CONFER (software)

CONFER is one of the first computer conferencing systems. Highly sophisticated for its time, it was developed in 1975 at the University of Michigan by then graduate student Robert Parnes.Empowering networks: computer conferencing in education, Waggoner, Michael, Editor, Educational Technology Publications, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, USA, 1992, p 232. The CONFER system continued to be a widely used communication tool until 1999."Students Met Students on Confer U", Susan E. Topol, Information Technology Digest, University of Michigan, September 8, 1997. CONFER is the progenitor of the computer conferencing systems Caucus, PicoSpan, and YAPP.Choosing Web Conferencing Software / Centralized Forums / Examples of WELL-style Web conferencing software by David R. Wolley in the International University Consortium Conference on WWW Course Development & Delivery, 1996, and published in the book World Wide Web Unleashed, John December (Ed.), 1997

Origins and history

CONFER was developed in the mid-1970s when University of Michigan experimental psychology graduate student Bob Parnes attended a seminar where Professor Merrill M. Flood discussed aspects of electronic mail and conferencing on group decision making.Biography section, Karl Zinn Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Flood had a magnetic tape of a prototype system and approached Parnes about getting it to run on the Michigan Terminal System (MTS), the university's time-sharing system. Parnes declined, but offered instead to attempt writing a similar program for MTS."MTS Fostered Creation of Computing Community", Information Technology Digest, May 13, 1996 (vol. 5, no. 5). With encouragement from Fred Goodman and LeVerne Collet at the School of Education and Karl Zinn at the Center for Research on Learning and Teaching (CRLT), CONFER was developed.

Because of a graduate teaching assistant strike, Parnes was temporarily relieved of his teaching duties and had some extra time to devote to his experimental system, which he called "CONFER". MTS served as an excellent development environment for CONFER, which was built on top of the MTS file structure and exploited its file sharing features. According to Parnes, "I don't think I could have written CONFER anywhere but on MTS." MTS at U-M and later at Wayne State University (WSU) was a good match for CONFER because both systems were attached to the Merit Network and thus had a broader reach within Michigan via Merit and within the U.S. and internationally via Merit's interconnections to Telenet (later SprintNet), Tymnet, ADP's Autonet, and later still the IBM Global Network and the Internet.

Parnes' vision of the system was one where the individual group participant would alternate between being a producer and being a consumer of information. The unique CONFER feature in this regard was initially the functionality of the "vote." This feature allowed the consumer to voice their "feelings" or opinion on a statement by voting.

Parnes went on to form his own company — Advertel Communication Systems, Inc. — which marketed and supported CONFER.

The CONFER system continued to be a widely used communication tool until 1999. By this time, U-M, WSU, and the University of Alberta had moved from the Michigan Terminal System to distributed computing environments and several newer digital technologies replaced the functionality provided by CONFER.

Sites where CONFER was used

In addition to the University of Michigan CONFER was used at Wayne State University (WSU), the University of Alberta (UQV), Michigan State University (MSU), and at Hewlett-Packard (HP)."Where was CONFER installed?", e-mail between Bob Parnes and Jeff Ogden, November 2010 and January 2012 MSU and HP both ran MTS so they could run CONFER."How did sites learn about and make the decision to use MTS: MSU", e-mail from Rich Wiggins, September 2010"How did sites learn about and make the decision to use MTS: HP", e-mail summary in the Michigan Terminal System Archive A Unix version, known as CONFER U, was created by the University of Michigan's Information Technology Division and used at U-M and at the Research Libraries Group. A version for the DEC VMS operating system, known as CONFER V, was created and used at Western Michigan University (WMU). The work on CONFER U at U-M and on CONFER V at WMU was done with the encouragement of and guidance from Bob Parnes.

Features CONFER provides facilities for online discussion of topics of general interest.MTS Volume 23: Messaging and Conferencing in MTS, February 1991, 236 pages, Information Technology Division, University of Michigan, PDF/A, 530KB Discussions are organized around "conferences" that focus on a topic, a group or community, or an event. Conferences may be "public" (open to anyone with an account on the host system where CONFER runs) or private (invitation only). Each conference has one or more organizers. Individuals join conferences as participants, auditors, or observers. Conferences are accessed using terminals from various locations, allowing discussion without having to meet physically or participate at the same time.

As a system developed in the mid-1970s, CONFER is a text oriented, command driven system with extensive prompts and online help. It does not have a graphical user interface (but see InfoX below) or allow the display of photographs or other graphics.

Within a conference, discussions are managed as a collection of items. One person starts an item by entering the item text and giving it a title, called a header. Other people can then make their own responses to the initial entry. The item text and each response is signed with the name of its author. The item's author can specify the type of responses desired. The most common type of response is a discussion response where the response is simply text. Participants can make as many discussion responses to an item as they like. Another type of response is a vote where a numeric response followed by an optional text comment is given with only one response per item per participant. And still another response type is a dynamic value vote.

