Report on the first meeting of the SIGCUE task force for effecting program exchange
Joseph R. Denk · ACM SIGCUE Outlook · 1971
Some 35 people attended the informal evening session at SJCC dedicated to initiating task force activity under SIGCUE to effect program exchange of computer-based educational materials.The author was asked to chair this meeting and his goals were four-fold: (i) to initiate a survey of available computer-based educational materials, (2) to establish task force activity for the estimation of the educational validity of a large subset of the available materials, (3) to delineate the parameters that must be involved in the exchange of these materials, and (4) to initiate activity toward the exchange of some of these materials.Prior to this first meeting, the author has published a report in INTERFACE, February, 1971, indicating his opinion of the state of the art of program exchange and a proposal for coordinated national activity.The chairman opened the meeting with a brief description of the goals given above, an all-too-brief critique of some exchange centers currently functioning (at least on paper), the parameters he felt were necessary to consider a minimum for effective program exchange, and a few case studies of exchange.The exchange centers critiqued were PALS (North Carolina Educational Computing Service), SSIPP (Beloit College), ADIS, COSMIC, COPES (Illinois Institute of Technology), DECUS, EIN, and CECCP (Eastern Michigan University).Some centers were evaluated as extremely active in the transporting of materials (PALS, SSIPP, COPES, and CECCP) but each of these centers dealt only with a small subset of the available materials and did not significantly help solve the efficiency problem in getting materials to any single computer center.Outpriclng for education (COSMIC), inactivity for reasons yet to be evaluated (DECUS), and apparent failure (EIN) were proposed as other barriers to exchange.EIN also was noted to have proven that despite the fact that the use of a remote computer through the mails was ineffective, exchange and transportation of the materials was taking place as a result of the INTERFACE V5, #3 June 1971