CURRENT_MEETING_REPORT_ Reported by Art St. George/UNMexico Minutes of the Internet School Networking Working Group (ISN) The Internet School Networking Working Group met on April 1, 1993 at 1:30 during the Columbus IETF. The session was chaired by Art St. George (University of New Mexico) and Connie Stout (Texas Education Network). Jennifer Sellers, representing the NASA NREN Group, said that the K-12 networking Frequently Asked Questions document would be made into a standard before the Amsterdam IETF. She solicited comments for changes. She said she will post the document to Kidsnet and other mailing lists for review. A quick poll revealed that there were no K-12 educators in the room, with Connie Stout having the most direct involvement. Many in the room were involved in helping to get K-12 schools on the Internet, either as consultants, or as part of their jobs as network support people for universities or regional networks, or as consultants to K-12 schools, or out of personal interest. The observation was made that people supporting K-12 networking needed to continue their dialogue with the K-12 community, since their physical attendance at IETF was inlikely. Connie observed that some technical staff working for K-12 schools might attend future IETFs. There was some discussion of how K-12 schools should pursue funding for networking. Several observed that in some cases funding can be easy to come by with the right demonstration of need. Some attendees pointed out that inter-district funding disparities affect ability to network. Bill Manning, Rob Raisch, and a couple of other attendees said they would help devise a list of benefits of networking. Ray Perry of US West said his organization has prepared a video that shows advantages of network connectivity. Connie stated that she has met with twenty-two institutions involved with K-12 networking initiatives. Someone expressed a need for a list of all K-12 initiatives under way. Another attendee asked if private and parochial schools should be part of these initiatives; Connie's answer was ``yes.'' A distinction was raised between promotional versus ``how to'' documents; there is a need for both. It was observed that there is a wide range of skill levels among those interested in starting K-12 networks, and that there is a bootstrap process required to bring new schools and support staff on-line. There was some discussion on how to spread the word more broadly. One suggestion was giving talks at teacher conferences. Brochures from the Consortium for School Networking were handed out. (Connie Stout is the Chair; St. George is the Secretary- Treasurer. Their Listserv is 1 COSNDISC@bitnic.bitnet; subscribe via a mail message with ``SUBSCRIBE COSNDISC First_name Last_name''. General email goes to cosn@bitnic.bitnet.) Gene Hastings handed out (!) a document that lists a variety of connection options for K-12 schools. The document was a menu of options from dialup to frame relay and all points in between. There was some concern this document would overwhelm new sites. Consensus was eventually reached that the document fills a definite need and it should be refined and enhanced with another, more general document. Gene mentioned documents available for anonymous ftp from ftp.cc.berkeley.edu, under /k12. Connie observed that the average school has two phone lines serving twenty-two instruments. Connectivity can be a challenge. John Postel, one of the architects of Internet Domain Name Service, spoke on the evolution of DNS and the challenges presented by growing use of the name space. He proposed a model for delegating management of K-12 names to the states, where state authorities would manage names of the form: computer.school.k12.state.us This announcement led to some lively discussions. Connie observed that the ``edu'' domain was being used for universities exclusively in that model, and that K-12 educators felt that, as educators, the name belonged to them as well. She suggested that universities ought to use a new ``uni'' domain, and leave ``edu'' for the schools. This led to some discussion as to how this is handled abroad. In the U.K. it's ``.ac'' for ``academic community.'' A gentleman from Germany told their practice (which sounded like the word ``school'' is used). Connie observed that statewide education networks also need to be given .edu names; e.g., tenet.edu. Bill Manning pointed out that the question of whether domain names should be geographical or organizational is an old one. With 10 million Internet nodes on-line now and another 10 million coming something must be done to manage the namespace in a distributed fashion. Bruce Nelson spoke on ISOC/K12 committee issues. He said there is a need for K-12 focus within the Internet Society -- someone who serves as spokesperson. He said the Group needs to be sure to include an international perspective. He does not see the need for an advocacy group per se, but he does see a need to infuse ISOC with a K-12 perspective. There was more discussion of the various initiatives for K-12 networking. Art St. George asked if there was a need for a registry of consultants/advisers who can help new efforts. Discussion was inconclusive on this point. 2 Attendees Robert Beer r-beer@onu.edu John Boatright bryan_boatright@ksc.nasa.gov Thomas Brisco brisco@pilot.njin.net Al Broscius broscius@bellcore.com Sandy Bryant slb@virginia.edu Susan Calcari calcaris@cerf.net David Carr Carr@acsu.buffalo.edu Corinne Carroll ccarroll@bbn.com Douglas Carson carson@utcc.utoronto.ca Jodi-Ann Chu jodi@uhunix.uhcc.hawaii.edu Naomi Courter naomi@concert.net Brent Curtiss bcurtiss@magnuss.ocs.ohio-state.edu Mark Davis-Craig mad@merit.edu Dale Dougherty dale@ora.com Hans Eriksson hans@sics.se Sallie Fellows sallie@ed.unh.edu Dale Finkelson dmf@westie.mid.net Marcello Frutig frutig@rnp.impa.br Maria Gallagher maria@nsipo.nasa.gov Greg Gicale gicale@ohio.gov Terry Gray gray@cac.washington.edu Robert Gutierrez gutierre@nsipo.nasa.gov Martyne Hallgren martyne@nr-tech.cit.cornell.edu Raymond Harder rharder@eis.calstate.edu Susan Harris srh@umich.edu Eugene Hastings hastings@psc.edu Alisa Hata hata@cac.washington.edu Ellen Hoffman ellen@merit.edu Susan Horvath shorvath@merit.edu Barbara Jennings bjjenni@sandia.gov John Klensin klensin@infoods.unu.edu Edward Krol e-krol@uiuc.edu Hock-Koon Lim lim@po.cwru.edu Daniel Long long@nic.near.net Paul Lustgraaf grpjl@iastate.edu Gary Malkin gmalkin@xylogics.com Bill Manning bmanning@sesqui.net Janet L. Marcisak jlm@ftp.com April Marine april@atlas.arc.nasa.gov Jerry Martin jerry+@osu.edu Cynthia Mills cmills@bbn.com Bruce Nelson bnelson@novell.com William Owens owens@acsu.buffalo.edu Brad Parker brad@fcr.com Marsha Perrott mlp+@andrew.cmu.edu Roy Perry rperry@advtech.uswest.com Jon Postel postel@isi.edu Robert Raisch raisch@ora.com Joyce K. Reynolds jkrey@isi.edu Jennifer Sellers sellers@nsipo.nasa.gov Charlie Smith crsmith@osvi.edu Robert Ullmann Ariel@Process.com 3 Mario Vecchi mpv@thumper.bellcore.com Ruediger Volk rv@informatik.uni-dortmund.de Richard Wiggins wiggins@msu.edu Liang Wu ltw99@bellcore.com 4