IEEE's Internet Project

Are the IEEE's Internet services adequate in today's world? The delegates to Sections Congress '96 (SC '96) held last November in Denver, Colo., USA, have said "no." They have asked the IEEE to provide a wide range of Internet services and they have placed a very high priority on these kinds of services.

The complete set of 38 prioritized recommendations were reported in the January issue of The Institute. Elsewhere (above) in the current issue, our editor reports on the meeting of the IEEE Board of Directors in 1997 February and the initial report presented by the Electronic Communications Steering Committee (ECSC is an ad hoc committee of the Board of Directors). That ECSC report proposes a plan, the Internet Project, to respond to the six SC '96 recommendations that relate to Internet services.

This month I want to share some of the background behind that report and outline the process we are beginning -- to put improved Internet services in place.

THE RECOMMENDATIONS. First let's review what the delegates are asking for -- with these six recommendations:
R1 -- IEEE should provide electronic facilities on suitable servers that are interactively accessible by all IEEE members and entities. Services provided should include Web pages, e-mail, member services (including renewal), reporting technical information, IEEE information, training and help lines.
R2 -- Recommend that IEEE provide the electronic infrastructure for disseminating information down to section and chapter level to include directories, Web page links, ROOT/CAM, technological insights and practices.
R3 -- Enhance and facilitate electronic and personal communication with all IEEE entities by hosting interactive entity Web pages, improving SAMIeee, and better targeted advertising of member benefits services and conferences.
R4 -- Provide resources and mechanisms to improve, enhance and maintain a network of electronic communications, for the benefit of, and in cooperation with, regions, sections, branches, societies and chapters, and the members, by 1997 December.
R5a -- Recommend that to assist Sections with newsletter and publicity costs, IEEE provide financial and technical support to sections for the maintenance of a Web site for section home pages and provide e-mail aliases for all members.
R10 (with EAB) -- Provide and deliver quality application-oriented continuing education and effective electronic communications to meet the needs of members and customers.

The number preceding each recommendation is the priority ranking assigned by the voting delegates -- out of a total of 38, the ones relating to electronic communications constituted the top five and the tenth -- which was jointly assigned to the ECSC and the Educational Activities Board.

Once the recommendations are developed at the Sections Congress, the IEEE Executive Committee assigns each recommendation to a major board or committee of the IEEE for action. These six constitute the assignment given to the ECSC.

THE OVERVIEW. The members of the ECSC discussed these recommendations in the context of the ongoing activities behind the scenes at the IEEE Operations Center -- where most of the IEEE electronic communications services are managed in concert with the many volunteers who provide the leadership within our societies and sections around the world. In many ways SC '96 requests are an endorsement of IEEE's past actions in providing Internet services within and from our operations center using IEEE staff. But now our section volunteers are asking to have the same advantages at the local section level as we have at the corporate level. They say they need to be able to create and manage e-mail lists and Web pages on IEEE servers and to conduct IEEE business electronically. They are suggesting a much more extensive and intensive use of the Internet with much more information being made available to both volunteers and members on Web pages and via electronic mail.

For this to happen, we need to install and operate IEEE servers that IEEE section, chapter, student branch and society volunteers can access to create and use e-mail and Web-based (and related) services. We need to provide secure mechanisms to enable IEEE members and volunteers to conduct business transactions with IEEE -- joining IEEE, renewing membership, changing ongoing membership services, ordering products, registering for conferences, etc. We also need to provide the capability for members to read or search on-line publications -- that may not be available in the same way for non-members. For the thousands of volunteer leaders -- filing reports, reading conference guides, requesting information, making contacts and arrangements -- the list is as long as the IEEE is complex.

We also need to be able to differentiate between non-members and members, and between members of different societies (for example). We need to speed up the conversion of the huge amount of existing IEEE information to hypertext markup language (HTML) format so that it can be made available via the Web (and where appropriate -- via CD-ROM, fax, FTP, e-mail, etc., for those living where Web access is not realistic).

Some of these tasks are fairly straight forward and relatively simple to implement. Others require major changes in the business and technology processes we use at our operations center. Currently, member records, financial information, product catalogs and related computer data are all protected behind a firewall, which is an electronic barrier to prevent people outside of the operations center complex from accessing that computerized data. Ensuring that access by members to this data, in order to conduct a business transaction, must be implemented very carefully. The concept of information conversion to HTML format is straightforward, but the sheer volume and the complexity of the IEEE's multifaceted technical/educational/professional activities adds its own unique set of challenges.

THE INTERNET PROJECT. To achieve the goals set by the SC '96 delegates, the ECSC strategy is to propose a set of five action plans. The intent of the ECSC report to the Board of Directors in February was to notify the Board of the direction being proposed. Before the next meeting of the Board (in 1997 June), these action plans will be developed. This will involve looking at our use of technology and our business processes, building on the experience we have gained in both our current operations and several key pilot projects (more on these in future issues), setting target dates, producing cost estimates, and assembling teams of people (IEEE staff and volunteers). We also need to involve as many people as possible in providing input from two complementary points of view -- our members (including volunteers) as the customers of these future services, and staff and volunteers as the providers of these services. The five action items are:
A1 -- provide volunteer servers outside firewall;
A2 -- provide commerce servers inside firewall;
A3 -- provide IEEE information over the Web;
A4 -- improve section access to member information (SAMIeee);
A5 -- develop the ability to manage increased use of the Internet.

The report to the Board contains more details. It includes cross references to link specifics in the action items with each element of the six recommendations. More on these individual action items in future. PES CHAPTERS CONGRESS. Exactly four months previously, and in the same city (different hotel), the IEEE Power Engineering Society held its first Chapters Congress, modeled along the lines of the Sections Congress series (there have been five so far, held every three years). The PES Congress produced 80 recommendations for the PES leadership to consider -- 13 of those were related to the use of electronic communications. Many of these recommendations will be addressed by the response to the sections congress recommendations.

YOUR INPUT. We have set up an electronic discussion group for anyone to use to discuss and provide input. You can join this group by sending an e-mail message to " majordomo@majordomo.ieee.org " and placing the command "subscribe internetproject-d" on the first line of the message. You can send a message to everyone who has joined (subscribed to) this group by addressing your message to " internetproject-d@majordomo.ieee.org ".

WEB SITE. We have a Web site for this project. To access it from the IEEE home page, select "Electronic Communications" services (or go directly to " www.ieee.org/eleccomm "), then select "IEEE Internet Project." At present, this site contains the full initial report to the Board as well as links to the SC '96 recommendations, the electronic communications related recommendations from the PES Chapters Congress, and a number of links to pages about the Internet and Internet services. The discussion group "internetproject-d" is described. I hope that this site will serve as the primary source of information about this project. The discussion group is intended to be a significant venue for you to provide input to this project. I welcome your comments and suggestions on an ongoing basis.

DOWNLOADING IMAGES In my February column ("Adding graphics to your Web page"), I discussed the basic process whereby, every time you view a Web page, the HTML file and the associated graphics files are first stored in the memory of your PC and thus you have the capability to use those files (bearing in mind the relevant copyright laws and other such factors) for your own purposes. Several members pointed out to me that if you really want to copy a graphic in the simplest way possible, you position your cursor over the graphic, click on the right mouse button and specify where you want to save the file.