Volume 3, Number 8 ---CONTENTS--- August 1987

1 Masthead and Index

2 ENA UPDATE ................................ by Lisa Kimball
(1973 char)

Call for action on obstacles to international access
and introduction to this issue of NETWEAVER.


3 THE ELECTRONIC SEMINAR (Part I) ......... by Lowell Roberts
(7259 char)

A description of an application of computer
conferencing to a course in American Diplomacy


4 THE ELECTRONIC SEMINAR (Part II) ........ by Lowell Roberts
(6052 char)

Comparison of face-to-face and electronic classes

5 SELLING COMPUTER CONFERENCING TO BUSINESS .................
interview by Hank Mishkoff
(8326 char)

An interview with Susanna Opper about her expeirence
in marketing this medium.

6 ORGANIZATION BUILDING AND COMMUNITY BUILDING ..............
by Harry Stevens
(5734 char)

Ideas about applications which take computer
conferencing beyond simple networking.

7 EXPERT NETWORKS VS. EXPERT SYSTEMS ....... by Harry Stevens
(5877 char)

A discussion of how computer conferencing fits
in with the current "hot" arena of expert systems.


8 PICA CONFERENCE ON FCC ISSUE ANNOUNCEMENT .... announcement
(2302 char)

Conference to be held on September 9th on the
implication of FCC matters related to
teleconferencing.


9 TECHNOLOGICAL LITERACY CONFERENCE ............ announcement

Announcement of NSF sponsored conference to be
held in Washington, DC, in February, covering
issues related to technology including education,
applications to the political sphere, and
implications for society.


10 MEMBERSHIP FORM

The Third National
Science, Technology, Society (STS) Conference

TECHNOLOGICAL LITERACY

February 5-7, 1988
Arlington, VA

Conference Theme: Technology, Democracy and Development

Co-sponsored by: American Assoc. for the Adv. of Science,
American Society for Engineering Educ., International
Technology Education Association, National Council of Teachers
of English, National Council for the Social Studies, National
Science Teacher's Association. Supported by The Carnegie
Corporation and The National Science Foundation.

TECHNOLOGICAL LITERACY - Essential for a functioning democracy
and balanced development.

The average citizen is being gradually, imperceptibly
disenfranchised by her or his own technological illiteracy.
Decisions are made neither by citizens nor their elected
representatives, but by technical experts mediated by special
staffs and cultural biases, fed by a sensation-oriented press.

The task of raising every citizen's COMFORT with the
technologies they encounter daily, COMPETENCE in those that are
necessary for their livelihood, and sense of CONTROL over those
that affect life and death decisions is the task of EDUCATORS
from kindergarten to graduate school, ENGINEERS AND SCIENTISTS
who bear a unique and special responsibility as the prime
movers of those changes, the MEDIA which filter the meaning of
science and technology for the masses, and PUBLIC SERVANTS who
today control those powerful engines of change.

This conference will highlight:

DEMOCRACY:

* how to increase citizen awareness of technology-laden
public issues

* restoration of democratic practice through citizen
participation in major decisions

* threats to democracy associated with new technologies

DEVELOPMENT

* critique of the ideas of "development" and "progress"

* perspectives on U.S. industrial competetiveness,
technology, and Third World development from leaders in
government and industry

* STS guidelines for balanced, sustainable, equitable
development

EDUCATION

* status of new initiatives in science, technology, social
studies and mathematics education

* role of informal, non-classroom learning

* technological literacy for women and minorities

* teaching about ethical and value issues of science and
technology

* special responsibilities of scientists and engineers

************************************************************

This rich program is *very* inexpensive because it is
subsidized to promote maximum participation. Registration is
$80 and rooms are available at the Crystal Gateway Marriott
Hotel at a special conference rate of $69/night per room.

