Editor's note: These minutes have not been edited. User Services Working Group Minutes IETF - Montreal, Quebec, Canada Monday, June 24th, 1300-1500 Chair: Joyce K. Reynolds/ISI (jkrey@isi.edu) Joyce Reynolds opened the session by providing a brief overview of, "What is the USWG?". Joyce also presented a report on IETF User Services Area activities, which included USV Area Working Group Status and related USV Area I-Ds. There are currently eight active working groups in this area. Six working groups met at this IETF. Two active working groups have completed their goals and are in process of shutting down. The following are the current USV Area related documents in process: draft-ietf-userglos-glossary2-01.txt - Approved by IESG for publication draft-ietf-trainmat-catalogue-06.txt - Approved by IESG for publication draft-ietf-ssh-handbook-03.txt A pointer was provided on a multilingual users glossary: http://wwli.com/translation/netglos/netglos.html David Hartland, convenor of TERENA's ISUS (Information Services and User Support) provided an overview and report of their meeting, which was held in Budapest, Hungary. Their email list is: wg- isus@terena.nl. David also provided a pointer for further information on TERENA and the ISUS meeting minutes: http://www.terena.nl The rest of the session focussed on the future vision and strategic intent of the USV Area in the IETF for the next two years. The group concluded that it shall continue to: - liase with TERENA ISUS, - update certain selected FYI RFCs, - continue to provide documentation for developing countries, and - liase with other IETF areas. Joyce reported on the IESG retreat that was held last April. She gave a presentation about the USV Area to the other Area Directors and the IETF Chair. She spoke about the continuing need for USV to intertwine with other IETF areas. So far, the results are that the Applications Area Directors (Harald Alvestrand and Keith Moore) are very interested in continuing to work with USV. The two ADs will work with Joyce on new USV/APPs working group tasks. Allison Mankin, co-AD of IPNG and AD of Transport is very interested in working with the USV area. Pat Smith (Merit) volunteered to attend working groups in Allison's areas and to report back to Joyce on what could be developed between the two groups. Pat and Allison will also coordinate between each other on potential working group endeavors. The Operations and Security area directors were reminded that we need to continue to liase like we have in the past. The "strategic intent" issue of this area is still being worked on, and should be completed by the December IETF in San Jose. There was quite a lively discussion during the session on where to steer the area in new directions. There were three issues of discussion that seemed to emerge with the most interest. Martyne Hallgren (Cornell) started off the discussion with the USWG on how we could research and develop a model to describe user needs and behavior. Then when these descriptive models have been determined, seek out technical solutions, if possible, to support problems. Michael Hrybyk (UBC) suggested that this group may want to standardize and enhance trouble ticket systems, which he felt was sorely needed. George Munroe (UNITE) contributed his ideas of integrating existing tools and inspiring network users to support each other using the mailing list approach. This is an endeavor that George and his UNITE (User Network Interface to Everything) team has been working on within TERENA's ISUS. Also, there is keen interest by ISUS to develop this concept further. Joyce, Martyne, Michael, George, and other interested parties will continue to pursue the above topics, and should have a report on progress for the USWG session at the next IETF in December.