At the European Telework Development Initiative website
ACTS Horizontal Actions Domain

HA Domain Concertation Meeting
Brussels, 5/6 November 1996.

Contents:

These notes can also be downloaded as a Word 6 Document (80 kBytes).

Participants

Agostino Appendino (CONVAIR/INFOWIN): agostino.appendino@cselt.stet.it
Rene Bach (DOLPHIN): rene@acm.org
Peter Bates (INFOWIN): infowin@pjb.co.uk
Liam Breslin (Irish National Host): lb@telecom.ie
Barbara Burr (INFOWIN): burr@rus.uni-stuttgart.de
Gabriella Cattaneo (FAIR/HA Domain Chair): dbteknibank@inet.it
Joe Chester (USINACTS): chester@rtc-carlow.ie
Anne Clarke (USINACTS) a.m.clarke@lboro.ac.uk
Roger Delit (GINA) 100570.547@compuserve.com
Willie Donnelly (DIFFERENCE): wdonnelly@rtc-waterford.ie
Lelia Galis (DOLPHIN): lg@almitona.demon.co.uk
Giorgio Gallassi (AMUSE): gallassi@italtel.it
Reinhard Geiger (INFOWIN): rgeiger@dir-fh-sbg.ac.at
Michel Gironde (TEESURA):gironde@expertel.fr
Renate Guarneri (EURORIM): renata.guarneri.italtel.it
Klemens Gutmann (EPRI-WATCH/SMARTS): gutmann@tsa.de
Nick Heenan (Commission): nhe@postman.dg13.cec.be
Pentti Kolari (USINACTS): pentti.kolari@vtt.fi
Paul Lagasse (HORIZON): lagasse@intec.rug.ac.be
Marco Langhof (EPRI-WATCH): langhof@tsa.de
P Liebsccher (INFOWIN): liebscher@rus.uni-stuttgart.de
Gabriele Mayer (INFOWIN): gabriele.mayer@rus.uni-stuttgart.de
Allan Mawdsley (Commission): allan.mawdsley@compuserve.com
Jean Millar (Commission): jmil@postman.dg13.cec.be
Al Mullery (DOLPHIN): 100117.600@compuserve.com
E Nordmark (MEMO): erk@teracom.se
Borgar T Olsen (OPTIMUM): borgar.olsen@fou.telenor.no
Pietro Polese (CONVAIR): pip@ric.iihe.ac.be
Wilfried Polnik (Alcatel): wpolnik@rcs.sel.de
Pierre Rodier (DOLPHIN): 100612.2456@compuserve.com
Serge Soudoplatoff (INFOWIN): soudoplatoff.cp2i@wanadoo.fr
Stephen Plagemann (DIFFERENCE) sp@sss.ie
Annette Schafer (SMARTS) schaefer@tsa.de
Joan Schlieker (EPRI-WATCH/SMARTS): schlieker@tsa.de
Stephen Simmons (SMARTS/DIPLOMAT): srs@cornix.co.uk
Tom Snell (SMARTS): snell@tsa.de
Andrew Taylor (INFOWIN): andrew.taylor@analysys.com
Robert Vinckier (GINA): 100322.722@compuserve.com
Hill Stewart (Rapporteur):hill@btinternet.com

Appointment of Domain Chair for 1997

It was agreed to defer appointment of a chair for the domain until the March concertation meeting when it was hoped there would be a clearer picture of the domain's activities in support of guideline production and dissemination of programme results. Gabriella Cattaneo (FAIR) would continue to act as chair until then.

Strategy and Policy Issues.

Guidelines

Gabriella Cattaneo reported on the discussion on guideline development at the previous day's Concertation Steering Group Meeting. There it was emphasised that guidelines should be concise documents (5 pages at most), carefully targeted at a specific group of readers at a particular point in time and should be action oriented - i.e. should encourage the readers to do something. A 5 page guideline obviously can not present a detailed justification of its recommendations (it can reference other documentation such as reports/specifications/standards) but it should at least present the high level argument.