CALL FOR PAPERS/WORKSHOPS: Send 250 word abstract by November
15th to: Leonard Waks, TLC Program Chair 128 Willard Building
Penn State University University Park, PA 16802 (814) 865-9951

PUBLIC INTEREST COMPUTER ASSOCIATION CONFERENCE
FCC PROPOSED REGULATION

September 9, 1987
Washington, DC

The FCC has announced its intention to lift an exemption of
access fee payments by value added networks - in other words -
providers of information services. This could mean that
online data services could cost an additional $5/hour in 1988.

The Public Interest Computer Association (PICA) is sponsoring
a conference on the FCCUs proposed on-line access fee
regulations on Wednesday, September 9, from 9 am to 1 pm in
the Phillips Ballroom of the Omni Georgetown Hotel, 2121 P
Street, NW, Washington, D.C.

The conference will:

* promote informed public-interest participation in the FCC
rule-making process and bring together public interest
organizations, individual on-line users, and representative
from the on-line industry.

* develop an end-user perspective through discussions on the
role of on-line communications and information distribution
in the future, an overview of the FCC proposal, debates
between on-line service providers and on-line users,

* and end with a review of effective involvement strategies
so you can make your views heard in this debate.

Speakers:

Sam Simon, Issues Dynamic, Inc.
Steve Bell, Legal Counsel for Tymnet
Ron Patterson, Pacific Bell
Micheal Greelis, Special Net and National Systems Management,
Inc.
Steve Rose, Human Care Network and United Way of America
Robert Loeb, Telecommunications Cooperative Network (TCN)
Representative from the American Library Association
Others to be announced

Conference Cosponsors:

American Library Association
Apple Computer, Inc.
April Trust
Bell Atlantic
Electronic Mail Association
Issues Dynamics, Inc.
Pacific Telesis

Registration:
The conference is free to members of the Public Interest
Computer Association;
$20 for nonprofit representatives, students and individuals;
$75 for business and trade representatives.

Conference Proceedings will be available - $10.00 for
nonprofits and $30.00 for others.

To register or purchase the conference proceeding - contact
PICA: FCC Conference, Public Interest Computer Association,
2001 O St. NW, Washington, DC 20036. (202) 775-1588

Expert Networks vs. Expert Systems
by Harry Stevens

Ever since I worked in the 1950's on computer-aided language
translation, I have been skeptical about the potential of
so-called Artificial Intelligence (AI). Much more promising
is another type of AI, Augmented Intelligence. I like to
think of expert networks as being a form of Augmented
Intelligence, which has more immediate potential than the
expert systems that are currently getting much attention within
the field of Artificial Intelligence.

Both types of AI certainly have potential. However, I believe
the exaggerated view that intelligence can ever become
artificial tends to diminish more promising efforts to augment
intelligence.

Expert networks represent a new dimension, an electronic
societal and organizational dimension, that did not really
exist prior to the development of Computer Aided Communication.
While expert networks can be used by traditional organizations
to strengthen their efforts to produce and provide products
and services, expert networks also seem to represent almost a
new form of organization.

An older form of organization, namely associations, may be
transformed by expert networks. Prior to the development of
expert networks, associations have not been as important forms
of organizations as, for example, private corporations and
public agencies of government. Associations -- whether formed
for professional, religious or other reasons -- may be
transformed by expert networks into much stronger
organizations. The economic opportunity as well as the
electronic challenge for associations may be greater than some
of them will be able to handle. If so, then some new
networking form of organization not identified directly with
what we now know as associations may emerge.

An example of expert networks was developed in the late 1970's
when science advisors to state legislatures joined together
with technical professional societies, federal labs, and
public interest research groups to form the Legitech Network.
In 1979, approximately 1000 inquiries were initiated online as
topics, to which another few thousand notes were then added as
responses to those inquiries. These inquiries were on a wide
range of legislative issues that had scientific or technical
content -- in such areas as energy, health, environment,
economics and communications.

For example, one frost-belt state posed the question: "What
are alternatives to road salt for dealing with icy highways
without polluting water supplies?" Another state, having
recently dealt with that problem, responded, as did
associations and labs that knew of relevant research on that
topic. Other frost-belt states joined the topic to get the
benefit of inquiry responses that might help their states as
well as the inquiring state.

