The first use of the Internet by us was to access local library catalogues. Fortunately the Central Library already had a Local Area Network in place. We set up a PC with telnet access at the Information Desk. At the same time we made available a basic selection of other Victorian Academic Library Catalogues on the publicly accessible terminals (used mostly for cd-rom searching) of the Central Library.
Staff rostered on the Information Desk were suddenly being asked questions regarding these catalogues and were wondering what the new staff terminal could be used for. The need for all desk staff to be familiar with this new tool led us to produce an irregular internal newsletter and establish an AARNet Library User Group which held monthly lunchtime meetings to discuss new software developments and useful sites. Staff were encouraged to join relevant computer conferences/discussion groups and were each provided with user spaces on the Computer Centre's unix machine.
As well several "hands-on" training sessions were held for library staff by those slightly more experienced on an informal basis and, as interest grew, a more structured presentation was introduced. This comprised an "Introduction to the Network" overview using hypercard (we captured screens from the Internet rather than going live as the 'net was rather slow and unreliable) with a follow-up hands on workshop "Just Do it" (Sounds like a shoe commercial?! But we were first!)
The Internet training package developed into a 1 hour overview demonstration with a discipline specific 2 hour hands on workshop. This was accompanied by a 'core' publication which used changing examples for each discipline. We learnt by trial and error (and from our evaluation forms) that the attendees very rarely moved step by step through our exercises. When everyone tried to access the same site at once most connections were refused which led to high user frustration. Often the participants found interesting side trails to follow and got lost. We overcame this by making the workshop rather unstructured; participants were encouraged to browse. The manual had many more worked examples but also we had lots of helpers on hand in the workshops so the a ttendees could get semi-individual attention when needed (a ratio of 1 helper to 6 attendees proved ideal).
This session enabled people to go back to their Departments with enough exposure to continue Internet exploration on their own. Many queries came in from past attendees and in most instances they could be helped over the phone on an individual basis. A series of more advanced workshops were offered also but didn't prove as popular. It seems with some experience the level of help needs to be user specific and didn't lend itself so well to group settings.
Areas we attempted to cover in the introductory session were
As all staff and students at RMIT are able to have accounts (accessible via modem or telnet) on the Computer Centre's unix machine (called minyos) we concentrated on access via shell accounts on that machine. That meant we had limited, often non user-friendly software to work with. However there were some quite nice programs that cou ld be used to run on desktop machines.
To improve access to library information such as catalogues and journal databases the Libraries decided to establish its own gopher which we still run today. It began as a small portion of allocated disk space on a staff member's Macintosh. It took a lot of campaigning but eventually a Sun workstation was purchased (we called it Millbrook) to act as server. The Libraries Gopher [HREF 2] was moved across from its original location and the server was configured for World Wide Web [HREF 3] access also. Lynx software was mounted on Millbrook. We set up so users could telnet in from remote sites, login as lynx and access the WWW even from a very basic platform.
The public workstations in the library had access to the Libraries Gopher as an option on their main menu and to enter the WWW they moved across to lynx from the top level of the gopher menu.
We tailored the menus to improve access to materials that were locally useful. Hence we altered our training slightly so that we first explored the resources made available via Millbrook before exploring the wider Internet frontier.
Plus:
Most attendees were not from the computer science field and had difficulty with software that requires Unix commands (such as FTP and Usenet News). Participants found it difficult to find relevant files to download and to find interesting newsgroups and to maneuver around in them. We found a printed sheet of all available commands and step by step examples to follow worked the best.
When using telnet the greatest problem was with knowing addresses. Again we reduced this problem by trying to anticipate useful sites and providing lists of them.
Within RMIT many Departments have their own servers and a large range of email programs a re used. There is no standardisation of email within RMIT. We used Mailex (ugh!) in the classes as this was the only variety available to everyone on the Computer Centre's minyos but referred the attendees to their departmental technical staff for local email details after the session.
We tried to a supply a list of relevant discussion groups/computer conferences and instructions for joining them, for each discipline.
