Received: from lists.internic.net (lists.internic.net [198.41.0.15]) by adrift.harbornet.com (8.6.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id WAA15607 for ; Wed, 2 Oct 1996 22:49:29 GMT Received: from lists (lists.internic.net [198.41.0.15]) by lists.internic.net (8.7.4/LISTS-1) with SMTP id SAA16016; Wed, 2 Oct 1996 18:36:05 -0400 (EDT) Received: from LISTS.INTERNIC.NET by LISTS.INTERNIC.NET (LISTSERV-TCP/IP release 1.8b) with spool id 3113355 for NEWSLETTER@LISTS.INTERNIC.NET; Wed, 2 Oct 1996 18:36:00 -0400 Received: (tomn@localhost) by lists.internic.net (8.7.4/LISTS-1) id SAA16001; Wed, 2 Oct 1996 18:35:59 -0400 (EDT) X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24alpha4] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-ID: <199610022235.SAA16001@lists.internic.net> Date: Wed, 2 Oct 1996 18:35:58 -0400 Reply-To: Tom Newell Sender: Owner-Newsletter From: Tom Newell Subject: InterNIC News,Vol 1 Issue 7,Oct 1996 To: Multiple recipients of list NEWSLETTER Status: RO X-Status: InterNIC News October 1996 Volume 1, Issue 6 editor@internic.net In this issue: * From the Editor * What's in a Name? A Graphical Look at Registration Information * GLOBE: K-12 Stuents Using the Internet to Study Weather Patterns * DIPP: Simplifying Information Management * Networld + Interop - The Atlantic Connection This week-long conference and exhibition offered a tremendous array of activities and events for the networking professional * End-User's Corner Part two in a series of evaluations on Internet directory search engines. * Performance Measures InterNIC Statistics for July and August 1996 * User Feedback Tell us what you'd like to see in the InterNIC News * Using this material __________________________________________________________________________ >From the Editor By Tom Newell, Manager, InterNIC Information and Education Services ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Huey-ping Chang writes: To cope with the rapid growth of information, the Science and Technology Information Center(STIC) is planning to select resources over Internet and then translate the selected articles/news into Chinese to publish a weekly electronic jounal. This free E-zine will be entitled "Internet Newsletter". Since information on InterNIC is very informative and of much value, we therefore will periodically select information from your site. May we ask your permission to authorize us to translate your abstracts. Sources of whatever information will be introduced right after the Chinese abstracts. The STIC was inaugurated in 1974. It is a non-profit government organization, aiming at promoting research and development of science and technology to crea te a favorable environment in Taiwan, ROC. In the age of Internet, we consider its our responsibility to provide valuable resources to users from industrial, research as well as academic sectors. We therefore anticipate a positive reply from you to help enrich our "Internet Newsletter". Thank you very much for your understanding and look forward to hearing from you as soon as possible. Sincerely yours, Huey-ping Chang Editor of Internet Newsletter Science & Technology Information Center Editor's response: Hello, how encouraging to see that our materials are reaching such a wide audience! :) Certainly we encourage the widest distribution and re-use of the newsletter, provided the following statement appears: "This article is reprinted with permission from the InterNIC News, published by the InterNIC." This newsletter and its contents may not be sold for profit or incorporated in commercial documents without the written permission of the copyright holder. This material is based on work sponsored by the National Science Foundation under Cooperative Agreement #NCR-9218742. The Government has certain rights in this material." Regards, Tom Newell Manager, Information and Education Services InterNIC Registration Services tomn@internic.net ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- What's in a Name? By Tom Newell, Manager, InterNIC Information and Education Services ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Each month the InterNIC intends to use this column to share interesting, and hopefully useful, demographic information related to the domain name system and the registration process. We will include here in both table and graphic format, indications of the size of the "name space" available for Internet trainers to use in curriculum development. In this month's column, we provide: o Updated Contact Data The Sep 96 newsletter mistakenly identified the Contact statistic as describing Administrative Contacts. The actual data is for ALL contacts. o Cumulative Registration Numbers o Monthly Registration Numbers If a particular demographic would be of interest, let us know and we will work to include such information in future columns. Suggestions for future material may be sent to meter@internic.net. