At the European Telework Online website

"Telework 1997":
Annual Report from the European Commission

Annex 4: Definitions and Glossary

1. Definitions

1.1 Telework

There are many definitions of telework. This causes difficulties when trying to compare the results of different telework surveys and research. The common element across all aspects of telework is

"the use of computers and telecommunications to

change the accepted geography of work."

It origins can be traced to the introduction of the term "telecommuting" by Jack Nilles in the USA in his publication The telecommunications transportation trade-off (John Wiley & Sons, 1976), to denote this type of working arrangement. It was popularised by futurist Francis Kinsman in his book The Telecommuters (John Wiley & Sons, 1987). The term "telework" has been popularised in Europe through its use by the European Commission, which from the late 1980s and early 1990s has sponsored considerable research in this field, particularly into the use of telework as a means to develop economic activity and create work opportunities in rural areas or places with economic problems.

The most commonly encountered terms are explained below.

Generally interpreted to mean someone who works at home all or part of the time, which is a limited view of the concept. Whereas telecommuter can be seen as an expression to of a worker with an arrangement to avoid commuting by working at home, or closer to home, all or part of the time, a teleworker is someone who uses computers and telecommunications in order to overcome restraints in place or time of work, thus become more flexible

An employer-centred concept that encompasses a wide spectrum of new working practices, including flexible working hours as well as flexibility of work location, flexible contracts of employment. It can also mean flexible use of office space, such that a group of people ‘hot-desk’ i.e. don’t have personal desks but share a smaller number of desks, and use whichever one is free.

These are shared office facilities that provides a range of office services, often for employees of several companies, or different departments of the same company. It means that employees can use the office that's most convenient to him or her, rather than specific office space owned by their company or department.

A special class of telecentre, named because of its origins in rural villages. The telecottage movement started in Scandinavia and has now spread to many other parts of Europe - for example there are thriving telecottages in Ireland, France, England, Wales and Scotland. Telecottages may be converted country cottages, redundant farm buildings or parts of school premises - or they may be conventional office buildings.

Telecottages perform multiple roles including offering training in teleworking technology and relevant skills, attracting work that uses these skills and hence being spur to local economic development. They also provide local organisations and businesses access to more expensive office and hi-tech equipment.

Working at home, likely to have access to typical office facilities, such as filing cabinet, business phone and fax and a computer. The home has become an "office" workplace.

These teleworkers have no obvious single location where more work takes place than any other. Armed with mobile telephone and/or portable computer, their office is where the nearest phone plug is (or anywhere if they are on battery power and radio communications). Their work is location independent (see LIW below).

A location physically distant from the main office, where one or more workers work. Such work may be individual work e.g. a member of a team who has not relocated to be physically close to the rest of their team, or a whole ‘back-office’ team. Such workers typically have ‘remote access’ to computer systems at the main office.

A term coined by Management Technology Associates during their 1992-1993 Telework Study for the UK Department of Trade & Industry. A variant of the remote office idea where work is split across several countries. Jobs are shifted from one region, town or country to another. Pan-European Call handling centres are example of this.

This concept is an extension of the telecottage and is very much about lifestyles and preferences. A televillage is a whole community highly geared to the future work and lifestyles. The whole village is "wired" and each home is fully equipped with an internal network connected to the village network and through broad band communications to the "global village".

As portable and mobile technology become more pervasive, the wide range of working modes considered as one form of telework or another, start to blur, as does their comparison with ‘conventional’ work.

1.2 Teletrade

Teletrade literally means "doing business over networks". It uses advanced information and communications technologies (such as the Internet) to market and sell goods and services, enhance customer relationships and reach distant markets without the overhead of a local "physical presence".

Although similar in concept to electronic commerce, the latter most often refers only to the actual trading transaction e.g. the placing of an order. Teletrade covers all aspects of the selling cycle and the buyer-seller relationship.

1.3 Telecooperation

Telecooperation is the application of information and communications’ technologies by individuals and organisations to enhance communications and access to information. People working collaboratively over a networked as part of a virtual team are an example of telecooperation. So is alliance building to create a network of dispersed individuals who come together to cooperate for a shared purpose. When more formal, this network may be considered a virtual organisation (see glossary).