Sun-belt states did not join and therefore were not subjected
to information overload about a topic of no importance in
their climate. An important feature of expert networks is
this screening to avoid information overload.

There were generally four types of responses for these kinds
of inquiries:

(1) BACKGROUND responses usually provided
immediately by inquirers, in order to
place their pointed inquiries in
broader contexts of (a) what they
already knew and (b) the situation
that led to the inquiry being made

(2) SUBSTANTIVE responses from online
expert peers or professionals

(3) LEADS to off-line experts, giving their
qualifications and how to contact them

(4) REFERENCES to published information or
even copies of references found online
by searching public domain databases

The order of the above types of inquiry responses is
consistent with what I have been told is the God Given Rule of
Research, "First, ask someone who knows. If that fails, ask
someone who knows someone who knows. If that also fails, then
look it up."

Actually, the kinds of inquiries that are asked online are
sometimes about issues for which there is little or no
published information. Yet there may still be much knowledge
in the minds of experts who can be reached through an expert
network.

I recall that, when the Three-Mile Island Nuclear Power
Incident occurred, numerous inquiries arose within the
Legitech Network. These ranged from concern about the effects
of nuclear radiation to how to de-commission nuclear power
plants. Inquiries such as those, for which there may not have
been quick answers were nevertheless good indications of what
different states were then considering.

Inquiries within expert networks usually have half-lives of
about two weeks when they are receiving responses.
Occasionally, an inquiry might be fuzzy or interesting enough
to become a mini-conference that could be written to for two
months or longer. But the half-lives for inquiries and their
responses needing to be referenced or read online by
latecomers may be two years or longer, depending upon how
obsolete that knowledge may become due to later research.

The searching, indexing, archiving, and editing tools
incorporated in the software supporting expert networks allow
the communications flow of inquiry networking to yield
valuable knowledge that remains online. This knowledge is by
no means as well organized as the rule-based knowledgebases of
expert systems. Yet the by-product knowledgebases of expert
networks may serve as bridges to the development of the
rule-based knowledgebases of expert systems.

Furthermore, expert networks may be even more promising than
those systems that focus upon capturing the expertise of single
experts. Expert networks incorporate within them ongoing peer
review, a process fundamental to the advancement of knowledge.

Organization Building & Community Building
by Harry Stevens

Initial solutions via Computer Aided Communication (CAC)
within corporations are likely to be motivated by specific
cost-cutting or revenue-generating purposes, in order to
justify costs of introducing such systems. It is equally
important, however, that

organization building

be recognized as at least a secondary purpose, whenever CAC is
introduced for some primary purpose such as

project coordination, sales management, or
customer service to improve productivity
and cut costs; or

online marketplaces, interactive
journalism or distributed education to
provide added value and generate revenues.

While cost-cutting and revenue-generating solutions motivate
the introduction of this technology, its more sustained use
requires recognition by top management that their
organizations will be changed and can be strengthened -- only
if they personally become involved in its use. The
organizational changes that will occur, if not to top
management's liking, can doom the sustained use of CAC and
otherwise harm the organization.

Top management may not have to go online themselves, although
their doing so would make CAC success in their organizations
more likely. Print extensions of CAC can and do facilitate
involvement. For instance, in one large company, out of over
10,000 computer conferencing users, nearly 80% participate
through print extension as so-called batch users, who seldom if
ever go online themselves.

Lack of keyboard dexterity is no excuse for non-involvement by
top management. When the head of a large bank looked down at
a keyboard for the first time, he observed, "The keys aren't
even in alphabetical order." He need not worry, since
many-to-many communication is not like one-to-one mail where
writing is done almost as much as reading. Whether or not he
ever touches those keys, he can get what he needs from CAC to
manage well.

Electronic mail sounds like something that top management
might think should be relegated to their Mail Room.
Electronic organization, by definition, cannot be ignored by
executives.

So, when the V.P. of R&D decides he wants to use CAC for
purposes of project coordination, sooner or later the Chief
Executive Officer (CEO) must be sure his Director of
Management Information Systems (MIS) and his Director of Human
Resources become involved in organization building by using
CAC.

