****Begin File******************Begin File*******************Begin File**** *************************************************************************** ALAWON ALA Washington Office Newsline An electronic publication of the American Library Association Washington Office Volume 1, Number 18 December 18, 1992 In this issue: (189 lines) FROM THE EDITOR NREN REPORT ISSUED BY OSTP *************************************************************************** FROM THE EDITOR This is the second of three issues of ALAWON distributed on December 18. Vol. 1 No. 19 will be sent later today. *************************************************************************** NREN REPORT ISSUED BY OSTP President Bush's science advisor recently issued a report on six NREN policy issues on which Congress had requested advice. Rather than making any major policy recommendations, the document is more of a status report - - not surprising given the complexity of the issues and that the NREN statute was signed into law barely a year ago. The major weakness of the report is that it views the very broad current and near-term future use of the Internet and evolving NREN as pressure from non-federal constituency groups whose participation may not be appropriate for the NREN. This narrow view encompasses a very minor, if any, role for government in stimulating and taking advantage of the enormous potential the high- capacity NREN holds for transforming education and research, lifelong learning, small business information-seeking, and dissemination of government information. Such a narrow view is at odds with the provisions of the High Performance Computing Act itself, which calls for federal agencies to work with private network service providers, state and local agencies, libraries, educational institutions and organizations at all levels to ensure that researchers, educators, and students have access to libraries, electronic information resources, and government information. _The National Research and Education Network Program; A Report to Congress_ was submitted December 8 by D. Allan Bromley, Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, in response to a provision in the HPCA (PL 102-194), which called for a report by December 9 on the following six issues: (1) effective mechanisms for providing operating funds for maintenance and use of the Network, including user fees, industry support and continued Federal investment; (2) the future operation and evolution of the Network; (3) how commercial information service providers could be charged for access to the Network and how Network users could be charged for such commercial information services; (4) the technological feasibility of allowing commercial information service providers to use the Network and other federally funded research networks; (5) how to protect the copyrights of material distributed over the Network; (6) appropriate policies to ensure the security of resources available on the Network and to protect the privacy of users of networks. The report groups these issues according to three themes -- funding, transition, and protection. First, however, OSTP discusses the purpose and nature of NREN, clarifying that it is a logical, not physical, entity, and that it is a hierarchy of networks. The NREN architecture "is designed to create a synergy between the twin purposes of NREN: to establish a high speed network for research and education while catalyzing and accelerating the development and deployment of a national communications infrastructure." OSTP summarizes the shared funding sources for the operation of NREN as the federal government, the communications industry, information service vendors, and users. Left out of this funding partnership are the other levels of government, and the campuses and other institutions which have helped to build the Internet and will certainly contribute to the building and operation of the NREN. Also left out is the appropriate role of government in fostering and ensuring equity of access to and use of the NREN by institutions (such as schools and libraries) which serve a public purpose. The OSTP discussion of funding issues seems to envision federal support only for "users that serve federal missions." Concerning transition, OSTP describes the National Science Foundation approach to its proposed recompetition of the federal backbone, an architecture which separates the provision of Network Access Points (NAPs), the operation of the Routing Arbiter (RA), and organizations to provide very high speed Backbone Network Services (vBNS). On commercialization, the report states that the Federal Networking Council and its Advisory Committee "have agreed to a policy in this area. The intent is to promote the creation of new, commercially viable data communications products and services, to promote the growth of private sector sources, and to encourage the acquisition of services, as they become generally available, from private sector sources." On acceptable use policy, OSTP declares "that no information provider (public or private, for free or for fee) should be denied a connection to the net a priori unless it can be demonstrated that the information and/or service to be provided cannot possibly be used for mission support or in support of R&E." Under protection, the report suggests that "the 'common carriage' model fits the role of NREN network providers in many ways. The time tested rules and responsibilities applied to common carriers may well be appropriate to network providers." The report is balanced on protection of copyrights: "The rights of the creators of information, and the rights of the library and users of this information need to be balanced." And further: "Any technical means to ensure copyright protection on the NREN must provide for fair use, as must any legal arrangement." On security, the Federal Networking Council has chartered a Security Working Group to develop a security policy for NREN sponsored networks, with public input to be sought prior to adoption. The report also addresses constituencies and concerns. The main reference to libraries is fine as far as it goes, which is not very far: The library community is concerned that the libraries function as channels for users to access information service vendors and individual agencies providing information from diverse sources at predictable, economical, and equitable costs. Nearly all research libraries and some college, public, school, special, and state libraries are already connected, but no NREN funding has been targeted specifically for library connectivity. However, the Department of Education has targeted the nation's public libraries as access points to its network, SMARTLINE. This is an example of opportunities that exist to enhance library connectivity through research and education objectives. Concerning availability: "The NSF Connections Program, and similar programs sponsored by other Federal Agencies, are extending basic network service to an additional hundred or more institutions each year. Institutions being connected in the latter category include medical school campuses (under NIH sponsorship), and agricultural extension services." Future funding by NSF of mid-level networks "will not in general be for the purpose of subsidizing the provision of commodity services in competition with private businesses. Such funding will be for enhanced services such as white and yellow pages directories, and outreach to K-12 schools and other nontraditional communities (e.g., Public Health Service clinics on reservations)." Appendices discuss management and coordination issues, and the current NREN program, including a vision statement. In some respects, the vision is broad, interconnecting the community of researchers and scholars at all levels to one another and to the resources they use, such as databases and libraries, and serving as a "model for a more ubiquitous network offering developed under private, or other public efforts." In other respects it hedges: "It is the policy of the NREN Program to seek to accelerate this transition to the private sector, while not compromising the need for stable and consistent services by the R&E community." However, the close- to-the-last-word statement is narrow: "the focus remains on providing advanced, leading edge, and in some cases, prototype network services to the Nation's R&E community, rather than attempting to serve as a general public network." The OSTP report is available from the National Coordination Office for High Performance Computing and Communications, 8600 Rockville Pike, Bldg. 38-A, Room B1N30, Bethesda, MD 20894, 301-402-4100. ALA participated in two cooperative efforts to provide input to the OSTP report; both are quoted and cited by OSTP. _Proceedings of the NREN Workshop_ summarizes a September 1992 policy workshop sponsored by IEEE, EDUCOM, and the Computing Research Association. "Report to the Office of Science and Technology Policy on Library and Information Services' Roles in the National Research and Education Network" summarizes the July forum held by the U.S. National Commission on Libraries and Information Science. Both these activities were important in providing mechanisms for NREN constituencies to develop their opinions. The OSTP report extends only a modest recognition of the substantial work done by the communities for whom the NREN is to be developed. *************************************************************************** *************************************************************************** ALAWON is an irregular publication of the American Library Association Washington Office, 110 Maryland Avenue, N.E., Washington, DC 20002-5675. Editor and List Owner: Fred King. Phone: 202-547-4440; Fax: 202-547-7363; Bitnet: NU_ALAWASH@CUA; Internet: NU_ALAWASH@CUA.EDU All or part of ALAWON may be redistributed, with appropriate credits. ALAWON is available free of charge and is available only in electronic form. To subscribe, send the message "subscribe ala-wo [your name]" to listserv@uicvm (Bitnet) or listserv@uicvm.uic.edu (Internet). Instructions on how to retrieve back issues of ALAWON will be published in future issues. *************************************************************************** ***End of file******************End of file******************End of file***