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Appended below is a copy of the new BITNET Newsletter that was
recently sent by postal mail to all CREN Member Representatives.
Copies are available from LISTSERV@BITNIC as file NEWSLTR1 TXT
(text) and NEWSLTR1 PS (postscript), and via anonymous ftp from
info.cren.net, directory cren/ftp/pub/newsletter as NEWSLETTER1.TXT
(text) and NEWSLETTER1.PS (postscript).

[IMPORTANT NOTE:  The PostScript files will be available after
Tuesday, July 20th.]

If you would like the newsletter copy, please send your request to
CREN@BITNIC or CREN@CREN.net and include your name, title,
organization, and postal address.
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BITNET NEWS, Vol. 1, No. 1, Summer 1993


Kenneth King CREN'S Executive Director

Ira Fuchs, President of the Corporation for Research and Educational
Networking (CREN), announced the appointment of Dr. Kenneth King as
Executive Director of CREN effective April 19, 1993. CREN is the parent
organization of BITNET, a network that connects more than 550 higher
education institutions nationally and, through BITNET Cooperating
Networks, another 700 internationally. CREN is also actively developing
Internet services to support its members' networking activities.

Wide Experience

Dr. King brings to CREN over forty years of experience in higher
education and information technology. Dr. King has served as President
of EDUCOM, Vice Provost for Computing at Cornell University, Vice
Chancellor for University Systems at the City University of New York,
and Director of Computing at Columbia University. His activities in the
networking arena have included being one of the founders of the EDUCOM
Networking and Telecommunications Task Force, NYSERNET, and the Internet
Society, and serving as a member of the original BITNET Board of
Trustees. Dr. King is also a member of the Federal Networking Council
Advisory Committee. He retired as President of EDUCOM on December 31,
1992.

Vision for BITNET

Dr. King explained that he was "coaxed out of retirement by the
opportunity to participate in the higher education community in an
exciting new networking agenda for BITNET. This agenda includes building
a virtual higher education network--a network providing an array of
services built on top of the connectivity supplied by BITNET, the
Internet, and other physical networks."This effort, Dr. King explained,
will be pursued in partnership with other higher education organizations
with a networking agenda. Important opportunities he foresees include
"creating software and information servers supporting scholarly
collaboration; using the network for classes, seminars, colloquia, and
other kinds of cooperative distance education; creating a virtual
library containing electronic journals, databases, and other information
worth sharing; and providing the capability to connect graduates to
their alma maters through easy dial-in Internet access to support
lifelong learning and other important higher educational outreach
programs." These projects not only support higher education but can
contribute to the effort to build a national information infrastructure,
a project high on the Clinton/Gore Administration's agenda.

With higher education experiencing increasing financial stress, Dr.
King sees "the network contributing in important ways to enabling shared
efforts that reduce cost, improve the quality of instruction, and
increase research and administrative productivity. With appropriate
software and servers, for example, institutions will be able to offer
their students courses taught by faculty at other institutions; faculty
will be able to enhance their courses through access to materials and
computer programs developed at other institutions; institutions will be
able to update the education of their graduates via the network; and
scholars will have access to material and data not available locally."

Dr. King points out that "the BITNET community pioneered universal
access to networking in higher education and demonstrated the power of
every institution cooperating and contributing. If that same spirit can
be mobilized in this new initiative, a lot of great things could
happen."

In announcing Dr. King's appointment, Ira Fuchs stated, "CREN is
absolutely delighted to have as our Executive Director a person who is
so highly respected in the field and who for years has been intimately
involved with the planning and development of the new 'information
superhighway.'  Dr. King's leadership will be invaluable in implementing
CREN's vision of its role in higher education networking concerns. He is
the best possible person to take on the new CREN agenda, which we expect
to assume highly visible form in the next few months."

The Role of CREN in Higher Education Networking

The CREN Board of Trustees is in the process of defining an expanded
role for CREN. This role includes defining and implementing a set of
network servers and services supporting the realization of a virtual
university. What is a virtual university? What are its characteristics
and promises? How does the concept relate to international networking?

A Virtual University

A virtual university is not defined by walls but by the ability of its
faculty and students to access resources wherever they are located and
its ability to deliver education to students wherever they are located.
It must enable students and faculty to work together largely
unrestricted by the barriers of space and time. It must encourage very
broad cooperation and collaboration among all segments of higher
education, national and international, in pursuit of shared goals. It
should be constrained only by the limits to the reach of high capacity
networks and the resources and services on those networks. It is a
university whose resources and services are available to every college
and university connected to the network and whose resources and services
are created by the colleges and universities connected to the network.