MIS and Human Resources are the two corporate-level types of
support that are most needed in order to assure the long-term
success of CAC, even if introduced at first in some division
such as R&D, Sales & Marketing, or some product or service
division of a corporation.

Information Centers, which are now seen as important to the
future development of most MIS departments, need CAC to
succeed. Quality Circles or other approaches to improving
employee involvement, similarly, can use CAC to make corporate
Human Resources programs more successful. And, the
interconnecting of Information Centers at the core of any
corporation with Quality Circles on the periphery may prove to
be what top management now refers to as a Critical Success
Factor. Employee involvement programs quickly lose
credibility if the the output from such efforts is not used as
input for strategic planning by the CEO and other members of
top management. This interconnection between central
strategic planning and employee involvement programs can be
clearly established through MIS-supported Information Centers.

An Information Center might choose to experiment with
electronic organization to support its own Help Desk function
before corporate-wide organization building is taken on as a
CAC application. Personal computer users throughout any
corporation turn to their corporate Information Center for
assistance in using software packages and in accessing
corporate databases. The Center's Help Desk typically uses
phone hot-lines to answer questions from computer users spread
through their organization. The Center also typically holds
training seminars about hardware, software, and databases.
The Customer Service and Distributed Education solutions,
discussed previously in this paper, can readily be applied to
improving any Information Center's Help Desk operations.
Through that experience, an MIS department can prepare for
more extensive organization building more generally.

Human Resources and MIS directors need to work closely
together when CAC organization building is introduced
corporate-wide. In addition to formal corporate planning
topics being introduced online by top management and
facilitated by middle management, there need to be informal
forums online as well. Interactive corporate newsletters,
suggestion topics, and even the equivalent of watercooler or
cafeteria discussions need to be encouraged online. In a
sense, informal community building needs to precede more
formal organization building online.

Although the payoffs from cost-cutting solutions (e.g.,
project coordination, sales management, and customer service)
and revenue-generating solutions (e.g., online marketplaces,
interactive journalism, and distributed education) are more
obvious, the payoffs from organization and community building
solutions are even higher when done well. Doing them well
requires the attention of top management.

-----
Author's note: This article and the next are part of an
online version of Harry Steven's paper on new ideas about
computer conferencing. You can participate in in these
discussions on The Source and NWI in a topic called, "Beyond
Conferencing".

SELLING COMPUTER CONFERENCING TO BUSINESSES:
AN INTERVIEW WITH SUSANNA OPPER
by Hank Mishkoff


This interview with Susanna Opper, the first independent
computer conferencing consultant specializing in business
applications of electronic networking and co-founder and
president of the Electronic Networking Association, was
conducted in Parti on NWI in June and July of 1986.


Q: In business settings, computer conferencing seems to take
root in some organizations, but not in others. When you go
into an organization as a consultant, are you able to predict
with any degree of certainty whether or not conferencing might
take hold in that organization? What do you look for?

In other words: Are there any reliable predictors of the
success of computer conferencing in a particular business
environment? If so, what are they?

SO: I wish I had a scientific answer to your question. In
fact, I wish I had even a *good* answer to your question. It
strikes right at the heart of the matter for the industry
right now, I believe.

Some factors do appear to be "necessary," but they don't
appear to be "sufficient." The three factors at the top of my
list are:

* Wide proliferation of PC's (with or without modems). If
people are at home with PC's and use them regularly, they seem
to be more easily able to include conferencing in their daily
work routines.

* Active, enthusiastic sponsorship by a senior member of the
group, who will actually use the system.

* Important things to communicate about.


Q: Your final point seems the most critical: that is, if they
don't have important things to communicate about, it seems
unlikely that a business organization would buy and use a
conferencing system.

But given an acknowledged and urgent need to communicate, is it
possible to overcome the absence of either or both of the other
two factors?

For example, if they don't have a lot of PC's (or are not
comfortable using them), what are the odds that they might
acquire them (or learn how to use them) just so that they can
initiate a conferencing system?

