Kevin's focus on a CWIS was not his choice. He and I had been working on a CWIS that went further than the limitations of gopher at that time. I was interested in drawing on the power of our campus network to facilitate electronic submission of assignments, alternative delivery of instruction, and have it serve as a document storage and retrieval system. Kevin was in the middle of writing the second version of this CWIS environment when he discovered WWW. After he showed NCSA's XMosaic to me, I agreed that he could spend some time exploring the possible uses of this technology as long as it was centered around using it for a Campus Wide Information System. Kevin agreed and spent about two weeks developing the HCC CWIS prototype. We did not realize at that time that we suddenly would be involved in a project of international significance or that a small community college in the middle of the Pacific would make an impact in helping this technology take off. Boy did it ever take off!
Ducky Sherwood's Technical and Sociological Aspects of Developing Campus-Wide Webs: UIUC College of Engineering - [HREF 7] sums up nicely how I spent my time during the early years of HCC's use of WWW. In 1993 and 1994, we spent much of our time going to people and practically begging to let us put their information on the web. Even after we showed them demonstrations of WWW it took everything we could do to get them to let us use their precious information. After all someone might see it on the World Wide Web and then actually read it. Now where would that get us? In 1995 this trend is reversing itself. People are coming to us now and asking how can they get their information on the Web yesterday. However, despite the fact that users are coming to us with their information, demonstrating the capabilities of the WWW is something that we are still doing constantly.
Christin Quinn's From Grass Roots to Corporate Image - The Maturation of the Web - [HREF 8] , points out that what is missing from the web is that corporate image. Her paper goes on to give some excellent advice about what to do and what not to do as you create your WWW page. It should be obvious to anyone who has spent much time on the web or attending these conferences that the World Wide Web is a grassroots movement. WWW did not come in through the front door to the welcomed arms of a grateful establishment.
I love to quote the University of Hawaii's Chief Information Officer as saying "...WWW is only a fad. It will go away." Of course, he no longer says that because it is 1995 and things have changed a great deal. There are no longer only 50 sites, but literally tens of thousands of sites world-wide and almost everyone has heard of the World Wide Web. I would like to suggest that Christin didn't go far enough with her statement in the paper. What is really missing at many colleges and universities is mainstream understanding and significant backing of the campus's WWW development efforts. I believe this is because the majority of the established order do not even use computers much less browse the web and cruise the net.
During our development of a homepage that went beyond the original prototype, it became obvious to me that I needed to do something that would get the other campuses in the University of Hawaii (UH) system involved. At the same time I was also convinced that it was absolutely essential to get the information providers around the state of Hawaii and the state and local government involved in the World Wide Web.
To accomplish this we began to contact various individuals around the state to discuss how they might apply WWW to enhance and support their organizations mission. One of the first groups we contacted was the Hawaii Visitor Bureau (HVB). After one year of talking and about one month of actual work we brought HVB's homepage - [HREF 10] online. This site was a natural and overnight success. Another important site that we developed a prototype with was Bishop Museum - [HREF 11] . This group did not take year to convince that a WWW project would be of value. It did take them about a year to convince the Museum administration of the importance of this new technology. Only recently has Bishop Museum allowed us to publicly link their site to any homepage.
I had the privilege of seeing another one of my early ideas and projects come into being when we formed the Hawaii Webmasters - [HREF 12] . This group serves as a resource and support group for organizations and individuals who are actively maintaining a WWW homepage in Hawaii. This group has been an important key in promoting the continued development of WWW technology and sites around the state. Before I get back to how all of this relates to HCC's CWIS I want to touch on the development of the commercial aspects of WWW in Hawaii.