It was noted that the HA Domain had a specific role with respect to guidelines and that a number of projects in the HA domain have guideline support functions as part of their technical annex. In addition to the strategic guidelines to be provided by projects in the HA Domain: there are a number of quite distinct roles in guideline development which could be undertaken: At present we do not have a satisfactory overview of the scope and status of proposed guidelines. The Commission has set in motion an initiative to compile a set of scope statement for all proposed guidelines by the end of November. This would enable an analysis of gaps and overlaps to be undertaken. A number of projects in the Horizontal Actions domain, as well as other projects with a horizontal/ consensus function working in other domains (about 13 projects in total) are specifically charged with producing guidelines on particular aspects of the programme. The scope statements of these guidelines need to be captured as well as those initiated within chains or domains.

Guideline Endorsement and the HA Domain

This depends on the type of guideline. In some cases, the professional reputation of the authors would be sufficient endorsement. In other cases, endorsement would be a gradual process as the guideline incorporated the views of a widening community of adherents. However, where issues such as trans-European interoperability were concerned, formal endorsement from industry associations or standards bodies would be required.

It was agreed that the role of the Horizontal Actions domain in guideline development needed to be clarified and that it needed to do this in conjunction with those projects from other domains which had consensus formation as their major role. It was decided to set up a special consensus formation session during the meeting and invite representatives from the projects ATLANTIC, AURORA, BIDS, CA$HMAN, CANCAN, CATV-DC, DAM, DIFFERENCE, DOLPHIN, EMIGRATE, EURORIM, GINA, and HORIZON. This special session is reported in a later section of these notes.

Other European Union Initiatives affecting ICT

There are a number of European initiatives which are highly relevant to strategic and policy issues in ACTS. For example, the Information Society Forum, resulting from the Delors White Paper and the Bangemann Industrial Gorup follow-up, have produced a report to the European Commission on "Networks for People and their Communities" June 1996. There was also a Communication from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions on "The Information Society: From Corfu to Dublin the New Emerging Priorities. There are recent "Green Papers" on Copyright, and on "Living and Working in the Information Society" also a Communication to the Council and Parliament on "Standardisation and the Global Information Society. A number of ACTS projects, Domains or Chains may wish to comment on these green papers and communications and a list was circulated. This list is presented as Annex 1. Jean Millar drew attention to these recently published documents which will strongly influence EU policy and invited projects to comment or take action.. for co-operation may need to be identifed and views of experts on this subject will be welcomed.

She also indicated that 6 new workgroups had been formed within the Information Society Forum, which is coordinated overall by the ISPO office. Robert Pestell was the Commission Coordinator for the Workgroup 4. on "Sustainability in an Information Society"; Jean Millar was the Commission co-ordinator for the workgroup 3. on "Universal Access and Consumer Protection and Support". The programme ACTS should have relevant input to both these groupswhich are part of the ISAC (Information Society Activity Centre). The head of ISAC is Mr. J. Wenzel who is Conseiller Principal at Director level (and previous Chef du Cabinet of Mr. Bangemann). Mr. Wenzel is responsible for ISPO and for the Information Society Forum and for International Cooperation. His position spans DG XIII and DG III.

International Cooperation: INCO/ COPERNICUS

Jean also reported the substantial participation of particularly East and Central Europe in the ACTS Programme with 50 participations in 20 ACTS projects and an additional approx. 20 Copernicus projects in the field of Advanced Communications. There was a strong possibility of additional funding to support partners from Central and Eastern Europe to participate in ACTS, which would soon be announced. At some point, priority areas for co- operation would have to be defined and projects were invited to suggest such areas to Jean.

Contacts with Related RTD Initiatives

Hill Stewart reported that, following the last Concertation Meeting, at which there had been complaints about the difficulty of obtaining information on other Framework programmes and related initiatives, he had been assembling a list of WEB bookmarks for such information. This was circulated at the meeting and it is presented as Annex 2. Hill commented that, although the list might speed up access to the relevant WEB pages, there was no guarantee of the accuracy or completeness of the information provided in them.

Following the June concertation meeting, Stefano Kluzer (FAIR) had established contact with the Institute for Prospective Technical Studies (IPTS) in Seville. The institute is one of seven joint research centres of the European Union. Its mission is to observe and follow up technological chance and its links with economic and social change. Only a part of their activity deals with telecoms and information technology but they responded very positively to the idea of sharing results and providing cross linkages between their WEB site and the ACTS Information Window. The aim is to get these links in place by the beginning of 1997 and a meeting, involving representatives of FAIR, INFOWIN, the IPTS and the Commission is being organised to sort out the practical details.

