USER GROUP SUPPORT ACTIVITIES

A line of work which has produced some good results has been with a special group of Chemists. This has been a "pump priminng" exercise by just giving the user basic assistance and examples, after which he acts as a rapporteur. This has produced a series of documents, also available electronically, including "What the Chemist can find in the networks". This includes software, databases, ftp sites, discussion lists, contacts, projects etc.

SUMMARY OF MAJOR INFORMATION SERVICES ON NETWORK

Two projects carried out by student assistants, are just being completed. One group "hunts" information and documents it generally, the other group developed an information server, userid "pythia", on a SUN machine which is fed with the output of the former group.Certain browsing commands are available to the logged in user including a mail facility to describe unsolved problems.The server currently contains general information about ARIADNE, other networks, key network terms, contacts etc

A hardcopy report of the "what we have found" of the first group is to be printed and widely distributed, and is also available electronically. A problem that has been dealt with is handling information in the Greek character Set (ISO standard). An emulator is available on diskette for users with appropriate table translation so as to suit their terminal. A solution to cover "dumb" terminals has also been incorporated by using a Greek Standard which maps Greek characters into Latin.

In general the activity on the NIS at ARlADNE has slowly increased. At the end of the year a more detailed, documented report is to be made available.