GAT: ACTS Telework Chain
Draft Guideline GA-G1a

First-Time Interoperability across Extranets:
Developing European Competence and Confidence

Appendix B - Glossary

data communications

Any communication across a network in which machine-readable information is transferred, as opposed to a voice telephone call or a live person-to-person video call. For example an email message is a form of data communication, since the text is keyed into the computer before transmission, then transmitted computer-to-computer, then displayed by the distant computer for the recipient to read. Downloading an html page from a website is another example of data communications. Until recently there was a significant distinction between data communications and personal communications, this distinction has become blurred as people have become more familiar with computers and as sophistication of presentation and transmission methods has concealed the underlying technologies.

discussion list

A mechanism in which a message from one "list subscriber" is received by a central computer (the "list server") and retransmitted to all the other list subscribers. When a subscriber replies, the reply goes to the list server and is in turn retransmitted to other subscribers, so that a form of discussion can take place. Although this is a very crude form of online discussion it is popular with many Internet users since only an ordinary email address is needed to participate and the "list messages" arrive with other email, requiring no special effort to participate. It lends itself readily to use among closed communities of users and to the exclusion of subscribers who wish to send "junk mail" or in other ways disrupt the discussion.

extranet

Where a person or an organisation sets out to connect with other Internet users but with no commonly agreed approach other than that each user is connected to and can use the Open Internet (qv). See also online presence and intranet.

global networked economy

see networked economy.

gracefully default

When a computer application or device automatically adapts itself to the circumstances it encounters, without intervention by the user - and preferably without the user needing to be aware of the adaptation - it is said to "gracefully default". The incidence of this most commonly encountered is when two modems connect and use a series of "handshaking" procedures to determine the optimum mutually supported communications speed, protocol etc. Increasingly networked applications and systems aim to work in a similar way, through the applications and systems exchanging information about each other. An example of this is the use by some software vendors of automatic update facilities. The user's system connects with the vendor's website and, after an exchange of information, relevant updated versions of applications are downloaded to the user's system and replace or enhance the earlier, outdated version. Similar processes can be applied to, for example, automatically offer "text" versions of information instead of highly graphical versions, when the server detects that the connection is slow speed or the distant system has low performance, or the distant browser lacks relevant capabilities.

interoperability

In general, two systems or applications or systems are interoperable when they can (a) connect and (b) exchange information in a way that is meaningful to both applications or systems.

intranet

The use of Internet technologies and protocols (see Open Internet) within a company or a closed user group for internal purposes. Since the Open Internet supports a wide and increasing range of different capabilities, the key characteristic of an intranet is that the organisation or group concerned can agree on a particular set of capabilities and standards that are to be used for intranet purposes.

meeting online

Users of the Open Internet (qv) adopt everyday terms such as "meeting" but sometimes apply them in ways that don't necessarily reflect their original sense. For example, in offline parlance, "meeting" implies the presence and interaction of two or more people concurrently in the same place. "Meeting online" may include a concurrent "computer conference" in which the participants all read and write messages to each other within a limited time frame, but can also mean a discussion that extends over time through the exchange of messages, with none of the participants necessarily being in concurrent communication. In this sense, a supplier and a prospective customer, or two potential business partners can be said to "meet online" when some meaningful exchange takes place between them.

marketing online

Any use of an online presence (qv) for the purpose of promoting or selling goods or services or other marketing purposes.

networked economy

Active and successful users of the open Internet (qv) develop a preference for "doing business online" - in other words they will search online for suppliers and, other things being approximately equal, give preference to suppliers who make it easy and attractive to do business with them online. The networked economy comprises that part of the economy where transactions are either completed online (as in the case of many software sales today) or where the main processes of finding and deciding on transactions is undertaken online, even though part of the transaction may be offline (for example when physical goods are delivered or when payment is made by cheque or when a formal order or contract is exchanged by mail or fax). In addition to online working in the sense of computers and the Internet, the networked economy also includes activities where the main processes are undertaken by telephone (as in telephone banking and insurance marketing). The choice between online in the Internet sense versus the use of telephones is mainly to do with the relative costs of these approaches and the stage of penetration of computer and Internet use, rather than a substantive difference of economic effect. In both cases the network substitutes for conventional methods and opens up the geography of the market.

online

An activity is said to take place "online" when it is supported by computers and telecommunications as the main communications method. The most visible example of this is the use of the open Internet (qv) but there are also proprietary networks that support online activities (eg CompuServe and America Online (AOL)), single company networks (as implemented by some Banks) and application based networks (as for example EDI networks).

online presence

This usually refers to the efforts of an individual or an organisation to promote itself and its products or services across the open Internet (qv), typically by establishing a website.

the open Internet

"The Internet" or even "the Net" are commonly used to refer to the "open Internet", which is the collection of connected computers and networks that conform to Internet standards and protocols and make themselves mutually and openly available as a transport mechanism for data communications. The term "open Internet" is preferred so as to distinguish this specific implementation of Internet methods as opposed to the Internet technologies and methods themselves and/or the many private or quasi-private implementations that exist in parallel with the open Internet.

portfolio working

When an individual has more than one job this is referred to as "portfolio working". In many economies the increasing availability of part time jobs coupled with an increasing desire among workers to avoid being reliant on one employer is leading to an increase in portfolio working. For the portfolio worker it can be attractive to undertake one or more of the jobs concerned on a telework basis (qv) rather than through physical attendance at different employer premises in different locations.

purpose interoperability

See also technical interoperability. Purpose interoperability exists when the nature of a connection is such that the requirements of both parties are satisfied. Purpose interoperability may fail even though there is technical interoperability, for example if one of the parties finds the connection too slow relative to the urgency or the importance of the matter in hand. Technically the systems and applications are interoperable, in practice no useful communication has occurred and both parties have wasted effort. Another failure of purpose interoperability is when one party has information relevant and useful to the other party but the second party misses this information because of poor presentation or a failure of the navigation facilities offered. A third example is when data is successfull transferred but is in a format with which the recipient is unfamiliar and has difficulty in unscrambling.

technical interoperability

Technical interoperability exists when two systems connect, data is transferred between them, and the data received is meaningful to the receiving system. As discussed above, two systems may have technical interoperability while the users of the systems may not enjoy purpose interoperability.

telecentre

Premises established in or near a residential area, a commercial centre or a travel node, offering facilities for local or visiting people to use it as a work centre instead of travelling to a more distant place of work.

teleworking

Although most commonly used to mean working at home instead of commuting, in this Guideline it is used more broadly to include the may alternative ways in which computers and telecommunications are used to transform the geography of work and employment. A description of these alternative forms is provided at http://www.eto.org.uk/faq/faq02.htm - Telework & Telecommuting: Common Terms and Definitions.

virtual enterprise

An organisation that operates outside the conventional legal basis of an enterprise, usually on a networked basis. It may be a business venture based on mutual agreement between existing conventional enterprises or a network of individuals working together for mutually agreed purposes.