Telecooperation entails new skills and changes to organisations. In particular the information and communications flows of traditional organisational hierarchies are undermined, and the barriers of communication across organisation boundaries are dissolved.

2. Glossary of Terms

ACD (Automated Call Distribution). A system where calls to a central telephone number are automatically diverted to a free operator. This person may be a remote or home-based teleworker.

ACTS (Advanced Communications Technologies and Services). A European Union research and technology programme under the Fourth Framework. ACTS is concerned with the deployment and use for economic and social benefit of advanced trans-European networks and services, such as ISDN, mobile communications, broadband and multimedia services. ACTS focus is on applications rather than the technology per se.

ADAPT is an initiative financed by the European Social Fund which aims to assist the workforce adapt to industrial change. Thus, the Information Society and advances in ICTs are looked at from the human resources development perspective, issues which are of direct relevance to telework. The Social Fund is contributing 1.6 BECU over five years and, together with Member State co-funding, this reaches 3.2 BECU

ADSL (Asymmetrical Digital Subscriber Line). A way of providing high bandwidth services into the home, such as television, video on demand and Internet access. It uses conventional twisted pair copper cable.

AET (Asociación Española de Teletrabajo). Spanish Telework Association.

AFTT (Association Française de Telematique et Teletravail) French Telework Association.

ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode). A communications standard for combining data, voice and video on high speed data channels. Data is sent in packets of 53 bytes, comprising 48 data bytes and a five byte header. ATM is likely to be the main protocol used on Internet backbone channels in future. Channel speeds of 155, 625 and 2,540 Mbps are being planned by telecommunications operators.

Audioconferencing. A multi-way telephone conference. Several people are connected at the same time by the telephone service provider and can hold virtual meetings. Connection may be initiated by dialling out from the service provider or dialling in at a pre-determined time. Providers offer a range of add-on services such as transcription.

BPR (Business Process Re-engineering). The radical redesign of businesses processes to improve efficiency, quality, reduce cycle times and improve customer service. Telework offers opportunities to reconfigure supply chains, and gain benefits of round-the-clock working. However, the EC supported project COBRA found little exploitation of telework in BPR initiatives.

Broadband. Generally data transmission speeds in excess of 1 Mbps. Contrast modem speeds of 28.8Kbps and an ISDN channel of 64Kbps.

Browser. The software used to display HTML pages on the World Wide Web. Netscape’s Navigator and Microsoft’s Internet Explorer are the world’s most widely used browsers.

BTA. Belgian Telework Association.

Cable modem. A device that interfaces between coaxial cable television/voice channel and home computing equipment. Holds the potential for providing high speed Internet access.

Call Centres. An example of remote office working, where work previously dispersed is centralised into one centre, often located in an area with available labour, lower costs and good telecommunications connections. Calls to local customer service centres are automatically diverted to the centre, which typically covers a large region or continent.

CERN (Centre European Researche Nucleaire). The research centre near Geneva where the World Wide Web was invented.

Computer conferencing. A form of groupware where users can send messages to ‘bulletin boards’ or other information databases and receive replies. The information bases are organised into topics, thus making it easier to connect with people with common interests.

CSCW (Computer Supported Cooperative Work). The software tools and working methods used to support team work, especially virtual teamwork (q.v.). It includes the use of computer conferencing, electronic ‘white board’ systems and use of Intranets. A more popular, though restricted, term is groupware (q.v.).

CTI (Computer Telephony Integration). The integration of computer systems with telephones. This may be dial-out facilities from a computer, or more typically use of intelligent exchange facilities that brings up caller information and database records on a computer screen when a telephone is answered.

DECT (Digital European Cordless Telephone). As its name implies, this is a standard for cordless phones. The most likely scenario is around a building though there are some services that operate in public places.