Barbara Burr (INFOWIN) reported that she had experienced considerable difficulty in establishing contact with the Information Society Project Office (ISPO) but that a dialogue had begun on collaboration - starting initially with links between WEB sites. Jean Millar said that she and Robert Pestel were to of the Commission co-ordinators for ISF task forces and that they could perhaps be helpful in progressing the discussions with ISPO. It was noted that ISPO had recently issued a call for proposals for a set of projects to build IS project libraries in each of the member states. Projects have now been selected and work will begin in January.

Dissemination of ACTS Results.

Giorgio Gallassi (AMUSE) drew the Domain's attention to the European Conference on Multimedia Applications, Services and Technologies (ECMAST) in Milan from the 21st to the 23rd of May 1997. The conference will cover all aspects of multimedia activity and should include contributions on marketing, strategy, usability etc. He suggested this was an excellent opportunity for disseminating ACTS results and, if there was sufficient interest from the horizontal domain, special sessions or workshops on social, commercial and policy issues could be arranged. Projects were invited to contact Giorgio before the end of the month with specific proposals.. If there are sufficient of these, it might be appropriate to appoint a co-ordinator for the domain's contributions.

Joe Chester (USINACTS) observed that nearly 70% of the projects within ACTS provided nothing on their WEB sites that could not be found in ACTS 96. Several participants supported this view, noting that it had also been the theme of the editorial in the current INFOWIN bulletin.It was agreed that projects should be encouraged to use the WEB for disseminating their public deliverables and that, in particular, all guidelines and draft guidelines should be available electronically. It was agreed that all HA domain projects should set an example by maintaining a meaningful WEB page. It was recommended that project officers encourage all other projects to do the same and that, if possible, electronic dissemination of guidelines should be made a mandatory part of the production process.

Joe Chester drew attention to the USINACTS conference which would be held on the 6th of March. This was one of a number of intiatives which USINACTS was undertaking to promote usability best practice within ACTS. The principal message is that users must be involved throughout the development cycle - not just when there is something to test. The conference would be entitled 'Services, Trials and Users - The Key Role of Usability in ACTS' and would take the form of a distributed seminar in Brussels and sites in Finland, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Spain and the UK.

Joe emphasised tht the number of places at each site would be limited and that people wishing to attend should notify Anne Clarke (a.m.clarke@lboro.ac.uk)as soon as possible.

Lelia Galis (DOLPHIN) reported that DOLPHIN would shortly be establishing a server to support the dissemination of Domain 5 results.

Jeremy Millard (ETD) reported that ETD has a media and promotion initiative, using journalists and PR experts to build a bridge between ACTS and the worlds of trade, employment and work opportunities.

Barbara Burr emphasised that projects could look to INFOWIN for assistance and support in establishing and maintaining their WEB pages. Serge Sudoplatoff outlined the range of products and services which INFOWIN could offer them to support their dissemination activities. He went on to describe a number of initiatives which INFOWIN itself was taking to tailor programme information for dissemination to a range of user groups.

It was agreed that there was a need to establish an overall picture of ACTS dissemination activities, identifying the target communities which ACTS needed to influence to ensure the rapid launch and uptake of advanced communications services. Once those communities had been defined a dissemination plan for each could be developed and an appropriate leader appointed. Hill Stewart agreed to circulate a discussion paper, which would be developed by means of the HA Domain Discussion Forum , into a draft dissemination plan for discussion at the next concertation meeting.

Review of Issues List

The meeting identified one further two further issues, both of them belonging to Theme C The full issues list is presented as Annex 3 .

Special Consensus forming Session on Guideline Development.

Gabriella Cattaneo explained that the ACTS Concertation Steering Group had identified the need for a general framework for the production of guidelines. As part of this it was looking to the Horizontal Actions Domain and related consensus forming projects to identify and manage gaps and overlaps between the guidelines.