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Cumulative Registrations The figures below describe the total second-level names from the Top Level Domains of .COM, .NET, .ORG, .GOV, and .EDU as well as the two-letter country codes. The figures make no attempt to account for names which have subsequently been deleted. Information cut-off date: 8/31/96 Oct-95 156,943 Nov-95 174,782 Dec-95 198,731 Jan-96 226,144 Feb-96 263,704 [ Image at http://rs.internic.net/nic-support/nicnews ] Mar-96 306,279 Apr-96 351,708 May-96 400,826 Jun-96 456,378 Jul-96 512,937 Aug-96 579,423 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Monthly Second Level Domain Registration Rate The information below represents a count of completed name registrations for a particular month. It does not account for names deleted at any point following registration. Information cut-off date: 8/31/96 Oct-95 17,777 Nov-95 16,357 Dec-95 21,786 Jan-96 25,283 Feb-96 33,895 [ Image at http://rs.internic.net/nic-support/nicnews ] Mar-96 38,596 Apr-96 41,587 May-96 44,881 Jun-96 51,260 Jul-96 51,725 Aug-96 60,550 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Registered Contacts Grouped by State Information cut-off date: 9/30/96 Grouped by Count by State: Total: 410524 US Totals: 334714 Non-US Totals: 75810 CA 80583 NY 23769 TX 19952 FL 16654 MA 16076 IL 11125 PA 10781 NJ 10724 WA 10705 VA 10654 CO 9724 OH 8790 MD 7888 GA 7613 MN 6853 MI 6677 AZ 6124 OR 5607 CT 5414 NC 4866 WI 4641 IN 3954 UT 3754 MO 3676 DC 3623 TN 3159 NH 2368 KS 2091 OK 2065 LA 2059 AL 2045 NV 1891 IA 1765 NM 1756 KY 1745 SC 1546 HI 1452 NE 1284 ME 1076 RI 1052 ID 1019 AR 959 DE 957 VT 840 MS 757 MT 591 AK 526 WV 402 SD 373 WY 271 ND 253 PR 183 VI 2 GU 1 __________________________________________________________________________ GLOBE: Warming up for the New School Year By Rich Landers, Information and Education Services __________________________________________________________________________ Two major challenges that k-12 educators are faced with today are 1) teaching the tools of modern technology, so students can acquire the skills necessary to succeed in the 21st century; and 2) conveying a sense of responsibility for the condition of the earth, so that they may pass on a healthy planet to future generations. The GLOBE program addresses these challenges with the help of the Internet and the administration efforts of the NASA, NOAA, EPA, and the NSF. Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE) is a worldwide network of students, teachers, and scientists working together to study and understand the global environment. K-12 students in the GLOBE Program make environmental measurements daily, weekly, and seasonally with the guidance of their teachers. Students send the data they have collected over the Internet to the GLOBE Student Data Archive, where it is available to scientists and other students for research and analysis. Scientists process GLOBE data and provide feedback to the students to enrich their science education. Daily images created from the GLOBE student data sets are posted on the World Wide Web, allowing students and visitors to the GLOBE web site to visualize the student environmental observations. This is a wonderful opportunity for young people to learn about the scientific research process and environment while using the Internet to collect, send, and analyze scientific data. As a result, GLOBE students from over 3000 schools in 39 countries are cataloging a core set of scientific observations and sharing their data with each other and with the scientific community. This is an excellent opportunity for teachers to integrate computers and the World Wide Web into classroom activities, and to develop a sense of the importance of our global environment. What makes this program so appealing to scientists is that GLOBE students throughout the world are providing scientific measurements every day at or near their schools. This support is invaluable to scientists who rely on worldwide data elements. The GLOBE student data are used to create environmental images of the world or of a part of the world. The images shown here are "contour plots" of maximum temperature in the United States and in Europe, based on GLOBE student observation data. These images are compared to reference images created using data from other sources to provide an overall picture of our global climate and the gradually changing environmental variables of our planet. In addition to working with scientists, GLOBE students share their data and their experiences with other GLOBE students at schools around the world. For example, here is a GLOBEMail message from a GLOBE school in Finland to a GLOBE school in the United States. The GLOBE student body has gathered a wealth of information that is beginning to yield some impressive results. Since there aren't very many weather stations at some of the remote GLOBE student data collection sites, GLOBE students are frequently the only source for important scientific data. On certain remote islands in the Pacific the students account for nearly 25% of all the data being collected! Scientists have been combining the student data with data from the weather services (treating the data the students collect with as much validity as the weather services collection) to look for changes in rainfall patterns. Although the GLOBE program hasn't been around long enough to note any major environmental changes, GLOBE scientists have been able to detect changes in the amount of rainfall being received in some regions. This is interesting because one of the predictions of global climate models is that if the world really is warming up there will be changes in precipitation patterns. It's too early to tell if the changes