Desk Top Conferencing (DTC). Videoconferencing where communications is from computer-to-computer, rather than remote video camera to local monitor. The users have a small video camera mounted on top of their computer monitor. Software integrates video images into the Windows desk-top environment. This means that participants can see images of each other alongside other computer generate information such as documents. Telecooperation takes place by a combination of visual conversation and collaborative document sharing.

Ecash (Electronic cash). Cash that exists as information. It may be held in smart cards or on disk storage and can be traded through special terminals or over networks. At the moment several commercial variants are appearing e.g. Digicash, Mondex.

ECTF. European Community Telework/Telematics Forum.

Electronic Commerce. The handling of formal transactions over electronic networks, often directly computer to computer. Early electronic commerce took place over proprietary networks using EDI (Electronic Data Interchange), but the scope is now consider wider including trading over open networks such as the Internet (see Internet Commerce). Similar to, but narrower in scope than teletrade (see definition above)

Email. Electronic mail. Sending and receiving messages over computer networks, such as the Internet.

ERDF (European Regional Development Funds). One of the four Structural Funds of the European Union.

ESF (European Social Funds). One of the four Structural Funds of the European Union.

ESPRIT (European Special Programme for Research into Information Technology). A European Union research and technology programme under the Fourth Framework. Its focus is on the collaborative development of core technologies such as complex semiconductors, multimedia and expert systems.

ETD (European Telework Development). An initiative under the ACTS programme. The aim of the initiative is stimulate the beneficial uptake of telework, teletrade and telecooperation.

ETO (European Telework Online). The Web site on European telework, supported in part by ETD. For details see Annexe 3.

ETW (European Telework Week). A coordinated week of activities, such as conferences, exhibitions and open-house events to focus public and media attention on the economic and social benefits of telework. The first European Telework Week (ETW95) was held from 9-16 November 1995, and the second (ETW96) from 4--11 November 1996. ETW97 is from 3-7 November.

Extranet. A network using Internet protocol, that allows external organisations, such as suppliers or customers, access to selected internal information. In essence, it is an Intranet (q.v.) which gives external users restricted access (for example using password protection) to particular information through the firewall.

FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions). Files of answers to questions commonly asked by those joining an online service such as an email distribution list, a computer conference or Internet newsgroup. The ETO Web site has a series of frequently asked questions including questions of interest to teleworkers seeking employment, researchers into telework and of those balancing work and domestic commitments. See Web page http://www.eto.org.uk/faq/faqintro.htm.

Firewall. A secure gateway limiting access in and out of an internal computer network, such an Intranet. A combination of settings on communications hardware, and software on computer servers, denies access to unauthorised users.

ftp (File Transfer Protocol). The process for transferring binary files (such as documents or software) across the network

GAT (General Access Telework). The telework ‘chain’ of the ACTS programme. GAT brings together those working on specific projects that involve telework (see Annexe 2 for a list of these projects).

Groupware. A class of computer software that allows several users to collaborate through sharing information. Computer conferencing and group decision support systems are types of groupware. Lotus Notes is the most widely used groupware product.

GSM (Groupe Special Mobile). A European standard for cellular phone digital communications. Allows mobile phones to be used in countries across Europe and certain other parts of the world. The main alternative digital standard is PCN. This is used by some European operators (e.g. Orange in the UK), but is more widely found in the Far east and Northern America.

GIF (Graphics Interchange Format). Compression algorithm for computer images in 256 colours. Two variants GIF87 and GIF89. The mostly used format for images on the Internet, although JPEG (q.v.) compression is considered better for high quality photographs and usually compresses smaller.

HTML (HyperText Mark Up Language). The code used on WWW pages to instruct the browser how to display the text. It add different types of tags and pairs of tags to delineate blocks of text. For example, the pair <H1> </H1> around a block of text indicates a first level heading, <B> </B> indicates bold text, and <P> is a paragraph tag. HTML is evolving rapidly. Version 3 is currently the existing standard, but HTML extensions (e.g. new tags) are being developed all the time and used in particular packages, which means that users must keep upgrading browsers or using different browsers to read all such text.

http (Hypertext Transfer Protocol). The protocol used to transfer information across the World Wide Web. It indicates that the information is encoded in HTML (q.v.) See also URL.

