RFC 369 (rfc369) - Page 2 of 11
Evaluation of ARPANET services January-March, 1972
Alternative Format: Original Text Document
RFC 369 EVALUATION OF ARPANET SERVICES July 1972 SUGGESTIONS FOR IMPROVEMENT Software....................................... 6 Community Spirit............................... 7 CONCLUSION........................................ 8 APPENDIX A Sample of Survey Questionnaire................ 9 APPENDIX B Grades and Comments for Specifics Sites....... 10 BACKGROUND Approach The test group was organized from a group of Electrical Engineering graduate students in Computer Science. Within the group was represented a substantial degree of experience with high level languages and time sharing systems (such as the Dartmouth BASIC and UCSB mathematical graphics systems). However, no one had experience in exercising ARPANET, and few knew what resources the ARPANET represented. After two weeks of presentation from Jim White and Roland Bryan, the group was turned loose for open experimentation. Enthusiasm was high as each group managed to locate and decode the login procedures for various nodes and began to learn how to use the available resources. In fact, half of the weekly seminar time was devoted to sharing learned experiences and procedures. Interest, however, lagged some as the quarter progressed due to poor network site reliability, few active nodes, and hard to locate documentation (only five out of fourteen students remained active after the first quarter). Goals The primary goal of the group was to learn how to use and to evaluate network resources. It was decided to be fair but direct in evaluating each site, including UCSB. Since the level of networking experience was initially low, the evaluation criteria was dictated mostly by gut feelings. At the conclusion of the first quarter's effort, a questionnaire was given to the students (a sample of which is included in Appendix A). Pickens