being reported are really due to global climate change, but it certainly proves that the students' efforts are very useful to the scientific community. Even in Oklahoma, where there is a large number of official weather stations around the state, the students can find that there is a significant difference in the temperature or precipitation at their school compared to the weather stations several kilometers away. The student data can help meteorologists understand the small scale variations in temperature and precipitation, and this will ultimately help them to become better weather forecasters. The measurements students make of clouds, temperature, and precipitation are all important in truly understanding our day-to-day weather, as well as the long-term climate of our planet. It takes patience to be a weather observer, and to look for small changes in these variables. Scientists agree that the GLOBE student data will make a real contribution in our efforts to study our planet's health! Participating in the GLOBE Program Participating in the GLOBE Program is easy and requires minimal time. Teachers are required to attend the GLOBE Teacher Training Workshop so that they can perform the necessary scientific measurements. Students will measure air temperature,precipitation, water temperature and pH, and other important environmental parameters. Results are then sent to the GLOBE Student Data Archive via the Internet, where scientists and other students will use the data in their research. For example, GLOBE students at Jamestown Elementary have been entering data from the very first day of the program, April 22, 1995. Under the leadership of GLOBE Teacher Maureen Herman, a special manual has been developed for parents and local scout leaders who have volunteered to take students to the GLOBE study sites over the summer. Ms. Herman and her students trained over a dozen parent volunteers in the science protocols. Jamestown has hosted a number of dignitaries at their GLOBE study site, including U.S. Vice President Al Gore and U.S. Deputy Secretary of Education Madeline Kunin. Jamestown students also discussed their GLOBE activities and demonstrated GLOBE student data entry and GLOBEMail in a March 1996 press conference at the National Science Foundation during National Science and Technology Week. GLOBE science and education activities help students reach higher levels of achievement in science and math. GLOBE helps to increase the environmental awareness of all individuals while increasing our scientific understanding of the earth. GLOBE students see that their inputs are valuable in a continuing effort to understand a difficult scientific task. They gain an appreciation of the Internet and the earth, and the importance of contributing to a project that needs their support to succeed. For more information about the GLOBE Program, call the GLOBE Help Desk at 1-800-858-9947 or send e-mail to help@2globe.gov. You may visit the GLOBE web site at http://globe.fsl.noaa.gov. ________________________________________________________________________ University of Colorado Strives to Improve Information Management with DIPP By Hope Glass, Information and Education Services _________________________________________________________________________ The University of Colorado at Boulder and ENFO have teamed up to develop a Distributed Information Services Model based on the Distributed Information Processing Protocol (DIPP). "DIPP is an emerging protocol that automates necessary procedures to transform a word processing file into a set of web pages with links to related materials," said George Brett, Co-Principal Investigator of the task force at Boulder. The model includes a draft explanation of the digital publishing process from document submittal to final presentation on a web platform. Pre-alpha testing has already begun in Boulder as the task force continues developing the necessary documentation to introduce the DIPP system in the standards process of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). The DIPPswitch software is built upon an open standard intended to encourage broad development in the future. Using DIPP as a standard, the task forces goal is to enable information to be published on the Internet without the current requirements of high technical expertise. "Its a chance for organizations to re-allocate expensive resources and move away from the lengthy and often mundane task of HTML coding," said Brett. A public gamma version is due out the first quarter of 1997. For more information see DIPPs home page at http://www.colorado.edu/DIPP/. ________________________________________________________________________ 15 Minute Series Update: Introduction by Robin Murphy We have been pleasantly surprised by the interest and enthusiasm of the research and education community, and indeed the entire Internet community, in response to the release of the 15 Minute Series on August 31st of this year. In the month since we made the training materials available to the public, our development team has received lots of feedback - comments, questions, suggestions, and generous offers of assistance. We are delighted to hear from you. To help you keep up with new developments in the 15 Minute Series, and to let you know that we really are paying attention to your feedback :), we are