One option was for the project CONVAIR to oversee the production of guidelines but Pietro Polese (CONVAIR) pointed out that the project had very much smaller resources than its predecessors in the RACE programmes and its principal contribution to guideline development was likely to be input to individual guidelines on strategies, evolution, visions and priorities.

This stimulated some discussion on the area in which other Horizontal Domain projects could contribute to particular guidelines. In addition DIPLOMAT and ETD will be actively involved in supporting the production of guidelines on teleworking by the GAT. DOLPHIN will play a similar role for Domain 5 and HORIZON for Domain 2. As well as supporting some Domain 3 activities, GINA will provide support on guideline development to the NI chain. EURORIM will support some of the Domain 1 and SI chain group activities.

It seemed that, collectively, this wider group of consensus forming projects had a fairly comprehensive overview of chain and domain activities. It would be well placed to identify gaps and overlaps and to suggest ways of managing them. However it needed, as basic input, a reliable calendar of chain and domain activities together with a 'first guess' analysis of the guideline scope statements, suggesting gaps and overlaps.

Hill Stewart reported that he had been actioned by the Concertation Steering Group to ensure that the calendar was kept up to date and a revised version would be published before the end of November.

Renata Guarneri (EURORIM) emphasised that the first versions of some guidelines would be published in the next few months. Work on analysing gaps and overlaps needed to start now - it might be too late to resolve some of them at the March concertation meeting.

Pietro Polese explained that CONVAIR would be evaluating the guidelines as they emerged and would be establishing dialogue with domains and chains to identify the areas with which it should be involved. Concern was expressed about the criteria that CONVAIR would use for evaluating guidelines. Pietro explained that CONVAIR did not intend to assess the quality of guidelines - it would evaluate them to identify strategy and policy issues and implications for evolution scenarios. It might be possible to produce an initial impression of the gaps and overlaps before the next concertation meeting but it was important to realise that the Christmas break and preparation for the audit at the end of January would seriously restrict the amount of analysis that could be done on a document appearing at the end of November.

Hill Stewart suggested that, if resource was a problem, he could, as rapporteur, assist CONVAIR to produce an initial 'Strawman' analysis of the gaps and overlaps and facilitate a bulletin board dialogue on the H A Domain Discussion Forum to refine the document into something worthy of discussion at the next meeting.

It was agreed that, at future concertation meetings, a special session of the HA Domain meeting (about 2 hours long) would be organised to discuss guideleine development and that all consensus projects would be invited to participate in this session.

HA Domain Workshops.

Two highly successful workshops were held during the meeting.

The first, organised by FAIR and USINACTS, was held jointly with Domain 1. It reviewed some market trends in advanced communications and examined the implications for ACTS trials. Copies of the proceedings (on paper or CD-ROM) are available from Gabriella Cattaneo.

The second, organised by EPRIWATCH, looked at the role which ACTS results might play in regional development. Proceedings will be published on the HA Domain home page. An action plan will be being developed by Joan Schlieker, Ann Clark and Jean Millar.

Both workshops succeeded in attracting many participants from outside the domain. Some messages seem to emerge. Day 2 workshops, suitably publicised, will attract widespread interest. Day 1 workshops need to address another domain if they are to attract interest outside the domain - they could also be held as part of a chain meeting, if plans to expand future concertation meetings to three days are realised. Workshops on the day before or day after the concertation meeting only succeed if they are well publicised and are highly interactive.

Development of Action Plan.

The following actions were agreed:

Issue A1: Interface to to other Framework Programmes
Hill Stewart to circulate a list of WEB bookmarks for WEB sites providing information on RTD initiatives related to ACTS.

Issue A2: Interface to IPTS
FAIR and INFOWIN to meet with the Commission and IPTS to discuss the most effective means of collaboration.

Issue A3: Interface to COST
Jean Millar to arrange a presentation by Gordon Lennox of DG XIII on the COST programme at the next concertation meeting.

Issue A4: Interface to ISPO
Jean Millar to facilitate contacts between INFOWIN and ISPO with a view to establishing effective means of collaboration

Issue B1: Establishing Political Rationale for ACTS
Ongoing. The focus now is the 5th Framework programme.
Consider a workshop/workshops to publicise the impact of ACTS (review in March)

Issue B2: Contributing to the next Round of ISF Discussions
Jean Millar to provide details of the Commission contacts for the ISF study groups.