SO: It's not only possible, it can be *probable*; if lack of
equipment is the *only* stumbling block, motivated users may
indeed purchase equipment just for this purpose. I'm aware of
several cases in which that's happened--including one that I'm
working on right now at Exxon. The trouble is that the users
who start with no equipment take a long time to get up to
speed-- and, in that time, the rest of the group can get tired
of waiting.


Q: And what if there is no enthusiastic senior member--might a
groundswell of support from the "troops" be enough to bring a
computer conferencing project to fruition?

I ask this because it seems to me that many executives and/or
managers are considerably less computer literate than the
people who work for them. I can envision situations in which
the people actually doing the work--the people with the need
to communicate--are familiar with computers and use them, but
the head honcho doesn't have any strong feelings about the
system due to lack of exposure to (or fear of) computers.

Isn't it possible to get something going in this kind of
situation? Or is the lack of high-level sponsorship too big a
hurdle to overcome?

SO: I wish I could say that "bottom-up" is a likely scenario--
but in my experience... it just isn't.

I know of a few systems sponsored by lower-level employees.
When they did, in fact, succeed it was because they were
"sold" to a senior manager. In my experience, if a senior
"advocate" hasn't bought in, it won't work.

It's simply a matter of priorities and influence. If the boss
says, "I write notes on this system; I expect others in the
department to respond" (this is a real quote, by the way), the
folks will use it. And that's that. But if some lowly worker
says, "I'm sending notes to my boss on this system, and I
expect him to read them and respond to me in kind"--well, you
see what I mean. That just doesn't hold much weight.


Q: You're saying that a computer conferencing system initiated
by low-level people may not work because there's no way that
they can insist that the boss join them (as opposed to the
other way around). But can't it succeed as a continuing effort
among the low-level people? And even keep expanding
horizontally?

SO: Sure it can. I've just never seen it happen.

Maybe that's how NOTES grew at DEC--but, of course, they
developed the system themselves. Otherwise, I just don't know
of an example.

In other words, as far as I can tell, it's a good theory; I
just don't know that it has actually ever happened that way.
But maybe other people have had different experiences.


Q: I understand that there are two different approaches to
selling computer conferencing into a business organization:
the bottom-up (work-group) approach vs. the top-down
(management) approach. I was under the impression that you
favored the work- group approach, yet your comments about the
necessity of high- level support lead me to suspect I may have
misunderstood you. Can you elaborate?

SO: This question first came up years ago. I had an answer
then, and I still have the same one. The answer to, "Should
you introduce computer conferencing top-down or bottom-up?"
is: YES. I think you should introduce it any way that you can.

But the bottom-up approach needs to have *some* clout. For
example, Bill Paul used the bottom-up approach in developing
EXNET at Exxon. But although Bill was only a manager, he was
the "top dog" in his area; he had his own budget, and he was
in a position in which he could exert influence over people.

That's what I mean when I say that some management support is
necessary. It doesn't have to be the CEO.


Q: In your article [PC Week, April 21, 1987], you cited
several reasons for the failure of computer conferencing to
live up to expectations in the business community, and you
cited short- and long-term prospects for its success. In the
long run, do you think that computer conferencing will ever
become a pervasive business tool? Will it ever become as common
as spreadsheets or word processing--or even electronic mail?

SO: The answer to your question is: yes and no.

I do think that computer conferencing will one day be as
essential to business as the telephone is today--but not in its
present form. In fact, when it becomes that ubiquitous, only
online pioneers (like the readers of NETWEAVER) may recognize
it as what we call computer conferencing today.

In fact, I expect a whole new category of software--at the
level of word processing, spreadsheets, and database
managers--to emerge over the next few years. I don't know what
to call it, and I don't know who will create the name that
will stick. But it will be a kind of "workmate" software. It
will include calendaring and project and commitment
management, as well as mail and group- or topic-centered
discussions (i.e., computer conferencing).

I expect that the only such product on the market today--The
Coordinator, from Action Technologies--will start to see some
competition in the first half of 1988.