pleased to announce a new regular monthly feature in our newsletter: The 15 Minute Series - Update. __________________________________________________________________________ The 15 Minute Series - Update by Anna Carts, InterNIC Information and Education Services This monthly feature will provide a listing of new modules added to the collection, keep you abreast of new developments, and let you know what we are working on in response to our user feedback. The 15 Minute Series - Update will also provide readers with a review of some of the more frequently asked questions that come from our users. We hope these 15 Minute FAQs will answer your questions even before you can ask them, hopefully saving your time for more important things - like training. We encourage your feedback, questions and ideas. You can contact us via e-mail at 15min@internic.net or by using our feedback form (http://rs.internic.net/nic-support/15min/form.html). --------------------------------------------------------------------------- What's New? We are working on several new features for the 15 Minute Series including "packaged" HTML files and improvements for Lynx users. New Modules We are currently developing twenty new modules to be added to the 15 Minute Series. These modules will populate the "History", "Organizations", "Tools", and "Future" categories, as well as add more modules to the existing categories. "Packaged" HTML files There have been several requests for a method to download an HTML version of a module as a single file, rather than having to download each page (and each image) of a module as a separate file. We are close to finalizing this process and plan to make it available within the month. In addition, we will provide documentation for this new feature in the "Instructions for using the 15 Minute Series" section of the 15 Minute Series website (http://rs.internic.net/nic-support/15min/help.html). Lynx Improvements We have heard from several Lynx users asking for easier navigation in the HTML versions of the modules. We are working to provide navigation buttons that will better accommodate Lynx users and hope to have an improved system in place soon. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 15 Minute FAQs Q: Is it possible to use the 15 Minute Series outside of the United States? A: Absolutely! Please do. Q: Can I "customize" the 15 Minute Series for my own particular training needs? A: Yes, this is part of the flexibility of the 15 Minute Series. The 15 Minute Series can be "customized" in that slides or pages can be added to a module to reflect a trainer's local situation. There are some guidelines to help you with this endeavor; they can be found in the "Instructions for using the 15 Minute Series" section of the 15 Minute Series website (http://rs.internic.net/nic-support/15min/help.html). Select the topic "Extending the 15 Minute Series Modules". When you extend a module, please keep in mind the following points: 1. The copyright notice must be retained on all materials that were published by Network Solutions, Inc. 2. The copyright notice does not need to appear on additional slides that you create using our templates. Q: How can I find out when new modules are added to the 15 Minute Series? A: Read this column! Each month in this column, we will list new modules, provide updates, and share comments and questions from the users of the 15 Minute Series. Q: I'm having problems downloading or using the PowerPoint versions of the modules. Can you help me? A: If you tried downloading PowerPoint files soon after the 15 Minute Series was released, you may have encountered problems. Many of these glitches were due to the fact that we initially provided the PowerPoint files in version 7.0. Thanks to your feedback, we are now providing the PowerPoint files in version 4.0. These files can be used by both MAC and PC, with PowerPoint version 4.0 or better. We have discovered that some user problems involved the configuration of the PowerPoint software on their computers. If you receive an error message when you try to open a downloaded PowerPoint file, please contact your local computer support personnel first. However, if you encounter any problems with the PowerPoint versions that you would like to tell us about, please include the following information: 1. PowerPoint version 2. Platform (Mac, PC, etc.) 3. Which decompression software you're using 4. The word-for-word text of any error messages you receive This information will enable us to respond to you in an efficient manner. Concerning the PowerPoint files, there are two important items to keep in mind. First, the PowerPoint files are compressed, so you will need to decompress them before opening them in PowerPoint. Secondly, the files can only be opened in PowerPoint version 4.0 or better. Q: I can't find a PowerPoint viewer that can be used with Windows 3.1/MAC/etc. A: We provide links to both the Microsoft web (http://www.microsoft.com/) and ftp (ftp://ftp.microsoft.com) sites from the 15 Minute Series Instructions page. The free PowerPoint viewer is provided by Microsoft, not the InterNIC. Therefore, we are not really in a position to address questions regarding the availability of a particular version of the PowerPoint viewer. Questions concerning the availability of particular versions of the free PowerPoint