EHTO Discussion Fora; Getting started


	Updated: Oct 10, 97
Getting started with the Discussion Fora

Introduction

EHTO's Interactive Space is an electronic place where you can meet Users and Providers working or interested in Telematics and Informatics applied to Health Care. The Interactive Space has a number of discussion fora which allow you to organise and participate in discussions and to exchange documents with your colleagues.

On the Free Advertisement Page you are able to make potential buyers and decision makers aware of your products, to make providers aware of your requirements and/or of your needs, to advertise your existence and to make industry, other researchers and/or users aware of your publications, your patents, your ideas ...

1. Discussion Fora
1.1 Mailing Lists
1.2. Exchange of documents
1.2.1 Private Fora
1.2.2 Public Fora
2. How to organise a new Discussion Forum or Mailing Lists
3. How to get authorisation to a private forum
4. The responsibilities of the coordinators of a forum
4.1 Public fora
4.2 Private fora
5. FTP

These guidelines are available in the following documents :

guidelines_forum.doc
guidelines_forum.txt

1. Discussion Fora

A discussion forum which has its own forum page can be organised for any user-group. On that page (e.g.: EHTO's WWW Site forum) the users can make use of the following services:

Mailing Lists
Exchange of documents
Display short messages (still under construction)

1.1 Mailing Lists

A mailing list enables on-line discussions conducted by electronic mail throughout the Internet.
Once you have subscribed to a mailing list you are able to follow and to participate in discussions about specific subjects, e.g.: new technologies, security, etc. Existing mailing lists are available on the forum page.

Usage guidelines:

Communications concerning subscriptions and other administrative requests should be sent to majordomo@ehto.org. This is an application that automatically takes care of the mailing list.

In the description below items contained in [ ]s are optional. When providing the item, do not include the [ ]s around it.

It understands the following commands:

subscribe list [address]
Subscribe yourself (or address if specified) to the named list.
unsubscribe list [address]
Unsubscribe yourself (or address if specified) from the named list.
get list filename
Get a file related to list.
index list
Return an index of files you can "get" for list.
which [address]
Find out which lists you (or address if specified) are on.
who list
Find out who is on the named list.
info list
Retrieve the general introductory information for the named list.
lists
Show the lists served by this Majordomo server.
help
Retrieve this message.
end
Stop processing commands (useful if your mailer adds a signature).

Commands should be sent in the body of an e-mail message to "Majordomo".
Commands in the "Subject:" line will NOT be processed.
If you have any questions or problems, please contact Majordomo-Owner@ehto.org.

Example

Registration at a forum :

1. Send the following mail to majordomo@ehto.org
lists
The Majordomo will respond, via your e-mail box, with a list of all the mailing lists to which you can subscribe.

2. Send the following mail to majordomo@ehto.org
subscribe ht-group4
Majordomo will return a confirmation of your subscription, together with the mailing list policy.

3. Send the following mail to ht-group4@ehto.org
Hello all group 4 members, ...

4. You are now an active member of the list ht-group4@ehto.org

1.2. Exchange of documents

This facility enables the exchange of documents. There are two procedures by which you can exchange documents and will depend on the status of your forum (private or public). Each procedure has two actions : receiving documents from the EHTO server (download) and making them available on EHTO's Server (upload).

1.2.1 Private Fora

a) To make documents available Each Discussion Forum has a utility, as shown below, to upload (or copy) a document from your computer on the EHTO Server. Insert your name (not always the author's one), the name of the file and some information about the document (Summary info:), e.g. : the name of the author, full name of the document and date.

The button "Browse...". allows you to search the file, as used in your word processor. Once you have completed all fields you may upload the file by clicking on the button "Send File".

