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