viewer, or questions about platforms that are supported should be addressed to Microsoft. Q: Is there a way to download the HTML version of a module as a single file, rather than having to download each page as a separate file? A: Not yet, but our development team is currently working on "packaged" versions of the modules, and we hope to have them available within the month. Please see the "What's New" section for details. Q: Can the InterNIC keep the directory and file names to an eight character name with a three character extension? A: We are aware that many of our users work in DOS/Windows environments. Consequently, the filenames for the zipped PowerPoint files are being limited to eight characters with a three character extension. However, because we work in a UNIX environment, we are not restricted to this format and we've made some exceptions to the 8/3 character rule. For example, we felt it would be less confusing to users of the ftp directory to see a file called "table-of-contents.txt", instead of an abbreviation. Also, within our UNIX environment, we use the four character .html extension. Q: Some of the module categories are empty... what's going on? A: We prepared 21 modules for the initial release of the 15 Minute Series. The 15 Minute Series will grow as we develop more modules, and solicit contributions from the community. To clarify which categories do not currently contain modules, we've added the comment "coming soon". We currently have modules in development for the "History", "Organizations", "Tools", and "Future" categories. ________________________________________________________________________ Searching the Internet Part II: Subject Catalogs, Annotated Directories, and Subject Guides By Jack Solock, Special Librarian --------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Internet is about computerized information made readily available at fantastic speeds to people all over the world. It promises an incredible increase in the transmission of information through the passage of bytes from computer to computer. It's automated, and it's fast! Ironically, one of the most difficult things about using the Internet for research is finding the information you need. Last month (http://rs.internic.net/nic-support/nicnews/archive/september96/) we discussed automated search indexes, one way of finding Internet information. However, as we will see, there are also Internet search guides that are manual. The subject directories and hierarchies people maintain are, for all their shortcomings, more powerful to users (especially new users) who are asking the question: "What can I find on the Internet about history, or economics, or women's studies, or medicine?" or any of hundreds of subjects. Automated search indexes are poor at answering these questions because they provide little organization or structure to the results they spit back in response to a query. The search indexes receive a relevance score, but that is no substitute for organization and structure. The structure and organization of resources which have always helped traditional library users are available in other kinds of Internet search tools, which we call subject directories. This month's column will be devoted to a discussion of subject directories. Subject directories are categorizations of Internet resources, and are meant to be browsed, although most can also be searched. As we discussed last month, search indexes are collections of Internet links, built by "spider" programs that automatically deposit links in a searchable database. Subject directories, on the other hand, are produced and maintained by people, and resources are collected by either resource-owner submission or selection by librarians, editors, or subject specialists. Most of these directories contain search interfaces, but they are often more rudimentary than the ones discussed in last month's column, serving instead as a gateway to a subject hierarchy which the user can browse for information about a topic. The main difference between subject directories and search indexes is the level of human intervention in the creation of the directory. It is this human intervention that filters and classifies resources so that busy researchers can quickly find what is of use to them, rather than searching every page of hundreds of thousands of sites. These directories (except for the very largest ones) contain far fewer resources than search indexes. However, this can actually be advantageous to the user. There is much less "chaff" to cut through to obtain the "wheat." As with all things human, each directory is unique, with its own set of advantages and disadvantages. Which one is best for you is a personal preference, but we will point out some of the better ones. We will categorize subject directories by the amount of human intervention. The categories are subject catalogs, annotated directories, and subject guides. A "subject catalog" is very much like a library subject card catalog. Users look in the catalog under the subject heading that they are interested in and find resources. An "annotated directory" has resources listed in a subject hierarchy, but each resource is further analyzed by an editor, librarian, or subject specialist. It is then annotated to give the user a more detailed idea of what the resource is, and, in