The Teaching Role of
the Network Administrator

Internet teaching (Online learning) is a major, emerging issue for every organisation and company. One of the most important person for this activity is Net- administrator.
The Local Area Network functionality is strongly dependent of his ability to explain commands and implementations to the users. Even, usually, the Net-administrator job consists in networking software maintenance, writing and compiling programs, configuring, and supervising user's access. And, very important, Net-administrator is responsible for all server security problems. In this direction, it is essential for him to convince users, for example to change respective passwords.
Each member of the servers administration team not only has private attribute, but also proper teaching duties in relation with local users. It is a good idea to load in a public directory the learning documents (FAQ's, Guides ) providing specific instructions for LAN users. It is not an easy job to collect all the resources necessary to begin development of online training LAN users.

Introduction

The Internet has allowed many people, who could not find work before, to be employed and to work at home. Due to the presence of computers and the jobs they create, many disabled adults are now employed and contributing to society. Through the Internet their talents and minds are used, not left to waste.

The need to educate end-users in the methods and tools employed by the networked medium is a consequence of the Internet growing, with such an amount of information and data stored, disseminated and retrieved via the Internet. This demand for education falls squarely on the intermediaries: libraries, computer services, departments, faculties, information resource managers, and other - who play a role in providing information services to end-users within their organisations.

With such a rapid growth and frequent change in network technologies it is very difficult for the staff implied in training to stay one step ahead of their constituent audiences. The staff implied in Internet education of end-users need to apply the modern methods in this field, to develop and adapt proper distance online training, and, also, to improve constantly their knowledges in order to fulfil their missions.

One of the important person for training of Local Area Network (LAN) users is the network administrator ("Net- admin"). This person must teach users: what is Internet and how it works, how to connect to Internet, what services for communication are available - with one and many partners, about information services and searching robots, what's allowed and what isn't allowed on the Internet.

By contacting other organisms (IETF, InterNIC, EFF, local NIC, companies and organisations, libraries, faculties), implied in education of end-users, Net-admin must provide for their local users: publications, documents (FYI, RFC, Internet drafts...), announcements (on the Web and by the mailing lists) and other training resources on Internet.
This material is based on author's experience in training of LAN users from the scientific research and academic environment. The authors are implied in development of some information services for users of Romanian R & D Computer Network (RNC) (http:"//www.rnc.ro/) and felows of the Institute for Isotopic and Molecular Technology (http://oc1.itim-cj.ro), which include some pages for training.

Net-admin: Teaching Users about Internet and Internet services

Today, the community of Internet users includes people who are new to the environment. More exactly, from many years, the growing rate of Internet implies the doubling of users number at each year. That means that in each year the newcomers number exceeds that of experimented `Internauts'.
Many people want to use network to solve their working problems, but they do not want to become professional networkers in order to use it.
To bring those new users ("Newbies") into the Internet culture quickly, a LAN Net- admin must provide them some beginning documents. He may distinguish between `actual' and `potential users'
With the increasing number of novices using the Internet, courses covering the basic skills will increase in demand. There are many projects and efforts focused in this direction. Between hundreds printed books, and electronic (text or html versions) volumes, there are distinguished introductory documents. We like to mention at least few electronic ones:

• Kapoor's book entitled "Zen and the art of Internet" with its successive electronic edition prepared by EFF Guttenberg project;
  
• Bob Rankin's guide "Accessing The Internet By E-Mail : Dr.Bob Guide to Offline Internet Access", with its successive edition and more than 30 translations in different languages [30];
  
• Patrick Douglas Crispen "Road-Map" e-mail lessons [9], as a six week course on using Internet services and resources;
  
• Odd de Presno's html big book "The Online World", with its periodic upgradings : an exciting catalog of Internet resources, for almost all newbies.

The first one is mainly oriented to e-mail, ftp, telnet and other simple services, without references to the Gopher and WWW, being older than their development. The second is a very condensed and useful guide for UUCP and dial-up users. The third one addresses to people subscribed to the RoadMap workshop mailing list, i.e. people customed to use e-mail communication. Consequently it is devoted to 'more evoluated' services like listservs, gopher, Web, containing interesting examples, questions, and answers. The last one, available on different sites and also in plain text version, is a great proof of the Internet usefullness for different occupations, a good place to find new friends and partners for your home and office activities.

In our opinion, the ROAD-MAP course could be a nice structured example for distance learning course, very suitable for the present subject. Introducing his workshop, Patrick Douglas Crispen sumarizes:
"Roadmap96 is a 27-lesson, Internet training workshop designed to teach new "Net travelers" how to travel around the rapidly expanding (and often-times confusing) "Information Superhighway" without getting lost. The original Roadmap workshop, which debuted in the Fall of 1994, rapidly became the most popular on-line Internet training workshop in history. Roadmap96 is a completely revised and updated version of the original Roadmap workshop. Roadmap96's lessons are primarily written for people with accounts on command-line systems (like UNIX, VAX, and VM), but EVERYONE is welcome to participate in the workshop!
...
Never in my wildest dreams did I expect that over 500,000 people would participate in the original version of the Roadmap workshop. I guess there may be some truth to the "Roadmap is the Woodstock of the Internet" comment that someone recently sent me. :)
...
My goal for the Roadmap96 workshop is not only to teach you some of the basic skills that you will need to travel on the Information Superhighway, but also to teach you to whom you can turn for help if you ever get lost."