(By the way, this week's PC Week [June 23, 1987] carries a
piece about The Coordinator. Esther Dyson describes it as "an
aggressive E-mail system with a real-time project monitor and
a self-building calendar," if that means anything. I would
describe it as the first in a new category of software that is
"activity-based." By that I mean that the developers looked at
what people actually do in a business day and then built a
software system to support that process.)


Q: Are there any short-term developments that you consider to
be particularly encouraging?

SO: I've long said that conferencing would get on the map only
when the "big guys" got into the game. And they *are* finally
beginning to show interest. DEC is selling NOTES. (I hesitate
to say "marketing," because I don't think they are really
devoting any *effort* to selling the product.) And IBM is
beginning to take Grand (one of their conferencing contenders)
seriously; I know of several potential beta-test sites.

This tells me to expect to see some activity in conferencing
in some of leading-edge companies and organizations within the
next few years.

The Electronic Seminar:
Distance Education by Computer Conferencing

by Lowell Roberts

Imagine teaching in an environment where students whisper to
each other while class is in session, then meet privately to
continue the discussion. This may sound familiar, only the
whispers carry across many miles, and the conversations focus
on the assigments, class discussions, or a student's research.
Sometimes the students even include the instructor. In this
environment everything said is recorded, and a challenge to
something said a month ago is not uncommon. Students always
come to class prepared, and they all contribute to the seminar.

I teach in such an environment, although sometimes it doesn't
feel like teaching, more like conversation among colleagues.
Class meets any day, often at odd hours. It is attended by a
business executive, a quadreaplegic, a writer, a traveling
salesman, an out-of-work welder -- a typical assortment of
participants in an electronic seminar who come from Buffalo,
New Haven, St. Louis, the Adirondack Mountains. We meet in
our homes by computer conference.

The Center for Distance Learning of Empire State College, a
unit of the State University of New York, is piloting on-line
study by offering a course in contemporary American diplomacy
entirely through computer communication. The Center ordinarily
teaches by tutored independent study, where students,
following detailed course guides, learn on their own and
through frequent contact with expert tutors. Although guided
independent study at a distance can be a highly successful
learning experience for many students, it cannot provide the
advantages of group interaction. We decided, therefore, to
experiment with the interactive capabilities of the computer,
namely electronic mail and conferencing.

In the three months that the pilot has been online, we have
already concluded that computer conferencing can extend many
of the learning opportunities of the classroom to distance and
independent study. And using these computer utilities does not
jeopardize the intensity and flexibility of studying on one's
own. If anything, the computer appears to enhance independent
study by providing peer stimulation and resources.

The students have accounts on the College's Digital VAX 11/750
that permit access only to a conference called AMERDIPL. The
conference software is CAUCUS version 1.28/VVe developed by
Camber-Roth, Inc. and distributed by Metasystems Design Group,
Inc. Class is conducted through a series of items initiated
by the instructor to which all participants can post responses
until the instructor terminates the discussion. Papers are
submitted by e-mail within the conference, a utility that is
also used for private messages between the instructor and
students and between students.

Evaluation of the Empire State Experience
=========================================

Although our experience is admittedly limited, we know that
course delivery exclusively by computer -- no meetings of any
kind in the traditional sense -- is not only feasible, but an
exciting alternative pedagogy. Since this on-line version of
American Diplomacy was adapted from an existing distance
course, it did not incur major developmental or start-up
costs. However, since distance courses generally require
substantial front-end investment, delivery by conferencing
should not add significantly to the cost of distance
education. And if campus overhead is considered, the
electronic seminar may ultimately be much less expensive than
traditional pedagogy.

We know, too, that the students feel a genuine excitement
about participating in the conferences -- one student spoke
for us all, I think, when he signed off on his response to
another student (who had questioned his interpretation of U.S.
relations with Latin America) with, "Damn, this is fun!"