some cases, rated based on an established set of criteria. A "subject guide" contains a still deeper level of human analysis, in that a person or persons (editors, librarians, or subject experts) have filtered resources in a single subject and created a guide (sometimes annotated) to that subject. Implicit in the notion of a guide is that its resources will be of high quality because of the amount of filtering and the level of expertise of its author. Having a set of these guides at one site would give users the highest level of filtering and analysis, and thus the highest quality resources. Eight directories that fall into these categories are old Internet veterans, well established and respected. Looking at them categorized will help users decide which one to use. The directories, arranged by type, are: Subject Catalogs Yahoo: http://www.yahoo.com/ Search help: http://www.yahoo.com/docs/info/help.html Features: http://www.yahoo.com/docs/info/features.html Bulletin Board for Library Systems (BUBL) -- Universal Decimal Classification (UDC): http://www.bubl.bath.ac.uk/BUBL/Tree.html BUBL -- alphabetical: http://www.bubl.bath.ac.uk/BUBL/Treealphabet.html BUBL search: http://bubl.bath.ac.uk/BUBL/ice.html BUBL search help: http://www.bubl.bath.ac.uk/BUBL/icehelp.html Galaxy: http://www.einet.net/ Search help: http://www.einet.net/howto.html#SEARCH Galaxy information: http://www.einet.net/about.html Annotated Directories McKinley's Magellan: http://www.mckinley.com/ Search and ratings help: http://www.mckinley.com/cgi-bin/options.cgi Information about Magellan: http://www.mckinley.com/feature.cgi?faq_bd Lycos Top 5% (formerly Point): http://point.lycos.com/categories/index.html InterNIC Directory of Directories: http://www.internic.net/ds/dsdirofdirs.html Search help (Harvest): http://ds2.internic.net/Harvest/brokers/queryhelp.html Sample queries (Harvest): http://ds2.internic.net/Harvest/brokers/dod/sample_queries.html Search help (WAIS): http://www.internic.net/ds/dsdirofdirs.html Click on "Search help" for the WAIS search engine. Subject Guides Argus Clearinghouse (formerly University of Michigan Clearinghouse for Subject Oriented Guides): http://www.clearinghouse.net/ Search help (very rudimentary): http://www.clearinghouse.net/search.html Ratings Guide: http://www.clearinghouse.net/docs/ratings.html Collection Development Policy: http://www.clearinghouse.net/docs/submit.html World Wide Web Virtual Library Subject Catalog: http://www.w3.org/pub/DataSources/bySubject/Overview.html Category Subtree: http://www.w3.org/pub/DataSources/bySubject/Overview2.html The directories and their features are presented in a table (PLACE TABLE URL HERE) for your convenience. We will not discuss the intricacies of using their search engines. Interested users should use last month's column as a guide. We will discuss certain features of the directories to help users analyze which ones are most applicable to them. These features should help you to determine the amount of filtering and quality analysis that has taken place in each directory. Some of the features you should look for in a directory are: Search capability: Most, but not all subject indexes have this and it is crucial, especially with the larger, multi-hierarchy indexes. The reason for this is that each subject index uses different subject terms and arranges subject hierarchies differently. Hierarchies are, in all examples but one (BUBL) "home grown," and arbitrary. Which subject hierarchy a resource is listed under is also arbitrary (again, except for BUBL). You may or may not find the same resource under the same term or hierarchy in Yahoo and Galaxy, for example. In this case, you use a two-step process: first, search the index to find the subject terms your query is listed under, and then browse that (or those) categories for more resources. Site discrimination: Does the directory choose what it thinks are quality resources, or does it take almost anything submitted and place it in the subject hierarchy? Rating: Are resources rated? Rating acts as a filter to alert users to whether the resource they are looking at is of high quality, and how good (in the opinion of the rater) it is. Ratings are of course subjective, and depend largely on the following. Rating system: What is it? Is it "good or bad," "four star," "35 points," etc.? You must know what the rating system is in order to determine what it means. Rating criteria: This answers the question "What qualities does 'four star' represent?" Most rated directories use similar criteria, but they should state those criteria clearly. Who rates: Since ratings are subjective, it is always helpful to know who is doing the rating. Most of the subject indexes that rate are fairly obscure when it comes to actually identifying who does the rating. The terms "editor" and "writer" are often used. Site annotation: The more site annotation available, the better, because it tells the user that someone has analyzed the site long enough to summarize its contents. The annotation should give the user a concise idea of site content before he or she connects to it. If an index discriminates in the sites it contains, and annotates those sites, the user has the benefit of a double filter, and thus has a better chance of finding quality resources. Who annotates: It is best to have subject