IAP (Internet Access Provider). A supplier of connections to the Internet. Such connections may be dial-up (where the Internet is accesses through a modem), ISDN (q.v.) or leased line.

ICT (Information and Communications Technology). A generic term that covers both information technology (computer hardware and software) and telecommunications equipment and services. Its increasing use indicates the growing convergence between these strands of technology.

Information Society. The term adopted the European Commission to indicate a society where information is a key component of economic and social activity. Citizens, both consumers or workers, use information intensively. It is universally accessible through advanced information and communications technologies.

Intelligent Agent. A piece of software using artificial intelligence techniques that operates autonomously against a set of rules. A common type of agent is one that roams the Internet and searches out information. Other types filter incoming information and messages for items of relevance to particular users.

Internet. A network of computer networks, estimated to be around 10 million world-wide. Any computer can join the Internet and exchange information, provided it makes an appropriate physical connection and operates the TCP/IP protocol (q.v.). See also Intranet and Extranet.

Intranet. An internal Internet. In other words an internal computer network that runs the Internet Protocol (TCP/IP). Most Intranets have a computer ‘gateway’ to the wider (external) Internet and deploy a ‘firewall’ (q.v.) to prevent unauthorised access to a company’s information.

ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network). Services that allow sharing of multiple devices on a single line, such as telephone, fax and computer access to online services. Basic rate ISDN service (ISDN-2) consists of two 64kbps digital communications channels, while primary consists of 32. Although ISDN offers significant benefits for certain kinds telework, their costs and ease-of-use have deterred many home workers when contrasted with high speed modems.

ISP (Internet Service Provider). A supplier of Internet services including access. Originally distinguished from IAPs (Internet Access Provider q.v.) since they provided the major back-bone connections between countries, and sold on bandwidth to smaller local IAPs. The term seems to be declining in use.

ISPO (Information Society Project Office). A service unit established by DGIII and DGXIII to act as a bridge builder between Commission Services and external counterparts active in Information Society issues, including technological, social, economic, etc. ISPO is part of the Information Society Activity Centre (ISAC) whose role is to raise awareness of the opportunities and impacts of Information Society development by arranging special events, providing a leadership role in running conferences, participating in other relevant conferences, workshops, seminars, etc., and in participating in selected projects

JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group). An image format for compressed photographic images. Give good results at compressions of up to 20:1. This efficiency means it is widely used on the Internet. See also GIF and MPEG.

Kiosk. A customised access unit, providing consumers simplified access to a range of information services. A typical kiosk is found in a public area, such as a shopping centre or railway station, and is robustly constructed. It is a metre or so high and operated by people standing up. Although powered by computer, its interface is not usually a computer keyboard, but is typically a touch screen display or a standard display with a customised set of interface buttons.

LAN (Local Area Network). A network that connects computer together within a small area, usually a single office. Facilities such as printers and disks can be shared. Many LANs have gateways to connect their users to external services such as the Internet.

List Server. A server that redistributes electronic mail to those that have "subscribed" to the list. Commonly used software for list servers are listserv or MajorDomo.

LIW (Location Independent Work). A generic term for flexible work and telework that indicates that the physical location of where the work takes place in unimportant. Modern communications and computer technology bring the work to the worker, wherever they happen to be.

MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions). A standard format for encoding files for sending over the Internet. It is able to handle special character codes and symbols, which the Internet, which can only handle 7-bit ASCII codes is unable to do. Thus it can be used to send files as varied as word processing documents, spread sheets, image and video files. Such files ‘attached’ to an email are typically MIME encoded, often automatically and transparently to the user. BASE64 is a specific MIME format.

Modem (modulator-demodulator). A device that connects your computer to the telephone network to access remote computers and online services. Modern modems work to standards such as V32. Most can send and receive fax, while later models also handle including voice messages.

MPEG (Moving Picture Expert group). A compression standard for video (moving) images.