Compared with the performance of previous classes, the written
work submitted by this class appears, so far, to be superior
both as to breadth of research and quality of analysis. This
was demonstrably true in the case of one assignment which was
identical to that of the previous non-computer class. That
this is the result of instruction by conferencing is certainly
not conclusive, since the students who elected to take the
pilot may be a select group from which superior performance
would be expected in any case. However, students do use the
conference to test out ideas on the class that later appear in
developed form in the papers. They also use the private
message function to raise questions with the instructor and to
discuss their work with their classmates.

The Value of Computer Conferencing for Distance Learning
========================================================

Teaching by conferencing overcomes the most serious
disadvantage of independent and distance learning: it breaks
down the isolation of the student from his peers. It permits
the student to benefit from the shared experience of a group
engaged in the same study and the opportunity to measure his or
her ideas against those of others in the group. This pedagogy
also has advantages over the traditional classroom. The
conference maintains a complete record of all that is said.
This record can be reviewed at any time so that participation
and discussions can be summative, rather than discrete.
Finally, conferencing is asynchronous, so time and distance
deprive no student of access to learning.

Will the electronic seminar replace the traditional classroom?
No. Many of us like to go to class; we find physical contact
with our peers fun and, occassionally, even stimulating. In
addition, without that captive audience, the egos of too many
faculty would suffer serious deprivation. But as the national
student body becomes proportionally more adult and students
increasingly less committed to institutions of education,
colleges and universities are going to have to adopt new
learning environments. The question is will we continue to
maintain the campus classroom as an ideal, if seldom used,
model or will we create environments that incorporate the
advantages of both classroom and non-classroom teaching?

Perhaps the most significant change that computers will bring
to higher education will be the freeing of learning from its
historical contraints of time and space. Already, educational
software can effectively instruct and train, and commercial
networks can provide access to databases that, together, far
exceed the information available in any university library. And
the instruction and information are available when and where
the learner wants them.

If anyone can attend class at home at midnight or at work
during the lunch hour, our traditional definitions of students
and school are no longer really meaningful. With computer
conferencing students no longer need a spatial, temporal point
to exchange ideas and work with teachers. The electronic
seminar frees the academy to meet in each student's own time
and space -- if educational institutions are willing to define
themselves in terms greater than their campuses.

How Electronic Seminars Differ from the Classroom
=================================================

The electronic seminar does differ from the classroom seminar
in a few significant ways. The nuances of non-verbal
communication are, for the most part, lost. As one gets to
know one's classmates, emotion and personality emerge on the
CRT to a surprising degree, but body language is not
transmitted. On the other hand, verbal communication is not
lost; everything that is said can be preserved for as long as
the conferees wish and reviewed by anyone in the conference at
any time. No worthy idea is lost because the instructor
failed to pick up on it at the moment it was expressed.
Equally, misstatements are not forgotten.

Other differences, too, seem to favor the electronic medium.
Conferencing is eqalitarian. Unless the instructor
technically restricts student input, every participant has an
equal opportunity to be heard and to be ignored (scrolled
past), so the value of reasoned argument and careful, concise
exposition are quickly understood. Class cannot be dominated
by the more agressive students. Those who shoot from the hip
or talk just to be noticed tend, I think, to feel pressure to
be more thoughtful, since the record shows that no one is
responding to their inputs. Those whose thoughtfulness or
shyness often exclude them from timely participation in
classroom discussion can set their own time and pace. A
common AMERDIPL reponse includes a phrase like, "I'll be back
after I give this more consideration." The AMERDIPL
experience also indicates that the electronic seminar generates
more interaction among members of the class and a greater
proportion of student participation compared to that of the
instructor.

Although students participating in the AMERDIPL pilot were
screened for comfort and familiarity with computers (only one,
however, was experienced in computer-mediated communication),
our impression is that, after an initial period of caution,
most students will not feel inhibited or anxious about taking
part in electronic discussions.