HCC has been instrumental in promoting the commercial aspects of the World Wide Web to businesses in Hawaii. Besides serving as the original WWW site in Hawaii, we helped establish the first WWW consulting company in Hawaii, CyberCom. While I can take credit for showing CyberCom owner, Peter Katsikas, the Internet and WWW, I must admit that he quickly caught the vision I shared with him in April of 1994. His company developed the first commercial WWW site in Hawaii - [HREF 13] by starting with a prototype developed at HCC and using HCC trained students as his first employees. Peter secured his identity with WWW and Internet in Hawaii by taking over and developing the Internet training classes HCC offers to the public via our non-credit program. Peter and CyberCom have gone on to become one of the leaders in the renewed information industry in Hawaii. HCC is still one of the only places the public can come and get Internet training in Hawaii. HCC was also in on the beginning of one of the early Internet Access Providers (IAP), Hawaii Online - [HREF 14] and I currently serve on Hawaii Online's Advisory Board.
How does all of this relate to a Campus Wide Information System? Well it is simple. The fundamental mission of Honolulu Community College is to train the workforce of Hawaii and to help transfer new technology to the businesses in the community. Our WWW development efforts have always kept this important mission statement in mind and tried to transfer this purpose into our homepage. This mission certainly influenced HCC to continue its web development despite lukewarm reactions to our early efforts. Our success and international recognition is what finally convinced the University to become more involved in this important project. The University of Hawaii's homepage came about after pressure from staff members to do something to keep up with Honolulu Community College.
One last HCC project needs recognition before we continue this discussion. I became convinced early on as new WWW sites sprang up in the state that we were going to spend much duplicated efforts creating links to resources in Hawaii. To avoid this problem we created the Hawai'i Homepage - [HREF 15] . This page of hypertext links and site logos now serves as the central registration point for all WWW services in Hawaii. It also serves as a single entry point to WWW information services in the state. The Hawai'i Homepage is also a integral part of our CWIS because it provides links to all of the WWW resources in the state. I want to thank Craig Miller at the Digital Media Lab in the Manoa Innovation Center and Ward Takamiya of UH Manoa's Information Technology Services group. The three of us maintain and guide the continuing development of the Hawai'i Homepage. I also want to recognize David Lassner, UH's Chief Information Officer, for allowing us to use a SPARCserver 10 so close to the Internet backbone to house the Hawai'i Homepage.
We are also moving into new ground by encouraging and facilitating the development of what I call Information Content Providers. Our staff is so small and overworked that we could never create and maintain the large amount of information needed to make any CWIS useful. I am happy to report that we now depend on our Information Content Providers to develop and maintain their own sections of the HCC homepage. We are able to easily make this happen through the magic of network connectivity. Some content providers mount network drives and manipulate their information as if it were on the local drive of their personal computers. More and more we are using FTP to allow access to individual areas of HCC's WWW server filestore. In doing this kind of shared development we sacrifice a totally uniform look to our campus service, but we gain in value and quality of information. We also gain excited and valuable allies in promoting the use of this new technology.
We have developed a series of training workshops designed to teach everything from exploring the Internet using WWW to developing your own homepage to setting up your own WWW server. These classes are available to our faculty, staff, and students as well as the public through our non-credit program. We conduct Internet workshops for local and national conferences and we continue to lead the state in seeking ways to apply this technology to everyday uses that will make daily life easier.
We have expanded the number of HTTP servers on campus to seven. Our main servers are still UNIX based, but we also use a VMS-based server, a Macintosh server and an MS-Windows server. The University provides space on their main HTTP servers which are also UNIX based. There are a growing number of HTTP servers spread through out the University of Hawaii system. All of these combine to make up the whole of our Campus Wide Information System. At this point in time we still prefer UNIX as the server platform of choice.
I would like to emphasize that the biggest problem facing all CWIS development efforts is gaining official recognition and support. Until these grassroots efforts are fully supported Campus Wide Information System development using World Wide Web technology will muddle along without making significant new contributions to this exciting and important technology. HCC and the other CWISs have boldly gone where no other campuses have gone before. The World Wide Web is a marvelous and exciting new adventure. We are inviting the rest of you to join us on this adventure to the 21st century.
AusWeb95 The First Australian WorldWideWeb Conference