All above-mentioned guides do not discuss networking questions, packet switching, Internet protocols, or telecommunication procedures. Almost all other books dealing with Internet begin with this engineering details, very important for a Net-admin, but without significance for an end-user. To have an insight in the enormous volume of documents, and to understand the specific language (Internaut jargon), the main terms must be clarified. A glossary of such terms can be find, as an appendix, in many of this books [7, 18]. The same role has the introductory chapter of [20,18].

Following the above-mentioned recommendations, a short structured course for the LAN users is suggested. In the authors opinion such a course must be available on every net server, with the first few lessons instaled to the user's workstation, as an introductory screen to the network connection package. After the lesson about e- mail, as a good exercise of this communication service, the Net-admin may send to the user the other lessons (modules). It is very important to personalize this lessons, using local language and local examples (machine names, IP addresses, LAN structure), and avoiding needless explanations. Rewriting the RoadMap96 workshop lessons, so that they meet the LAN user requirements, could be a good solution (approved generously by Patrick D. Crispen). But all the four above-mentioned
electronic documents can be installed on your site, as guides for LAN users, stipulating their copyright notices, only. All this guide preparation activities completes, but do not exclude the need of the LAN 'Help desk' - the the user's online assistance service.

The future of your LAN communication, in our opinion, is directly dependent on the teaching proficiency of your Net-admin, and therefore of the instruction level of the LAN users. In the process of the LAN establishment, virtually all users are newbies; essentially the Net-admin being responsible of their transition to netcitizens.

In our days, between other software tools, on the user's workstation, typically a PC 386 or higher, operating with Windows for Workgroups, or Windows'95, it is customary to install a browser, like Internet Explorer, or Netscape. Persuading people with the newest Internet service. Therefore, for the novice user, it will be a big jump instantly on the World Wide Web. How to convince him to learn the simplest services like telnet and email, instead of Web browsing? We confronted with so happy and busy user, browsing and searching Web all the time, at least a half a year, without reading/writing an email message, and without rudimentary knowledge about telnet or ftp. Certainly, we may count such a case as a teaching error of the Net-admin. But what can be done to convince such a fellow about the value of the e-mail communication? Especially, how can he/she influenced to read Net-admin's e-mail messages? There is another way than the usual limitation of his/her access?

The course suggestion

One such introductory course for the LAN users should cover, in our opinion, the following modules:

Lesson 1, called "Networks", may cover following topics : definition of computer networks, connection equipment, types of networks (LAN-Local Area Network, MAN- Metropolitan Area Network, WAN-Wide Area Network), configurations, etc. The main question is to get used with the specific language, the networking jargon. It is necessary to have some insight with the terms, acronyms and protocols. It is available in Internet a general computing dictionary, called "Free On-line Dictionary of Computing", located at http://wfn- shop.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/foldoc
Many other dictionaries for communication and networking terms can be found on the Net. Some examples are EEF's Internet.glossary.html, Hacker's Dictionary[9], Jargon file, and "Glossary of Networking Terms" [12].
From an engineering point of view, such a module must include info on wave forms, channels, switching (basic technologies), as well as additional technologies: satellite communications, ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network).
This module may have a printed version with no more than 20 pages, with many intuitive images, as well as an electronic (plain text, or html) version, readable by a more advanced user. A good example may be found in [6].

Lesson 2, "About Internet", may cover the informations about: Internet, international connections, Internet Society(ISOC), Internet Architecture Board (IAB), Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and its Working Groups, how to get connected to Internet, Internet Service Providers (ISPs), regional networking organisations: Trans European Research and Education Networking Association (TERENA), Central and Eastern European Networking Association (CEENet), who pays for someone connection to a network on Internet. This module may be considered, also, as the first part of the Internet resources lesson. Some reference materials for elaboration of this module and to support user's instruction are: [1], [6], [7], [15].

Lesson 3, "How Internet Works", may comprise the summary information about packet switched Networks, Internet Protocol (IP), Transmission Control Protocol (TCP), using names rather than addresses to refer to computers, Domain Name System (DNS) and Domain System Structure, Network Information Centre (NIC) functions, applications (pieces of software that allow to work friendly with Internet).
"Standard" Internet applications (remote login, file transfer, electronic mail) and other commonly used, but not standardised are presented in some words on this module. Only this last part discusses a bit of Internet services, without illustration. This module addresses more to the inquiring user, eventually interested to become Net-admin. Recommended mainly as a ftp file document.
The support materials for this module may be [1], [6], [7], [15].