specialists or trained information specialists analyze a site. However, the user must always make the final judgement of the site based on its content. Analysis: The best subject indexes are those with the most human intervention. They intervene in discriminating which sites they pick, rating those sites, and annotating them. However, in the case of the Argus Clearinghouse, the entire process of site selection for their subject guides has been given over to subject specialists, allowing for a level of site discrimination that (although guide quality varies from subject to subject) makes their guides the place to start when looking for subject-specific information. McKinley's Magellan is the best annotated directory because of both the number of annotated sites, and the level of annotation of each site. While Yahoo is the most comprehensive subject catalog, it takes almost anything submitted and puts it into a hierarchy that is difficult to navigate without prior searching. It straddles the line between subject directory and search index, and many people use it both ways. A better, although much less comprehensive subject catalog is the Bulletin Board for Libraries (BUBL). Its producers provide the catalog in both Universal Decimal Classification and alphabetic subject format. Its selectors are librarians, and while this does not guarantee excellence, it does guarantee that people whose job it is to select and categorize information are doing that job. You may not agree with these picks, or may feel there are better subject directories on the Internet than the ones discussed here. The point is to find the directory that is best for you, that consistently provides you with the best resources, and then use it. This quick comparison will show you that these directories, because they have different strengths, can be used in combination to provide better results. Yahoo, Galaxy, and the Internet Directory of Directories contain lots of resources but little filtering. Magellan and the Lycos Top 5% give high ratings to very different kinds of resources. Argus Clearinghouse and W3C Virtual Library produce entire guides on single subjects. The important thing is to know what you're looking at when you look at a subject directory. As with search indexes, subject directories have inherent problems. The above-mentioned problem of arbitrary and uncontrolled hierarchies is the biggest. It is sometimes difficult to determine who puts resources where in the subject hierarchy--the resource submitters or the owners of the directory. Selecting or not selecting a resource, rating it, and annotating it are very subjective processes. Because Magellan gives a site 28 points out of 30 ("four stars"), does not guarantee the site is a quality site for every user. That determination must be made by the user. However, the fact that resources have been categorized, and in some cases selected, rated, and annotated, means that users are likely to find more quality resources in these directories than by searching an automated index. Which directory contains the most quality resources? Which contains the highest quality resources? That is for the user to determine. Users must determine quality much more on the Internet than in other avenues of publication because the filters that have long existed in those avenues do not exist at this time on the Internet. This is, of course, good and bad. It is good in the sense that the Internet can be a publishing avenue for information that doesn't make it through publishing filters. It is bad in the sense that those publishing filters have long been perceived as quality filters as well. The Internet has been criticized for having a low quality of information. How does the user determine the quality of an information resource in a networked environment? We turn next to that question. For more information on subject directories, see the Scout Toolkit: http://www.cs.wisc.edu/scout/toolkit/search.html http://rs.internic.net/scout/toolkit/search.html Table 1. A comparison of filtering features for eight Internet subject directories. Search Site Site Ratings Rating Site Who Discrim- Ratings System Criteria Annota Annotates ination -tion SUBJECT CATALOGS Yahoo! Y N Y Glasses Presentation/ Brief Submitters Icon Content BUBL Y Y N N/A N/A Y Librarians Galaxy Y N Y N N/A N/A N/A ANNOTATED DIRECTORIES Content Depth Magellan Y Y Y 30 pts. Organization Y Editors Net Appeal Content Lycos N Y Y 50 pts. Presentation Y Editors Experience InterNIC Directory of Y N N N/A N/A Y Submitters Directories SUBJECT GUIDES Level of resource description Level of Argus 1 - 5 resource Guide Clearing- Y Y Y check evolution Varies maintainer house marks Guide design Guide organization Guide meta- info W3C Virtual Guide Library N Y N N/A N/A Varies maintainer Key: Y=Yes N=No N/A=Not Applicable Directories that list "Y" under annotation do not necessarily annotate every site in the directory. Note that the Argus Clearinghouse rating system rates the guides, not the individual resources within the guides. ___________________________________________________________________________ NetWorld + Interop - the Atlanta Experience By Robin Murphy, InterNIC Support Services NetWorld + Interop marked a decade of networking summits last month in Atlanta (Sept. 16-20). Whether you were interested in continuing professional