Some of the capabilities the network must provide include the capability
to:

* support collaboration among scholars by enabling the creation of
virtual offices and laboratories;

* support distance education, including shared seminars colloquia, and
classes;

* support outreach programs to off-site or part-time students and
alumni;

* share library resources;

* create and maintain shared databases and other information
repositories; and

* create and maintain software libraries of tools, and educational and
other programs.

Many of the software tools necessary to support the capabilities and
services listed above already exist or are being developed. The
connectivity and network capacity required are currently being developed
by the regional networks and other constituencies supporting the
evolution of the Internet. Thus the time is right to concentrate on the
applications, tools, and services needed to vastly expand the areas of
collaboration and sharing among colleges and universities.

The CREN Board of Trustees and its members around the world have more
than a decade of experience in cooperation and mutual support--qualities
that will be required in developing the virtual university. CREN
proposes to undertake this project in partnership with the other higher
education computing and communication organizations working in this
area.

Making It All Happen

Key to the success of the virtual university is software that provides
an integrated set of clients with a coherent and simple user interface
that hides any underlying complexity and is easy to install and
maintain. Specifically, the software must run on all the major hardware
platforms that provide an IP connectivity suite. It should provide a
plug-and-play platform for remote log-on and file transfer and a full
suite of applications including: electronic mail (supporting easy-to-use
clients like Eudora and NuPOP); access to distributed information
(through facilities like Gopher, Veronica, Archie, and WAIS); discussion
groups and collaboration (using packages like LISTSERV, NetNews, Chat,
and newer software as it becomes available); access to library catalogs
through a standard interface; an ability to create, maintain, search,
and distribute electronic books and journals; and video and voice packet
teleconferencing.

In addition, network servers must provide capability for graduates and
off-site students and faculty to connect to their home institutions with
a local telephone call (AlumNet); software and information storage and
retrieval; access to global directories; communication and information
exchange between the international Internet and BITNET communities; and
a large number of other services, many of which are only beginning to
take shape.

Active CREN Groups

CREN has undertaken a number of initiatives designed to focus the
technical community on defining the specifications of some of the
programs described above. These include requests for proposals for the
development of a portable LISTSERV, and a network server for the support
of electronic mailing lists, gateway services, and other shared network
services. Task groups to define the requirements for a plug-and-play IP
platform and AlumNet servers are currently being formed. Other groups
will emerge shortly.

CREN is also developing a plan and time-frame for the orderly transition
of CREN members from NJE to IP connectivity. Critical to the success of
this plan is retaining the BITNET services of those members already on
the Internet until those services are no longer essential for BITNET
viability. This plan also needs to preserve, if possible, BITNET
capabilities such as sender initiated file transfer not requiring log-on
privileges, and messaging, which appear not to be adequately supported
in IP to meet the needs of CREN members. It may also have to support
interim or even long-term gateways to small or distant enclaves of NJE
connectivity. Retaining connectivity to the international BITNET
community and involving its members as full partners in this endeavor is
a particularly high priority.

CREN'S Vision

Ken King, the new executive director of CREN, states, "If technology can
rescue higher education from its increasingly dire financial straits,
then a virtual higher education network supporting the building of a
virtual university will be the foundation on which that capability will
be built. Small and remote institutions in particular have a big stake
in seeing the capabilities of the virtual university emerge. A good
network will support institutions that are no longer able to provide
local copies of monographs and journals because of rapidly rising
prices. It will enable higher education to reach working and continuing
education students who are unable to afford a residential college
experience. It will enable faculty to enrich courses using simulations
and other software available through the network. It will support
developing new paradigms for instruction such as collaborative learning
and 'just-in-time' education. Such a network is the key to forging a
national information infrastructure and the survival of higher education
in the twenty-first century."

ATTENTION

Elections for the CREN Board of Trustees

It's time to start thinking about your nominees for the four positions
that will soon open on the CREN Board of Trustees. More information and
an electronic call for nominations coming in August.

The CREN newsletter is published semiannually by the CREN Board of
Trustees.

President and CEO     Ira H. Fuchs
Vice President        Douglas Bigelow
Secretary             Jan A. Baltzer
Treasurer             Geraldine MacDonald

Trustees: Jan A. Baltzer, Douglas Bigelow, Ronald Briggs, Miriam A.
Drake, Ira H. Fuchs, Benjamin Klein, Matthew R. Korn, Geraldine
MacDonald, George Sadowsky, Martin Solomon, Mark J. Strawcutter,
William Yundt

Staff: Julie Brinkman, Jim Conklin, Marco Hernandez, Ken King,
Ann-Kathryn Messina, Amanda Rushing, Larry Snodgrass, Yingying Zhou

Newsletter staff:
Editor Joan Marie Laflamme
Designer Sean Donnelly