NC (Network Computer). A computer that relies on a computer network for its ongoing operation and software, which is downloaded as required. By restricting its range of application it can be made simpler and cheaper than a fully configured personal computer. Common formats are hand-held devices and slim-line table-top devices with no local hard disk storage.

Newsgroups. Bulletin boards, where users post messages that can be accessed by others using a "news reader". Each newsgroup focuses on a specific topic, often of very narrow interest. Each newsgroups has its own unique address, such as uk.business.telework. These are organised into hierarchies, where the prefix indicates types of newsgroup (e.g. biz. (Business), sci (science) rec. (Recreation) etc.) or country using the Internet two character codes (e.g. uk, de, es). See also USENET.

NTF (Nederlands Telewerk Forum). The national teleworking association in The Netherlands.

OEN (Open Electronic Networking). The use of open systems like the Internet, for telecooperation. This contrasts with proprietary online services (q.v.). OEN uses a variety of methods including electronic mail, distribution lists and the World Wide Web.

OLR (Off-Line Reader). Software that allows users of email and the Internet, to download new information into their local computer and browse it while not connected. This saves significantly on telephone charges. A built in feature of many email systems (e.g. EUDORA), but some specialist packages (e.g. Virtual Access) provide similar interfaces for multiple services.

Online Services. Services that dial-up users access for electronic mail and a range of information services. Some are restricted to information access, such as Lexis-Nexis, while the more general services such as CompuServe and AOL, also offer email, computer conference and WWW access. At one time many of these services used proprietary software and did not allow Internet access. The dividing line between these and Internet services is blurring.

PGP (Pretty Good Privacy). A method of encrypting messages, such that they can only be read if the recipient applies the appropriate decryption method. Encryption and decryption relies on a combination of private ‘key’, known only to the sender and a ‘public’ key, known to the recipient. Since messages are encoded using cryptographic algorithms they are extremely difficult to decode if intercepted. Encryption is at the heart of secure electronic transactions (see SET). PGP was developed privately to overcome restrictions placed by US legislation on the export of encryption technology.

PoP (Point of Presence). Used to indicate an access point to an Internet Access Provider (q.v.). Many providers now provide PoPs on a national or international basis, through agreements with other IAPs or ISPs. This gives their clients Internet access for the cost of a local telephone call from many locations, a boost to reducing the cost of location independent working (see LIW)..

Push Technology. A way of pushing information to an Internet user in background mode. While the user is browsing or accessing email, ‘channels’ of information (according to user selection) are pushed into their local computer invisibly. They may be viewed later by user selection, or activated as a screen saver. Pointcast, for example, scrolls ticker tape style stock prices, and shows panels of information (including news headlines, company and industry news, and weather forecasts) when the users’ computer is otherwise idle.

Remote Access. Software that allows a computer user to access any application on a remote computer. This contrast with specific applications, such as email, where the client software is already held in the local computer. Variants include remote node and remote control. Remote node gives access to a remote network, and you are just another user running application. Remote control means you actually take control of the remote PC through your local keyboard. The remote PC runs the application and its display image is mirrored back to your local computer.

RISI (Regional Information Society Initiatives), part of the Article 10 of the Structural Funds.

Search Engine. A facility that lets you search for information on the Internet from an index, that typically holds references to all the text on WWW pages. The indexes may relate to the content on one site (e.g. a version of Excite indexes the ETO Web pages daily) or hold references to WWW pages all over the Internet (50 million plus). Commonly used engines are Lycos, InfoSeek, AltaVista, and Excite. Selection of pages to index may be manual (a creator submits pages for indexing) or automatic, where a ‘crawler’ or ‘spider’ (intelligent agents q.v.) roams the net to find new and pages.

SET (Secure Electronic Transactions). A protocol standard which uses key encryption for transmitting information as part of a teletrade transaction. It may be used to authenticate buyers and transfer funds. The standard is backed by major finance clearing organisations (VISA and Mastercard) and will increasingly be incorporated into commercial electronic commerce servers and client (browser) software. An important aspect of the practical use of such as standard is that of ‘trusted third parties’ who hold the private parts of the keys of buyer and sellers. See also PGP.

