive the notification.

4. Automatic message sending means that messages could be composed at any time of the day, addressed to particular persons or conferences on various CC systems, stored on a PC disk, and then automatically sent by the PC later in the evening when rates are low. A clock within the PC would turn it on. The PC would then dial up each system in turn, transmitting messages stored on disk and receiving messages waiting for the owner of the PC. When all systems have been checked, the PC would turn itself off.

5. Statistics on the use of the system should be readily available, certainly for the operator of the system, but also to the users of the system. For example, the system could produce a bar chart showing the weekly activity in a conference since it was started. Such a chart would allow the moderator to see at a glance whether activity is rising or falling. Furthermore, the activity in one conference could be compared with the activity in another conference. The machine could also reveal which conferences have the largest number of active participants, the fewest inactive participants, etc.

6. It should be possible to search for people with similar interests by searching a list of key words. In the future, perhaps the host machine will suggest new groups of people by periodically sending a message to groups of people identified by key words in their self-descriptions.

7. Language translation is a natural supplement to CC, particularly as networks are extended overseas. Although most people have given up on perfect machine translation, at least in the near future, there are programs now available which improve the productivity of human translators by a factor of 3 or 4. For example, text of Spanish is submitted to the machine translator, which produces a rough draft in English. This rough draft is then edited by a human translator. For purposes of CC, these rough drafts may be sufficient. Messages could be displayed both in the original language and in rough translation. If the receiver has doubts about the meaning or intent of the message, he or she could reply, "What I believe you are saying is...." Such a procedure would take advantage of the interactive nature of CC to make up for the deficiencies in the machine translations.

8. Some people are working on digital radio as an alternative to value-added networks such as Telenet and Uninet. This might be one way of reducing international communications charges. Alohanet is said to be a prototype.

9. A parallel audio channel would be expensive but would appeal to certain users. First, it would make CC more usable for non- typists. Second, it would be an important addition for educational or highly technical applications. For example, audio explanations could be given for complicated diagrams appearing on the screen.

10. Related to gateways is the issue of file sharing. Suppose a conference is taking place with several participants on each of several campuses. One way of keeping communication costs down would be to have each person interact with the computer on his or her campus with the machines updating their files at night, when the rates are low. But this solution means having duplicate files on several campuses. Hence the cost of memory could rise dramatically. Obviously, what we want is to minimize the sum of communication and memory costs. Can this be done automatically by the machines or will users continue to have to know which machine they are accessing for each conference?

11. For educational purposes, facilities such as +question on EIES would be useful on other systems as well.

12. Documentation should be written by non-technical users, NOT by the system development programmers. Documentation should also be available online.

13. I believe it was Murray Turoff who suggested the concept of a "user agent"--a program that performs a specific task for you on another system.

14. An "edit check" facility would show what editing has been done. This would be particularly helpful when co-authoring and editing manuscripts.

15. EIES 2 is likely to include facilities to make it easier for a user to assemble material from a variety of places on a system and arrange it into new forms.