Subject: Draft minutes for ETINU task force meeting

From: Christine Cahoon <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 10:18:18 +0000

Minutes of the TERENA ETINU Task Force meeting
Tuesday 27 January 1998
TERENA Offices, Amsterdam

Attendees
---------

George Munroe           GM    [email-masked]
Christine Cahoon        CC    [email-masked]
Peter Valkenburg        PV    [email-masked]
Pal Axelsson            PA    [email-masked]
Pantelis Balaouras      PB    [email-masked]
Panagiotis Saragiotis   PS    [email-masked]
Constantinos Vasilakis  CV    [email-masked]
Miroslav Milinovic      MM    [email-masked]
Melimet Okur            MO    [email-masked]
Dave Hartland           DH    [email-masked]
Nicky Ferguson          NF    [email-masked]
Geza Turchanyi          GT    [email-masked]
Erik Huizer             EH    [email-masked]

Agenda
------

1. Brief report on activities since Edinburgh meeting, May 1997
2. Survey progress and key observations for final report
3. Planned activity February-June 1998
4. First proposal for online user support toolkit contents
5. Open discussion
6. Summing up, confirmation of actions, and finish

After welcoming those attending the meeting, GM gave a brief
introduction explaining the objectives and purpose of the ETINU
task force. Minutes of the previous task force meeting held in
May 1997, Edinburgh were circulated. The actions from that
meeting were addressed and 'signed off'.

1. Brief report on activities
-----------------------------

A brief report was given on the task force activities so far.
The questionnaire set up to gather information about online user
support had been revised and the survey was launched on 17 November
1997. To date the questionnaire had received 350 returns. An
application to TERENA for funding had been accepted. Seven members
of the task force had agreed to take part in an evaluation panel
which will comment on the final survey report.

GM reported that people from non-English speaking countries were
not represented in the evaluation panel. PA from Sweden and MM from
Croatia volunteered to take part in the panel. It was agreed
there must be support for international codes in an online support
system to cater for non-English speaking countries.

Peter Valkenburg suggested using the TERENA contact list to target
countries from which no survey responses had been received.

2. Survey progress and key observations for final report
--------------------------------------------------------

CC gave a presentation on the results of a rough analysis of the
questionnaire returns received to date. Among the categories reported
on were:

   o  methods of providing user support
   o  methods for user to help themselves
   o  software to help with user support
   o  numbers involved in user support
   o  satisfaction ratings
   o  desirable features of a online support system
   o  importance of a standard approach

Full report at:

http://www.terena.nl/task-forces/tf-etinu/analysis.ppt

DH felt that although this survey analysis was not complete, it
should be made available as it would be of benefit and could
stimulate further constructive feedback.

It was reported from the discussion list, that there was concern
over a possible conflict between providing ease of use for the user,
ease of use of support staff, and ease of use of a manager. An
attempt will be made to deduce perceptions across the different
roles of the survey respondents.

Recommendations for further analysis of the returns:

   o  correlate satisfaction with purchased software, in-house
      and public domain
   o  breakdown by type of organisation
   o  numbers involved broken down by role (managers & support staff)
   o  queries submitted broken down by role (support staff & users)

PV said that the survey had been very worthwhile and that the first analysis
of the results seems to indicate that the relevant aspects of support have
been covered.

3. Planned activity February-June 1998
--------------------------------------

The dates and details of the planned activities were outlined:

January 1998        full survey report started
February 1998       list of most desirable features
March-May 1998      identify corresponding software
April-May 1998      prepare software repository & documentation
May-June 1998       submit informational RFC

There was some question as to the form of the final recommendations
report. It is likely that it will be produced as a TERENA Technical
Report and submitted as an informational RFC.

4. Online user support toolkit contents and interoperability of components
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

GM suggested a set of essential functions for online user support which
took into consideration desirable features. These included:

submission of queries
recording of queries
recording of responses to queries
frequently asked questions generator
indexing scheme
activity monitoring
links to URLs
presentations

For queries submitted either by email, telephone, in person or via
the web, all could be converted to a common form. In recording queries,
the query type and status should be logged and the ability to update
the query status should be allowed. It was suggested that users could
be allowed to clear their own queries (but there was definitely not
consensus on this).

It was felt that a frequently asked questions generator should not be
totally automated, but an option should be present for some human
interaction. A typical scenario could be: automatically search for the
frequency of words/phrases throughout queries/answers; determine frequent
occurrences and what should be a satisfactory description of question
and answer; alert support staff with a draft of a possible frequently
asked question. Support staff could then amend the FAQ entry for better
readability.

The group felt that an important requirement for enabling users to help
themselves was to ensure that 'user-speak' was catered for. So, for
example, if a user's experience was in terms of a 'black wriggily thing'
then that term should be visible in a searching system, and not hidden
behind difficult jargon.

An indexer could recognise external URLs, flag bad links and provide
automatic reports. A search facility could use an index and allow
searching by very simple 'metatags' such as keyword, date, topic,
originator of query, resolver of query.

The activities which should be monitored would include the rate of
resolution of queries in different query categories. It was agreed
that such monitoring should be as automatic as possible and not
put an additional workload on support staff.

5. Open discussion
------------------

EH outlined the usefulness of the 'Remedy' helpdesk software, and
recommended contacting Xander Jansen at the SurfNet helpdesk for
useful feedback.

6. Summing up, confirmation of actions, and finish
--------------------------------------------------

ETINU-98-01: GM to invite Xander Jansen, Pal Axelsson and Miroslav Milinovic
             onto the evaluation panel for the ETINU project final report.
ETINU-98-02: GM/CC to check TERENA members contact list and forward information
             about the survey, especially to countries not represented in the
             responses so far.
ETINU-98-03: CC send preliminary survey results to discussion list.
ETINU-98-04: GM/CC complete analysis on questionnaire results with regard
             to suggestions provided during meeting.
__________