Following a discussion between Al Wootton, Thierry Contini, Rein Warmels and Peter Shaver concerning the ALMA web and subsequent e-mail input from Al Wootton, Wolfgang Wild and Brian Glendenning, it is clear that at least the following three issues should be discussed at the SAC level:
1. The communication and the availability of documents within ALMA working groups and among these groups (in particular between US and EUR)
2. Whether there should be a single ALMA Web side (with one of more mirrors in the other participating continents)
3. Whether a Europe/US "ALMA web Group" should be established.
Taking these points in order:
1. Communication
There are two broad possibilities:
a) Items for information are simply placed on the public web for all to read. This requires one or more "cluster masters" to place each submitted item onto the web. Thus, communication and information exchange within the group and between groups is done via the web, and the documents are publicly available (unless their access is explicitly restricted). In terms of document management there is generally no distinction between group internal documents and documents that are meant for a wider public.
b) For easy interactions within individual groups a special software called BSCW is available, It supports group work over the internet by providing shared workspaces. The system is designed primarily to support self-organised groups without the necessity of document management by e.g. a webmaster. Members of the group can both place and retrieve documents themselves. It is a powerful tool for the group (which can include members in both the US and Europe), but obviously it requires restricted access. Documents can be flagged and made public as desired by the group. More detail on this tool is provided below.
On the US side it seems that only option (a) is used at the moment, while on the European side both (a) and (b) are available. The use of BSCW is purely a matter for individual groups to decide for themselves, and they also decide on group membership and access. If there is consensus about using such a tool (BSCW or something else) it obviously would be extremely useful if all groups would use the same tool.
2. One ALMA web site, or mirroring? The advantage of mirroring is speed (faster for Europeans to access the European site, and same for the US). Whatever option is chosen, the organization has to be worked out.
There are at least four options:
a). A US ALMA site and a EUR one (with links to each other). This is the current situation;
b). One ALMA site only, either in the US or in EUR;
c). One ALMA site that is mirrored completely;
d). Identical ALMA sites at a number of locations. Sections of the ALMA Web can be managed by different groups at different locations (cluster masters). The sites are then synchronized, say once a day. Clearly this is the most complicated option but it has the possibility to distribute responsibilities.
3. A web group? It would coordinate and carry out the web activities (in Europe and the US) on a day-to-day basis - policies that are decided and approved by the SACs, the AEC and the ECC/ACC. The members of this group would be in regular contact with each other, and could meet as required. ------------------------------------------------------------------------
MORE DETAILS ON BSCW:
(from: Rein Warmels)
Currently, there seems differences between the US ALMA and the ALMA EUR groups in the way group communication is set up On the US side, communication and information exchange within the group and between groups is done via the web. If I'm correct most of these documents are publicly available. Hence (except for specifically protected documents) there is not distinction between group internal documents and documents that are meant for a wider public.
On the European side the group internal documentation is detached from the EUR ALMA Web side. Instead a system with shared workspaces has been setup. This system is based on public domain software called BSCW. This system is use by some of the EUR ALMA groups. Below follows a brief explanation what the BSCW shared workspace server provides.
BSCW supports group work over the internet by providing shared workspaces. A workspace allows storage and retrieval of documents (or other objects) and sharing information within a group of persons and that related to a particular project or working group. The system is designed primarily to support self-organising groups without the necessity of documents management by e.g. a webmaster.
A workspace can be accessed via the WWW, which makes it useful for cooperation in groups that are geographically distributed and/or work on different platforms. One can browse through folders and retrieve objects just like ordinary web pages. The workspace keeps you aware of all events (e.g. creating, reading, changing of objects)
Each workspace has a Member page, where you can see who is a member and invite other persons to join. Users can also register themselves as new members at the workspace server (provided they are allowed to join). Hence the question how to define who will be involved in a discussion is solved.
Obviously BSCW proved access control functionality. Without going into too much detail, it is notes that in BSCW it is possible to restrict the various kinds of access to an object to subgroups of the workspace members. On the other hand, it is also possible to make objects in a workspace accessible to persons who are not members of the workspace. This functionality basically solves policy issue with regard to access. The tool offers the possibility to regulate access down to the document level.
One of the advantage of the BCSW type of software is that it need only minor manpower to manage the information content of the workspace. For example no manpower is involved to post documents by the workspace members. Posting documents via a web site directly does involved manpower, assuming that only a limited number of person has access to the actual web documents and directory on the web server.
Although links to the BSCW software can be provided from the ALMA Web side, it can not be mirrored. Therefore, in the case of the BSCW software we can keep all (i.e. US and EUR) group communication and information exchange concentrated on one server. Or, alternatively, we can install a separate server elsewhere to support other groups (e.g. US).