Implications of the Empire State College Experience
===================================================

Empire State College's experience with the electronic seminar
has been singularly positive, but the AMERDIPL experience has
indicated some aspects and implications of teaching by
conferencing to which replicators should pay careful
attention. For example, the computer is generally used to
aggregate, in some manner, discrete input. Participants in a
conference often approach this application in the same way,
expecting that each individual's contribution will somehow be
synthesized into a coherent whole. The egalitarian nature of
conferencing, however, treats each input discretely, and the
participants must make the linkages that bring coherency to a
discussion. This isn't really different from any group
discussion where each person wants his or her ideas heard
before s/he listens to others. Instructors of electronic
seminars cannot rely on the computer to direct, synthesize
or moderate discussion any more than their classroom
counterparts.

The individual, learner-directed nature of computer mediated
education and individual, undisciplined access to information
through the computer may decrease the shared knowledge of our
society. Arguably, it is the common lore of the culture,
pluralistic though it may be, that makes us a people rather
than a collection of individuals or small groups. I believe
that conferencing, a group learning environment, mitigates
this tendency of other pedagogical applications of the
computer, but conferencing may exacerbate it. Responses by
AMERDIPL students sometimes resemble monologues, rather than
discussion. Since conferencing is asynchronous, entry can be
its own immediate, unchallenged reward.

Developers of electronic seminars must also be sure that the
medium, content and instructional objectives are a pedagogical
fit. After the initial excitement of attending class by
computer, students will not sustain the seminar by themselves
if the subject or the instruction cannot sustain it. In this
regard, again, the electronic seminar is not different from
the classroom seminar.

Finally, we learned from AMERDIPL to keep it simple. Students
who enroll in a teleconferenced course are probably
sufficiently sophisticated computer users that the operating
system need not be simplistic. However, the objectives of an
electronic seminar are not found in the medium but the content.
Even experienced conferees or bulletin board users are rarely
interested in multiple-level command structures or high-level
editing and graphics functions. The conferencing system should
facilitate participation and dialogue. Empire State College
students receive a single sheet of CAUCUS commands and a half
page of instructions about accessing the VAX, no training or
manuals. Problems are addressed by e-mail or a telephone call
to the instructor of conference technician.

Computers have tremendous potential for inclusion -- of the
world, perhaps, through our keyboards. Unfortunately,
computer applications, as if by some natural law, often tend
toward exclusion. Conferences that require mastery of the
arcania of operating systems -- mere bells and whistles in the
context of the subject of teh conference -- will fail. They
will fail because they make the computer the object, rather
than the environment, of the learning. We don't study the
classroom in American Diplomacy.

------
Author's note: This paper is an abridged version of a longer
piece available from Lowell Roberts, Mentor/Coordinator of
Public Affairs Studies, Center for Distance Learning,
SUNY/Empire State College, 28 Union Avenue, Saratoga Springs,
NY 12866. (518-587-2100)

ENA UPDATE
by Lisa Kimball

Many ENA members have been traveling this summer - some have
taken a break from the online world and some have been signing
on from around the globe. Our collective experiences have
demonstrated again the range of obstacles which confront the
traveling networker and U.S. networkers have come to
appreciate some of the hassles our international colleagues
face daily. Removing barriers to global networking has been a
goal of ENA. We need to think of more effective ways to work
toward easier access for everyone.

The *hot* debate on the implications of FCC initiates which
impact packet switching continues on many networks. The
Public Interest Computer Association which consults with
non-profit organizations on the full range of computer
acquisition and management issues is sponsoring a half-day
seminar on FCC issues on September 9th. You'll find the
details in this issue of NETWEAVER.

Another important f-t-f conference sponsored by NSF and a
consortium of scientific and educational organizations will
take place in February. The theme is Technological Literacy.
The deadline for proposals for presentations and workshops is
November 15th. A detailed description of that conference is
also included in this issue.

Experiments with educational applications for computer
conferencing are increasing and we expect many more to begin
with the new fall semester. This month, you can read a
two-part article on "electronic seminars" which includes some
key points about the similarities and differences between
f-t-f and online classes.

You'll also find an interview with Susanna Opper on selling
computer conferencing to business. We also have two pieces by
a cc pioneer, Harry Stevens. He shares some of his insights
on organization and community building with cc and how it can
be applied to expert systems.

Enjoy!