education, checking out new products and services, or trying to stay on top of today's hot networking topics, this week-long conference and exhibition offered a tremendous array of activities and events for the networking professional. For those who came to learn, opportunities ranged from intensive two-day tutorials and one-day workshops to interactive ATM classrooms and live product testing. The tutorials, part of the NetWorld + Interop educational program, offered students the expertise and experience of leading practitioners and researchers in the networking field. Tutorials were classified so that students could pick sessions geared toward their specific interests and level of expertise. The "Fundamentals" (100) track focused on the basic principles, theory, and practices of networking; "Administrator" (200) track sessions assumed students were already involved in technical management; "Engineer" (300) sessions targeted experienced programmers and implementors; and "Decision-maker" (400) track sessions were aimed at those in top-level network management. One-day workshops provided practice-oriented sessions that explained specific networking technologies or illustrated examples of particular project implementations. Included in the price of a number of tutorials and workshops were textbooks written by the instructors. To make planning easier for attendees, the General Conference program, which spanned three days, was split into six different themes. These themes were: Switched Internetworking and High-speed LANs; ATM; Emerging Internets; Network Management and Security; Computer Telephony Integration; and Wireless, Media, and Transmission. By the end of the week, well over 100 conference sessions, workshops, and tutorials had been offered in Atlanta. Down on the exhibit floor, the industry's promotional side was in full swing. Amid a sea of polo shirts, monitors, and cable (approximately 135 miles of cable!), exhibitors from every walk of networking were available to discuss the latest in product and technology development. Exhibit events, free to all attendees, offered new product testing, panel discussions among industry leaders, introductory sessions, and several special sessions. These special sessions included presentations on the results of the industry-wide comparative ATM switching test and evaluation and the 1996 ISDN Router and Bridge evaluation. Internet News Radio, sponsored by Communications Week, Interactive Age Digital, and NetGuide, audiocast live every day from the exhibit hall. On an informal note, the "Birds-of-a-Feather" (BOF) sessions offered a chance to exchange ideas, experiences, and "lessons learned" with colleagues across the industry on specific topics. Even more casual were the myriad conversations and business exchanges taking place in the halls, aisles, over lunch tables at the CNN Center, and in the hotel lobbies throughout the week. Networking, in every sense of the word, was everywhere. In an adjoining hall, Interop DotCom ran concurrently, catering specifically to Internet business applications. Netscape offered "Netscape Day," and the Netware User Conference and Network Analysis Forum provided additional choices for those who were after specific solutions for their local and networking situations. Regardless of why you came to Atlanta, it was impossible to leave empty-handed. Whether you left with solutions to your company's networking needs, new knowledge, or even a free t-shirt, there was something for just about everyone in the field. __________________________________________________________________________ Registration Services Performance Measures for July 1996 Purpose The following performance measures are provided in accordance with the requirements of Amendment 4 to Cooperative Agreement No. NCR-9218742, Network Information Services Manager(s) for NSFNET and the NREN: INTERNIC Registration Services. Performance Communication Received by InterNIC Registration Services Type Number of contacts E-mail to hostmaster@internic.net 221,961 Postal/fax 2,475 Phone 33,497 Information Server Performance Type Connections Retrievals Gopher 449,781 786,680 WAIS 1,155,448 684,007 FTP 885,025 2,558,470 Mailserv 47,370 Telnet 1,446,018 HTTP 31,100,347 WHOIS Queries Client Server 10,762,50086,651,217 Second-Level Domain Registration Summary These figures are cumulative from August 1993 through July 1996. Top-level domain Number COM 506,472 EDU 2,843 ORG 33,989 NET 19,971 GOV 458 US 239 Other country 182 Total 564,154 __________________________________________________ Using This Material ------------------------------------------------- You are encouraged to use and redistribute the InterNIC News, provided the following conditions are met: Permission to copy or use material from the InterNIC News newsletter is hereby granted subject to inclusion of the following statement: "This article is reprinted with permission from the InterNIC News, published by the InterNIC." This newsletter and its contents may not be sold for profit or incorporated in commercial documents without the written permission of the copyright holder. This material is based on work sponsored by the National Science Foundation under Cooperative Agreement #NCR-9218742. The Government has certain rights in this material. -------------------------------------------------