Issue B3: Exploiting the results of ACTS in support of Regional Development.
Workshop organised by EPRIWATCH at November 96 Concertation meeting
Joan Schlieker, Ann Clark and Jean Millar to develop an action plan, based on the resultsof the workshop, for discussion at the next concertation meeting.

Issue B4: Ensuring that SMEs benefit from the Results of the ACTS Programme.
SMARTS to organise a 2 hour workshop at the March concertation meeting, possibly in conjunction with the GA chain group.

Issue C1: Publicising HA activities to the rest of the ACTS Community.
USINACTS to organise a distributed conference following the March concertation meeting

Issue C2: Marketing the results of the ACTS programme to key constituencies for enabling the rapid launch and uptake of advanced communications services.
Hill Stewart to circulate a discussion paper, to be developed by means of an electronic bulletin board, into a draft dissemination plan for discussion at the next concertation meeting.
Projects to consider the European Conference on Multimedia Applications, Services and Technologies (ECMAST) in Milan from the 21st to the 23rd of May 1997 as an opportunity for disseminating ACTS results and contact Giorgio Gallassi before the end of November with specific proposals.

Issue C3: Integrating second call projects into the activities of the HA Domain.
Borgar Olsen to present the scope of OPTIMUM at the March meeting.

Issue C4: Identifying and publicising Critical Success Factors for trials.
Joint workshop with Domain 1 on Market Issues organised at November meeting.
USINACTS to organise a distributed conference following the March concertation meeting

Issue C5: Encouraging ACTS projects to use the WEB for disseminating results
HA Domain projects to set an example by establishing meaningful WEB sites
INFOWIN to encourage projects to provide keywords to WEB search engines

Issue C6: Identifying Gaps and Overlaps between the ACTS Guidelines
Hill Stewart to work with CONVAIR to produce an initial 'Strawman' analysis of the gaps and overlaps between proposed guidelines and facilitate a bulletin board dialogue to refine the document into something worthy of discussion at the next meeting.

Issue D: Encouraging ACTSPprojects to downstream and exploit their Results through Instruments such as: EUREKA, TEN, Structural Fund, Social Fund - ADAPT-BIS, INFO 2000.
Jean Millar to provide Hill Stewart with a list of contact points for circulation to projects.

Issue E1: Involving players from the CEE in ACTS.
Jean Millar to report to March concertation meeting on opprtunities for involving additional CEE players in the ACTS 3rd Call.
Projects to suggest priorities for CEE involvement to Jean Millar before the next concertation meeting.

Issue E2:Establishing interfaces to parallel activities in major industrial countries outside Europe.
Review at March Concertation meeting.

The Workplan has been updated to include these actions and is presented in Annex 4.

Future Meetings.

It was agreed that a 2 hour special session, involving all consensus forming projects, would be held at future concertation meetings to review guideline production.

The next meeting will take place in Brussels on 4/5 March 1997.

Annex 1: Policy Papers of Interest to HA Domain.

Strategy Options to strengthen the European Programme Industry in the Context of the Audiovisual Policy of the European Union.
European Commission, April 1994.

Green Paper: Copyright and Related Rights in the Information Society.
European Commission, 19 July 1995.

The multilingual Information Society - Communication from the Commission - Amended Proposal for a Council Decision on the Adoption of a multiannual Programme to promote the linguistic Diversity of the Community in the Information Society.
European Commission, 8 November 1995.

First Annual Report to the European Commission from the Information Society Forum.
June 1996.

First Annual Report to the European Commission from the Information Society Forum - Supplement containing Working Group Reports.
June 1996.

Report of the Task Force 'Educational Software and Multimedia'.
European Commission, July 1996.

Communication from the Commission to the Council and European Parliament on 'Standardisation and the Global Information Society: the European Approach'.
European Commission, 24 July 1996.

Communication from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions: 'The Information Society from Corfu to Dublin - The new emerging Priorities'.
European Commission, 24 July 1996.

Green Paper: Living and working in the Information Society: People first.
European Commission, 24 July 1996.