To date there has been no organisation wide co-ordination of Internet access or strategic planning and no funding provided specifically by the University to standardise access. Resulting from recent amalgamations (e.g. of RMIT with Phillip Institute of Technology) there are now 3 Higher Education campuses and a number of TAFE (Technical And Further Education) colleges making up RMIT with a distance of up to 30km between them and a wide difference in the level of (tele)communications available at each site. The library server and hence the Internet is accessible from public workstations in the l ibraries at the three main Higher Education campuses and the main TAFE library. However many buildings and Departments are still not wired into RMIT's LAN/WAN and many Departments - staff and students - are unaware of the resources they could be using through the Internet.
The Libraries have not had a dedicated venue for the training and have used a variety of computer laboratories on all three campuses in the past. There is great stress in having to perform in a location where the setup of the software may differ from how you'd like it or where for example the Department has locked out telnet access except to local RMIT machines for fear the students may misuse the system. This also leads to dissatisfaction among the participants who often believe the presenter is unprepared.
The Internet being slow or unreliable is a constant problem in training sessions that occurs to this day. We have found morning sessions to have faster response times than afternoon sessions. It also helps to foster understanding among the class by discussing how Australia links in with the Internet and the limits of a single overseas connection in the introductory lecture.
With the appearance of sophisticated browsers for the WWW that are user friendly and allow access to most of the Internet functions from a single platform, training on Internet use has become much simpler.
RMIT Libraries still offers a three hour introductory session in lecture/workshop format but we accomplish much more and users tend to have a better grasp of the Internet and feel more confident going back to their own surroundings. The introductory session covers an overview of the Internet and the original softwares that enable it, email via the Computer Centres minyos (though now at least they provide access to Pine and Elm as mail programs, not just mailex) a brief practice on telnet to let it sink in that users are actually connecting to a remote machine, then using Netscape [HREF 4] to look at "What's New, What's Cool", the Libraries servers, selected sites of general or discipline specific interest and newsgroups. Sending Email via Netscape is covered briefly for those lucky enough to have a machine of their own. For intermediate users we cover FTP via Netscape and look at some Australian mirror sites for available software.
The Unit is developing sessions on HTML editing at present. We plan to offer a 3hr beginners class enabling participants to make a home page on the Web and a 3hr intermediate class covering more detailed layout and image handling. This is mostly as a response to demand by the RMIT population which now has the option of placing home pages on the upgraded minyos in the Computer Centre.
The vastness of what's available out there and how to find just the right bits at the right time is still daunting. We are planning to offer another session called "Finding Out" to teach search techniques including using archie [HREF 5]; wais databases [HREF 6]; jughead/veronica [HREF 7] gopher jewels [HREF 8]; web search engines such as lycos [HREF 9]/wwwworm [HREF 10]/webcrawler [HREF 11], and yahoo [HREF 12] and GNN (Global Network Navigator) [HREF 13].
RMIT has this year begun to fund a CWIS (Campus Wide Information System) [HREF 14] and also to offer to staff and students the option of placing their own home pages on the WWW. This will generate a demand for training in html so we are currently planning basic and i ntermediate sessions in producing html documents.
Another development that has occurred in Melbourne is the introduction of freenets such as VICNET[HREF 15]. (See their paper presented at this conference-link details unknown yet). Terminals to access VICNET are beginning to be installed in local public libraries in Victoria and demand for training those librarians, prospective Web publishers and members of the public has become evident. The recommendations of the Broadband Services Expert Group's Final Report [HREF 16] point to government funding of further growth in many areas including training.
Without any advertising the AARNet/Internet Unit has been receiving phone enquiries from other Victorian libraries (particularly school and company libraries) about supplying Internet training. Last year two sessions were run by the AARNet/Internet Unit through the auspicies of the TAFE Industry Training Unit. A small ad w as placed in the Melbourne newspaper The AGE [HREF 17] and the sessions were booked out within 10 days. The demand for Internet training by members of the public is just beginning and RMIT is well placed to take advantage of this.
AusWeb95 The First Australian WorldWideWeb Conference