CONFER (software)

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. 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. 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). MSU and HP both ran MTS so they could run CONFER. 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. 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.

InfoX

InfoX (pronounced “info-ex”, originally InfoDisk) is a program for the Apple Macintosh ("Classic"; not compatible with the modern Mac OS X) developed by the Information Technology Division at the University of Michigan. It provides a modern user interface (menus, icons, windows, and buttons) that can be used to check electronic mail, participate in CONFER II conferences, access the MTS User Directory, and create, edit, and manipulate files. InfoX adds Macintosh-style word processing features to the more traditional editing functions available from the CONFER command-line interface. One can use the standard Cut, Copy, and Paste commands under the Macintosh Edit menu to move text from any Macintosh file to a conference entry or message. Text is automatically wrapped text in conference entries and messages.

InfoX allows users to join a conference, enter or respond to an item, read a particular item or response, forget an item, or mark all items as seen. Unseen conference items are displayed in much the same way messages are displayed, so one can select an item by title, not just by item number. When a conference folder is opened, InfoX displays a variety of information about new items and new responses. The buttons at the top of the screen allow the user to join a conference, read any item, enter a new item, forget an item, and mark all items as seen.

Some CONFER II functions are not available through InfoX. One cannot use the program to enter organizer-defined commands, post or read bulletins, hold meetings, use polled or numeric responses, enter pseudonymous or anonymous responses, change entries, access the index or summaries, or send or receive CONFER messages. Because InfoX does not allow for many conference management features, organizers and advanced users choose to access conferences through the traditional CONFER II command-line interface.

Uses

The U-M Center for Research on Learning and Teaching (CRLT) was an early sponsor and proponent of CONFER and saw great promise in it for expanding learning environments.

The first major "test" for the CONFER system was the October 1976 International Society for Technology Assessment (ISTA) Conference held in Ann Arbor. Karl Zinn from U-M's CRLT was interested in testing the technology to facilitate the coordination of tasks among the conference staff as well as using the system to allow conference participants to extend discussions on conference topics. CONFER provided a new opportunity for group discussion and is credited for playing a "tremendous role in enlarging the electronic community" at the University of Michigan.

Those providing user support for the Merit Network in Michigan, particularly Chris Wendt, were excited by the potential for CONFER, and they created the statewide MNET:Caucus conference to help Merit users get quick answers to their questions and take some of the load off their consulting staff. The participants — both consultants and users — learned a lot from each other through the conference.

CONFER continued to gain in popularity with faculty, students, administrators, and staff through the 1980s. The following papers give a hint at the range of activities for which CONFER was used.

In 1985, a group of U-M students established the first computer conference exclusively for students called MEET:STUDENTS. This very popular conference marked, in a sense, the acceptance of online communications as a culturally accepted mode for student communication and exchange.

For many on the Michigan campus and elsewhere, the benefits of CONFER included meeting new people with similar interests, engaging in group discussion, and communicating outside the normal parameters defined by time and space. CONFER played a tremendous role in enlarging the electronic community at the University and in removing the traditional geographic borders of the classroom and campus. Said Parnes, "CONFER enabled a lot of people to talk together who wouldn't have otherwise."

Legacy

There is a group of computer conferencing programs whose designs were derived from CONFER which are sometimes called "WELL-style" systems, because The WELL has been very influential in spreading this design. WELL-style systems facilitate group discussion by treating discussion items as part of an ongoing conversation with an inherent structure. The conversations are organized as linear chains of items and responses with individual items and responses displayed as a continuous stream of text.

Examples of WELL-style Web conferencing software include: Backtalk, Caucus, COW, Motet, PicoSpan, Web crossing, WELL Engaged, and YAPP. Because of its influence on these programs, CONFER has had a strong influence on most of the major computer conferencing, blogs, social networking, and other similar programs and sites that followed.

Documentation