Lesson 4, "What's allowed on the Internet ?" presents some information about: legal implications (research, education, and the federal dollar, commercial use, export laws, property rights), politics, and the Internet, network ethics (individualism, protecting the Internet), ethics, and the private commercial Internet, security requirements (protecting passwords, importing software, missconfigured software, system software flaws, causes of computer violation.
The support material for this module is especially [1], because other aspects of Netiquette (Network Etiquette) [7], [8], [14], [31] must be presented as an accompanion of Lesson "Internet Information Services"

Even all this four lectures contain general information without any references to the communication software, we believe that could assist the user to start his connection to Internet, and to use it. Unfortunately there are enough busy and hurried users without disposal for such an education. Expressly for such users the Net-admin must prepare a very short description as an user's manual of the local workstation installed software. In such a situation, the Net-admin's teaching ability is more visible.

Sometimes, the user, buing his Internet access from a commercial Services Provider (ISP), requires tips for an end-user connection, and escape all the set of the above- mentioned engineering knowledge. The authors experience concerns academic networks and generally, users with scientific background and interest for internal behave.

The members of the ISP staff, or of the LAN Net-admin must provide the following information regarding requirements of the user: terminal or workstation type, network card or modem (type, price), what kind of software and costs for the initial installation and permanent services. This discourse is made usually by phone or fax, but this information must be available on the NIC Web pages of the choosed ISP. As the software installation (programs setup) uses the specific parameters of the Ethernet card or modem setting, and, in many cases, in the LAN there are different configurations, it is a good idea to have all necessary network parameters in a server file.

A relevant example realised by Telstra Internet, may be found at http://www.telstra.net/.
The authors of present issue started to develop information pages for connection to RNC located at http://www.rnc.ro/connection/convention.html.

To became a legal user, after the above instruction, he/she must sign an agreement called "access convention" with LAN Net-admin or with its ISP. This convention establishes the rights and obligations of both entities implied in communication.
Net-admin must know to allocate an account for a new user, assigning an individual password and some quotas, the privileges and restrictions for this account.

At this time, Net-admin can start to teach user about the configuration of his/her local terminal, workstation, and other equipments connected in the local network, installing adequate software on the local workstation. The selection and installation of software packages, covering services specified in the access convention, is dependent, not only of the hardware configuration of the workstation, but of the kind of activity and the skill level of the user. Correlated with Net-admin learning capacity relative to new software tools, and with local server configuration. For an e-mail service, for example, the selection can be made between the UUCP connection (using UUPC/extended package under MS-DOS, or WinNet in Windows), telnet connection (using PINE or simpler mailer like Unix - mail ), or a more elaborate solution with Eudora Lite, Pegasus mail,etc. The Net-admin must take in consideration between different aspects the server capacity and local resources (disk space, RAM dimension).

This step of instruction is usually face to face. Net-admin must teach the user to use: e-mail to send and receive training materials, ftp to access mailing archives and ftp servers with recommended modules, and Internet Explorer, Mosaic or Netscape to browse the Internet and access Web resources. He must setup the start page of the browser to the local site, instructing the user about the URLs of the course modules, and other guides available on the local site.

The modern methods for training will allow in near future the distance integral online learning. Using VRML (Virtual Realistic Markup Language) technology, the users can "walk" or "fly" around the campus, then click on a building (or computer in the room) to see and hear video and audio clips or learn about something in computing or other field.

The most important module for education of novice users is Lesson 5: "Internet Information Services" that can comprise the following sections [4]:

Lesson 5.1, " One-to-One Communication ", explaines functions and commands for electronic mail ( email ), talk or phone. For e-mail, it must be presented different types of mail programme according with the user platform. The supports for this section may be found at [1], [15], [26]. At least this part of the module must be installed on the user workstation as a help file, even each mailer have its own help facility.
The Netiquette Guidelines for using this services are presented in [4], [7], [14], [31].
Net-admin play an important role to prevent the abuses of the users in work with e- mai: verifying the user disk quota, how many and how old are messages of users, and if there is an reclamation about account violation, the delivery of chain letter. Also, he must recommend and teach the user to use the methods for encryption of messages and using of protection key (e.g. PGP - Pretty Good Privacy ).

Lesson 5.2, " One-to-Many Communication ", explaines functions and commands for electronic Mailing Lists and NetNews.
The supports for this section may be found at [1], [9], [10], [15], [17], [23] and the Netiquette in [4], [7], [8] [31].
The staff of LAN administration can maintain some distribution lists, Newsgroups and News System on the one or many servers on the LAN.

The administrator guidelines are presented in [14] and some of them are:

1. General issues: to clarify any policies that site has regarding its subscription to NetNews groups and mailing lists, to clarify any policies that site has about posting to NetNews groups or to mailing lists, to clarify and to publicise archive policy, to investigate the claiming (reclamatiile referitoare la) against LAN users, to keep the health of the system, etc.
2. Mailing Lists: to keep them up to date, to help list owners when problems arise, to inform list owner of any period of planned maintenance and downtime, to be sure to have "-request" aliases for list subscription and its administration, to verify if all mail gateways operate smoothly etc.

Math. Rodica Constantinescu                                                        Dr. Mihail Jalobeanu
Research Institute for Informatics,                            Computer & Communication Lab,  ITIM,
Bucharest, Romania                                                                 Cluj-Napoca, Romania
riki@roearn.ici.ro, http://www.rnc.ro                   jalobean@oc1.itim-cj.ro, http://oc1.itim.cj.ro/