Upload Utility

The uploads that have been made on your Discussion Forum are registered on a log file. For each upload the following information is given :

name of the person who carried out the upload
name of the file
summary information
time of uploading

Note :

HTML3 : your browser must support HTML3, e.g.: Netscape 2.0
same name : the upload of a file of which the name already exists is impossible
to remove a file : the coordinator send a mail to the webmaster in order to remove the file.

b) To receive documents On the same page (same paragraph) where files are uploaded, there is a link to the directory in which the uploaded files are stored. By using the mouse pointer, select a file to download; the exact procedure depends on the Web browser your are using.

1.2.2 Public Fora

For public fora anonymous ftp is used.

a) Receiving
On each public forum there is link integrated to the FTP server of EHTO. By clicking on this link you will receive - in your browser - an overview of the documents related to one discussion forum. By using the mouse pointer you can select a file to download; the exact procedure depends on the Web browser your are using.

For those wishing to use an ftp tool a explanation is given in chapter 5.

b) To make a file available
To make some files available via anonymous ftp, send the document, together with the necessary information, via e-mail to EHTO's a href="mailto:webmaster@ehto.org">Webmaster, who will place it on the correct place.

2. How to organise a new Discussion Forum or Mailing Lists

A new forum can be created by sending an e-mail to the Observatory with the following information:

name of the forum (short name is preferred)
coordinator of the forum
description and objectives

3. How to obtain authorisation to a private forum

The Observatory cannot give you the authorisation to any forum; it is the forum coordinator, only, who is allowed to give the password.

In the tables on the Interactive Space page you will find the fora coordinators (linked to their e-mail address). Contact them for permission to access the forum page.

4. The responsibilities of the forum coordinators

In order to offer a good service via the Discussion Fora it is necessary for coordinators to undertake some tasks. Actions will depend on the forum, as follows :

4.1 Public fora

a) Mailing lists
As anyone can subscribe to a public mailing list, the risk is higher someone sends non relevant information to all users of this mailing list.
To guarantee quality it is suggested that you check the content of these messages and discussions from time to time.
When the mailing list is being used to disseminate non relevant information, attempt to ascertain out who is responsible and request them to stop. Inform the Observatory when necessary and arrangements will be made to unsubsribe the contributor from the mailing list.

b) Exchange of documents
The request to make documents available for anonymous ftp will be controlled by the Observatory whether the information is relevant or not.

c) New requirements
Contact the Observatory if you or one of the members feel that new services would be useful (e.g.: a second mailing-list).

4.2 Private fora

a) Distribution of the password.
As mentioned in part 3 "How to obtain authorisation to a private forum", it is not the Observatory who is responsible to give access (account and password) to a new user. This will be the main task you have to take care of. You decide whether somebody will be allowed to the forum or not.

In case another password is required, only you, as coordinator, can ask to modify the account and it will be you who is going to distribute this to the users.

b) mailing lists and exchange of documents
A quality control is advised, regadless of the members restrictions and the privacy characteristics of the forum. It is suggested that the coordinator makes periodic random test on the uploaded documents and mails.

c) new requirements>
See above, Public fora

5. FTP

The File Transfer Protocol is a method of sending files to and receiving files from a remote computer on the Internet.

There are different kinds of ftp tools, each with its own interface and functionality. The following shows the principle of using a ftp tool with a mode-line interface (MS-DOS, UNIX).

The account name is secure and the password is sec12+p.

c:\ftp ehto.ehto.org Connected to ehto.ehto.org. 220 ehto FTP server (UNIX (r) System V Release 4.0) ready. Name (ehto.ehto.org:user-name): secure 331 Password required for secure. Password:sec12+p 230 User secure logged in. ftp>

Now you are able to look at directories, to download files on your computer and to put files on the remote machine.

The following commands are useful :

ls	list contents of remote directory
cd	change remote working directory
get filename	receive file
put filename	send file
binary	set binary transfer type
help	list commands
help command	list information about command

Anonymous ftp

Follow the same procedure as explained above but use 'anonymous' as login and your e-mail address as password.



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Getting started with the Discussion Fora

Introduction

Table of Contents

1.2.2 Public Fora

2. How to organise a new Discussion Forum or Mailing Lists

5. FTP