SIT (Societa'Italiana Telelavoro). A national society for teleworking in Italy.

Social Partners. Organised representatives of labour market interests such as employers associations and trades unions.

SOHO (Small Office Home Office). Defined by marketers as a segment of buyers with common characteristics. This is a small office, that may be part of a person’s home. Volume of equipment used is generally lower than that in large offices, and users more cost sensitive.

SME (Small to Medium Enterprise). In European Union terms this is defined as an enterprise which has less than 250 employees, is less than 25 per cent owned by large companies, and has a total turnover of less than 40 MECU or annual balance sheet of less than 27 MECU. This definition dates from 1996, and replaces and earlier definition that included enterprises less than 500 employees. It includes medium, small (less than 50 employees) and micro-enterprises (less than 10 employees).

Spamming. The frowned upon practice of posting messages indiscriminately into newsgroups and individual emails e.g. for unsolicited advertising

TAP (Telematic Applications Programme). A European Union research and technology programme under the Fourth Framework. Its focus is the application of information and communications technologies in areas such as education, health, transport and libraries.

TCA (TeleCottage Association). The biggest telework association in the UK. Although its roots are in the telecottage movement its full title is The Telework, Telecottage and Telecentre Association.

Teleactivity. A generic term, not widely used, to include all types of teleactivity that are part of telework, teletrade or telecooperation. Examples of teleactivities are teleshopping, telebanking, telemedicine etc.

Telecommuting. See Definitions (above)

Telecooperation. See Definitions (above)

Teleconferencing. A generic term that includes both video- and audio- conferencing (q.v.).

Telecottage. See Definitions (above)

Telecentre. See Definitions (above)

Teletrade. See Definitions (above).

TTS (Transport-Telecommunications Substitution). The substitution of telecommunications based methods such as telework and teletrade to replace physical travel or transport. Telecommuting to replace physical commuting is one example of the former, while document delivery over a network, instead of using a courier is an example of the latter.

TQM (Total Quality Management). A systematic approach to inject quality thinking throughout an organisation. While the ultimate focus is on quality of products and services, the essential ingredients are conformance to a set of standards, such as those embodied in ISO9000 and ISO9001.

URL (Uniform Resource Locator). It defines an Internet location and type of resource e.g. ftp://ftp.myfiles.co.uk is an ftp server and http://www.myco.co.uk/pages.html is a reference to an html page

USENET. Also known as Net News. A large distributed bulletin board system consisting of over 12,000 newsgroups. Each newsgroup is propagated around the Internet on a daily (or more frequent) basis. Internet Access Providers hold copies of a large proportion of these for local access by their users.

UUencode. An encoding format that translates files into 7-bit format for transmission over the Internet. An earlier alternative to MIME encoding (q.v.).

Videoconferencing. The use of camera (with microphone) and monitor to allow visual communications over a high-speed communications link (typically 1Mbps or higher) instead of proximity face-to-face communications. Videoconferencing equipment ranges in size from person-to-person, to large group. Users can control camera direction and angle of vision, so that remote users may be shown images other than the user’s face. Person-to-person communications is increasingly being incorporated as another channel in computer communications (see Desktop Conferencing), while use of compression techniques means reasonable quality video over much slower links than traditionally (e.g. 128kbs ISDN).

Virtual Organisation. An organisation of various independent members that operates cooperatively (and may have been created) without the constraints of space and/or time. Telecooperation (q.v.) is its main modus operandi. ETD (q.v.) is an example of a virtual organisation. It is a consortium of business partners and individuals who work as a coherent organisation on the ETD initiative.

Virtual Corporation. The more commonly used American term for a virtual organisation.

Virtual Teaming. The concepts of virtual working applied to a work team. Members of the team work at different locations and use telecooperation methods to progress their joint work.

WWW (World Wide Web). The collection of HTML pages that reside on Web servers across the world. It is estimated that there are over 50 million publicly accessible WWW pages on the Internet, a number that has been more than doubling every year.

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