| Chris Bayliss | The University of Birmingham |
| Tim Clark | Warwick University |
| Richard Eade | The Nottingham Trent University |
| Andy Humberston | De Montfort University |
| Andy Jack | Nottingham University |
| David Roberts | University of Leicester |
| Dennis Jackson | UKERNA |
| Rob Thirlby | Loughborough University |
| Phil Findon | Aston University |
The minutes were accepted. They had been published on the WWW (http://www.bham.ac.uk/midjug).
None were identified.
The resignation of the secretary was announced, but as this was the first announcement it was not expected to find an immediate replacement. It is hoped that a replacement can be identified before the next meeting, and all members are urged to try to find a suitable volunteer.
No changes were identified.
The report can be found on the WWW at http://www.ja.net/documents/reports/winter97.html. A few areas were highlighted.
SuperJanet 3 was on target; the inner ring appears to work
It was unclear in what the ranking of the news server within the top 1000 meant.
The original contract had been extended by 18 months.
It was assumed that these colleges would be able to send representatives to Janet regional user groups.
These had been announced on the JNUG list which includes the MIDJUG list and are available at http://www.niss.ac.uk/jnug/national/min_10_97.html.
International bandwidth and related issues were discussed.
Junk email was raised, which resulted in a report from Rodney Tillotson. This led to some discussion and it was reported that Stanford University had a list of sites which could be used as a basis for blocking. UKERNA should be a repository of information about junk email and possibly block certain networks.
Julia Hill was progressing the problem of improving the effectiveness of the voice of the user groups through JNUG. There were concerns about the change in relationship, and the fact that JISC often decide on matters before user groups have had the opportunity to make an impact.
There was some discussion of authentication and use of PGP. No apparent direction was identified and authentication was not generally a burning issue.
Nobody in Midlands appears to be participating at the current time and nobody had seen any recent minutes.
Charging had been discussed, with the main problem being that there is no information about rates. Furthermore, to what extent national centres, mirrors and similar entities will be excluded may have a significant effect on how the costs are spread out.
There was some discussion about whether and how re-charging will be carried out. Nottingham were planning a charging in proportion to numbers in departments for the first year with plans to refine the model thereafter. If costs are relatively small onward charging may be uneconomic.
The proposed JISC mechanism encourages economy (caches, etc). However, any open ended model makes budgeting difficult. The national cache would initially be free, but this seemed likely to change in the long term. There were concerns about payment for receipt of junk email, which could be more than once on a busy network if it is retransmitted.
The charging model was different from most commercial models. The JISC could potentially continue to expand bandwidth and recharge. There was no easy way for sites to buy extra bandwidth and the model doesn't address the need for speed in some areas.
There was definitely unease about this method of charging particularly as it is not possible to control usage or even tell people how much that they are using.
There had also been some discussion of provision of services to halls and whether to use LANs or modems.
No issues had been identified which had not been covered already.
The following report covers the issues identified to be taken forward to the next meeting.
REPORT FROM THE MIDLANDS JANET USER GROUP MIDJUG met on Wednesday 28th January 1998 at De Montfort University, Leicester. Its technical group, MNC, meeting earlier that same day. Junk mail is continues to be an issue; Rodney Tillotson's paper on this matter was most useful. Sites were supportive of the idea of excluding from JANET traffic from sites which dealt exclusively in UCE. The provision of information by UKERNA was thought to be most useful, especially if it could be provided in formats which enabled easy incorporation into sites' own "anti-spam" measures. Different sites placed a different emphasis on central control compared to tools for users. The issues of authentication, subject based gateways and cacheing/mirroring needs were raised, since there had been mail about these issues on the JNUG list. However, no site had anything to contribute. Charging, as to be expected, was the dominant issue. The group had become resigned to the fact that charging would occur, though there was some concern about how sites were put into the position of having to pay a surcharge without any choice in the matter. The group welcomed the fact that individual sites would not be charged for Web traffic via the national caches. Sites would be able to make cases on economic grounds for funding appropriately sized site caches to use the national caches and move towards enforcing their use. This would itself have a beneficial affect on international traffic. So on the whole, if a surcharge had to be made on individual sites, the announced method was cautiously welcomed as suitable for the amounts indicated. No site was considering usage-based accounting to further pass on the charges for the level of charges indicated. There was concern about the implications if higher amounts had to be recovered in future. This could lead to the need to implement costly mechanisms for passing on charges based on use before adequate tools had been developed to achieve this. Indeed there was serious doubt about whether such tools can ever be developed. Tim Clark chair, MIDJUG
None was identified.
The next meeting would be at Warwick University on April 7th. MNC would be in the morning and MIDJUG would be in the afternoon.