Electronic Information Exchange System (EIES)

The Electronic Information Exchange System reg. (EIES), pronounced "eyes", provides electronic mail, computerized conferencing, membership directory services, data collection forms, global searches, personal indexing for members, and many more advanced Computer Mediated Conferencing (CMC) features.

Designed with special features and communication structures, EIES facilitates the following group applications: general discussion, project management, training and education (Virtual Classroomreg.), large scale information exchange, group judgment, decision support, Delphi exercises, brain storming, planning and budgeting, data gathering and validation, collaborative composition, document distribution and review.

Members may participate in their group oriented conferences at any hour of the day or night and from any convenient location. Individual conferences may be structured to function as bulletin boards or as text oriented databases. Members may attach objects (binary or other files) to messages and comments. EIES can be used as a vehicle to transfer such material among members and between workstations.

All conference comments and messages are centrally stored with key word indexing. Only the original of an item is stored in the EIES System. Items are not replicated for each individual user. This minimizes disk usage and the problems of record management. The single original allows for automatic notification to members of modifications to drafts, and facilitates collaborative activities among groups of members.

EIES keeps track of new items for each individual user. Members may set up their own personal "filters" for self organization of incoming messages and conference comments. EIES also provides automatic notifications and alerts members of all transactions of concern to them.

The EIES interface provides menus, commands, and answer ahead facilities. EIES provides both a full screen mode (VT100) interface as well as an alternative batch and line mode. For Motif, Microsoft Windows and Apple Macintosh users, EIES accommodates 'Cut-and-Paste' functions to pass information to and from EIES conference comments and mail messages.

Individual users may tailor their own personal macro commands. These commands can improve response time when not directly connected to a EIES server (i.e. InterNet or dial up connections).

EIES was designed to be fully distributed in a TCP/IP network environment. EIES can be comprised of multiple independent user agents(clients) and group agents(servers) which operate on one or more machines using the UNIX operating system. This distributed environment means that a very large user population can be supported in a single EIES system. Each agent machine incorporates its own X.400 compatible remote operation server (ROS). EIES is based upon an object oriented data base which can be augmented utilizing the X.409 standard specification language for communications data bases. As a result, emerging standards for business forms and documents can be easily added to the database in the future.

EIES has been optimized on SUN Sparc, DEC ALPHA and Hewlett Packard systems. Optimization on other UNIX systems is available by special arrangement. EIES has InterNet, Ethernet, and X.25 interfacing already included.

The EIES interface is written in SMALLTALK, a fourth generation, fully distributed language developed at NJIT. Application programmers in any organization can easily learn to integrate other computer resources (e.g. databases and information services) directly into the EIES interface. The SMALLTALK source for application programmers is available as a part of the Developers Toolkit. The EIES interface design supports communication with other computer resources through the same easy processes used within EIES.

EIES provides a solution to network applications in an organizational setting. Both in terms of integration of facilities and the ability to tailor of the system, EIES presents a long term approach to the evolution of network services within an organization.

EIES is currently in operation at sites in the US and Europe. The EIES effort at NJIT is a product of the R&D effort in Computer Mediated Communications that has been in existence since 1978. EIES is the platform on which the Center will be evolving new features based upon its efforts at evaluate and prototype new applications for group communications via computer networks.

Virtual Classroomreg. (VC)

Many educational institutions are taking advantage of television as a non-traditional medium to deliver classroom instruction and reach audiences that otherwise would not be able to attend on campus classes. Under a grant from the Alfred P. Sloane Foundation, the Department of Computer and Information Science (CIS) and the Office of Distance Learning at the Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) are currently in the process of producing a complete undergraduate distance learning degree program in Information Systems. The program consists of televised classes supported by EIES and the Virtual Classroom (VC). The initial CIS courses required for this degree were developed and taped in NJIT's Candid Classroom in the Fall of 1992. The complete offering will be completed in June 1996.

In addition, the Office of Distance Learning is offering other courses that are aired locally by cable television networks and nationally through the Me/U (Undergraduate) and through the National Technological University (NTU) (Graduate) which are also supported by the VC.

Off-Campus locations at corporate and extension sites currently receive on-site instructions and are gradually moving toward televised delivery systems. During the academic year 1993-1994, NJIT's office of Extension Programs will provide graduate and undergraduate courses in eight different disciplines at twelve sites throughout the state of New Jersey. Graduate courses broadcast for NTU will be used to satisfy off-campus offerings, and new courses will be developed with the eventual goal of hundred percent distance learning delivery. The televised classroom / EIES / Virtual Classroom system is currently in use by more than 700 NJIT students, both on and off campus. It is also used by Oklahoma State University and the Oregon Department of Education for distance learning.

Individual and group EIES accounts are available on the EIES utility at NJIT.
Access is by InterNet, ADPNet or direct dial.
Current and planned products include:

The EIES* system of Computer Mediated Conferencing;

Virtual Classroom*: enhancements to support education and training;

Roundtable*: enhancements for distributed group decision support;

Gateway*: enhancements to support a fully distributed system; integrated with other organizational computer resources.

Developers Toolkit: SMALLTALK source plus files to change the user interface including the menu language.

The Computerized Communications and Conferencing Center at NJIT offers the following support services:

Training seminars for members, facilitators, and/or trainers;

Training of facilitators in the use of asynchronous or synchronous conferencing for such applications as: decision support, planning, training and education, project management, etc.;

Training of application programmers in the use of SMALLTALK for tailoring the interface and integrating other computer resources;

Training for educators in the use of the Virtual Classroom;

Seminars on use of conferencing technology for managers and professionals;

Prototyping of specific applications on the EIES utility at NJIT;

Specific tailoring and integration efforts;

Evaluation studies of productivity enhancement for field trials.

FOR MORE DETAILS:

Write: CCCC at NJIT, 5500 ITC, Newark, NJ 07102-1982

InterNet: EIES@NJIT.EDU

Phone: 201 - 596 - EIES (3437) - Leave Voice Mail

Fax: 201 - 596 - 2309

* EIES and Virtual Classroom are registered trademarks of the New Jersey Institute of Technology. Trademarks have been requested for the names "Roundtable" and "Gateway".