One can view items in chronological order, reverse chronological order, or by following a thread of related items linked together using next and previous item links. One can also view specific items, a range of items, new items or items that have new responses.

To participate in a conference one must first register as a permanent participant, an auditor, or a temporary observer. A participant may contribute items and responses, while an auditor or observer just views them. Once one has joined a conference, CONFER keeps track of what has been seen for participants and auditors, but not for observers. Each time a conference is visited by a participant or auditor, CONFER displays a list of new information that has been entered since the previous visit. Of course one can always go back and look at old items and responses as well.

CONFER allows the use of pseudonyms for items, responses, and messages, and participants can register in a conference under a pseudonym. Many conferences that allow pseudonymous comments ask participants to register under their own names to establish a legitimate tone for the conference, and help establish the credibility of the participants.

Bulletins, notices that are displayed when a conference is entered with no responses allowed, are another less frequently used form of communication.

CONFER also provides a "meeting" mode to allow real-time discussions and includes facilities to support "simulations" as described below.

Not only did CONFER offer the opportunity for various forms of group discussion, it also served as the first widely used e-mail system on the Michigan campus. And while the MTS $MESSAGE e-mail system eventually surpassed CONFER as the e-mail facility of choice at Michigan, the computer conferencing portion of CONFER continued to thrive.

Commands

The following commands are supported by CONFER. Many command names and modifiers may be abbreviated using initial sub-strings of the name.

At the DO NEXT? prompt:

HELP To see the online tutorial in CONFER II. ? Same as HELP. DESCRIPTOR [NEW] To see the 3-line descriptors of an item or the new items. NEW To see NEW messages, items, and responses. ITEM n To see a particular item, where "n" is its number. RESPONSES [n:m1-m2] Display responses "m1" to "m2" for items "n". ENTER To enter an item (public) into the conference. LOAD filename To enter text from filename TRANSMIT To send a message (private) to another participant. MESSAGE [n] Display a message or messages. BULLETIN To enter a bulletin (public) for everyone to see. BULLETIN ALL Display bulletins. BULLETIN REVERSE Display bulletins in reverse order. NOTE To create a note (private) for yourself. INDEX To see the index of items for the conference. JOIN name To join another conference called "name". WAIT n To set automatic screen pauses every "n" lines. CHANGE TEXT n To change the text of item "n". CHANGE RESPONSE n:m To change, delete, or retire response "m" of item "n". CHANGE RETIRE n To retire items "n". CHANGE RESTORE n To unretire item "n". CHANGE FREEZE n To freeze (prevent more responses) item "n". CHANGE BULLETIN Change the text of a bulletin. CHANGE INTRODUCTION Change the participant's introduction. CHANGE NAME Change the participant's name. CHANGE PHONE Change the participant's phone number. CHANGE RESIGN Resign from the current conference. PARTICIPANT Display participant information. PARTICIPANT ALL Display participant information. PARTICIPANT name Display participant information. DELETE n Delete item "n" (organizer only). STOP To return to MTS command mode (#). QUIT To end your conferencing session and to SIGN OFF.

At the RESPOND, FORGET OR PASS? prompt:

HELP To see the online tutorial in CONFER II. ? Same as HELP. RESPOND To enter a response to that item. FORGET To tell CONFER to stop showing you that item. PASS To pass your turn at making a response. TEXT To display the text of the item again. -n To display the last "n" (an integer) responses. n To display response "n" through the last response. n ONLY To display only response "n". MINE To display all the responses you've made on an item. TRANSMIT See above. ENTER See above. BULL See above. NOTE See above. NEW To label the responses new again. NEW STOP To label the responses new and return to DO NEXT? STOP To return to the DO NEXT? prompt.

Enter RESPOND to be prompted to enter the text of a response. CONFER formats responses, so entering very long lines do not cause problems. A null line is entered to complete a response and CONFER then prompts with a question of the form:

EDIT, VIEW, CANCEL, MORE, OR DONE:

To which there are several possible responses:

DONE Enter the response (the default) EDIT Edit the response by invoking the MTS File Editor VIEW Display the current text of the response MORE Add more text to the response CANCEL Cancel the response and discard the text ? Ask for assistance

The complete form of the ITEM command is:

ITEM [item-list] [modifier [modifer [...] ] ]

where item-list selects the items to print and takes the following forms:

n item “n” n1,n2,n3,... items “n1”, “n2”, and “n3” (a list of items) n1−n2 items “n1” through “n2” (a range of items) n:m item “n” with response “m” n:m1,m2,m3,... item “n” with responses “m1”, “m2”, and “m3” (a list of responses) n:m1−m2 item “n” with responses “m1” through “m2” of item “n” (a range of responses) NEXT the next item PREVIOUS the previous item LAST the last (highest numbered) item ALL all items NEW all new items (not yet seen)

If the item list is omitted, only new items are displayed.

The following modifiers may be appended to the ITEM and many other commands:

BROWSE print only the first two lines of each response