Communication from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament and the Economic and Social Committee concerning regulatory transparency in the internal market for information society services - Proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive amending for the third time Directive 83/189/EEC laying down a procedure for the provision of information in the field of technical standards and regulations.
European Commission, 30 August 1996.

Public Policy Issues arising from telecommunications and Audiovisual Convergence.
KPMG, 1 September 1996.

The Information Society and the Citizen: a Status Report on the Availability and Use of Information and Communication Systems.
European Commission, September 1996.

Amended Proposal for a Council Decision on the adoption of a multiannual programme to promote the linguistic diversity of the Community in the Information Society.
European Commission, 2 October 1996.

Communication from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions - Learning in the Information Society - Action Plan for a European Education Initiative (1996-98).
European Commission, 2 October 1996.

Annex 2: List of WEB Bookmarks for information on other programmes.

At the June Concertation Meeting, various members of the HA Domain commented on the difficulty of obtaining information about other programmes and initiatives. The following WEB sites provide basic information and contact points for a wide range of activities of potential interest to ACTS projects.

ESPRIT: http://www.cordis.lu/esprit/home.html
TELEMATICS: http://www2.echo.lu/telematics/home.html
Targeted Socio-Economic Research: http://www.cordic.lu/cgi/node.pl?language=en&node=//tser
ISPO: http://www.ispo.cec.be
IPTS: http//www.jrc.es/welcome.html
INFO 2000: http//www2.echo,lu/info2000/infohome.html
EUREKA: http//eureka.belspo.be/
TEN: http://www2.echo.lu/tentelecom96/en/w3homep.html
IMPACT: http://www2.echo.lu/impact/en/impacthome.html

In addition: The accuracy and completeness of the information varies from site to site but, at the very least, it should help you to identify projects/actions with similar interests to your own and provide you with e- mail or telephone contacts for more detailed information.

Annex 3: Issues List.

THEME A: INTERFACING WITH OTHER RTD INITIATIVES
  1. Other fourth framework programmes, notably ESPRIT, TELEMATICS and TARGETED SOCIO- ECONOMIC STUDIES
  2. The Seville Institute for Prospective Technical Studies (IPTS)
  3. The COST (Co-operation On Science and Technology) programme
  4. The Information Society Project Office (ISPO)
THEME B: ESTABLISHING THE POLITICAL RATIONALE FOR ADVANCED COMMUNICATIONS RTD.
  1. Providing input to the debate on the fifth framework programme showing how ACTS results can contribute to key EU policy concerns such as:
    * job creation
    * increasing the competitiveness of European businesses
    * improving the quality of life
    * assuring greater prosperity
    * assisting social cohesion
  2. Contributing to the next round of the Bangeman Information Society Forum discussions.
  3. Exploiting the results of ACTS in support of regional development
  4. Ensuring that SMEs benefit from the results of the ACTS programme
THEME C: TARGETED DISSEMINATION OF RESULTS.
  1. Publicising HA activities to the rest of the ACTS Community.
  2. Marketing the results of the ACTS programme to key constituencies for enabling the rapid launch and uptake of advanced communications services.
  3. Integrating second call projects into the activities of the HA Domain.
  4. Identifying and publicising Critical Success Factors for trials.
  5. Encouraging ACTS projects to use the WEB for disseminating results
  6. Identifying gaps and overlaps between the ACTS guidelines
THEME D: EXPLOTATION OF ACTS RESULTS.

Encouraging ACTS projects to downstream and exploit their results through instruments such as:

  1. EUREKA
  2. TEN
  3. Structural Fund
  4. Social Fund - ADAPT-BIS
  5. INFO 2000
THEME E: THE GLOBAL DIMENSION
  1. Involving players from the CEE in ACTS.
  2. Establishing interfaces to parallel activities in major industrial countries outside Europe.

ACTS Telework Chain Index Page

European Telework Development Initiative - Home Page
Notes prepared by Hill Stewart (hill@btinternet.com)
HA Domain Rapporteur on 15 November 1996
Maintained by Vera Franz, IENM/Techno-Z FH F&E

Page address http://www.eto.org.uk/gat/agendas/ha961105.htm