Subject: [edu-discuss] Is the EDU team ossified? (was: On the tradition of I-D "Acknowledgements" sections)

From: SM <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 26 Mar 2013 18:06:14 -0700

At 18:58 25-03-2013, Peter Saint-Andre wrote:
>Indeed. Thus my subtle suggestion that the original poster complete
>some real technical work in the IETF community before making more
>suggestions about process.

"Real technical work" can mean different things to different 
persons.  It is difficult for people to find their way in the 
IETF.  Some people believe what is written on the IETF web site and 
in RFCs. :-)  I followed the EDU Team link and this is what I found.

   "The EDU Team maintains a web site that contains the minutes of all
    EDU Team meetings as well as other information about ongoing work."

I could not find any minutes.

  "The team also holds periodic open EDU Team meetings (approximately
   once per year at IETF meetings) to report on plans and progress
   and to receive community input and feedback."

Are these reports publicly available?

The last message posted to edu-discuss@ was in December 2010.  It has 
been said that IETF work is done through mailing lists.  The only 
member of the EDU team who posted a message during that year is Brian 
Carpenter.

The little problems that end up as long threads can be attributed to 
lack of educational material, lack of information and poor 
outreach.  I don't know whether anyone followed the WG Chairs lunch 
at the last IETF meeting.  A significant amount of time was spent on 
discussion about style in a RFC as nobody knew whether that 
information was already out there.

Is the EDU team a ossified?  I mentioned previously that the 
Newcomers tutorial is boring.  It may contain a lot of important 
information but that is not useful if the audience do not retain most 
of the material.  There are new people who can and will contribute to 
the IETF if they are given more than an opportunity to do so.

Here is an extract of Administrative and Management Plenary minutes 
from the last meeting:

  "Kathleen Moriarty said that in addition to the technical fellows, ISOC
   also brings a number of policy people from around the world to the
   meetings. That also increases diversity. In terms of looking at other
   organisations: what women and young girls need are examples. In the
   IETF that could mean giving examples that women or people from other
   regions can be good leaders in a technical environment."

I did a quick scan of the IETF mailing list archives.  I can see one 
or two examples and the individuals are not women.  I talked to the 
persons to get a glimpse of the problems they perceive.  I see very 
little active participation from people from other regions.  I would 
describe the outreach efforts as ineffective.

I gather that the EDU team is about education and not about doing a 
public relations exercise.

Regards,
-sm

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2013 08:03:28 +0000

No, the team is not ossified, otherwise there would be no tutorials
at each IETF meeting and no WG Chairs' lunch session. But this
list has been fairly ossified. Comments on, say, possible tutorial
topics or improvements to the newcomers page would be very welcome.

More comments below...

On 27/03/2013 01:06, SM wrote:
> "Real technical work" can mean different things to different persons. 
> It is difficult for people to find their way in the IETF.  Some people
> believe what is written on the IETF web site and in RFCs. :-)  I
> followed the EDU Team link and this is what I found.
> 

Probably because the team doesn't hold meetings.

>   and to receive community input and feedback."

That hasn't happened for a long time. In fact, is it practical? When
would that fit into the agenda?
> been said that IETF work is done through mailing lists.  The only member
> of the EDU team who posted a message during that year is Brian Carpenter.

It's a public list, and the public didn't post, so the team didn't respond.

> lack of educational material, lack of information and poor outreach.  I
> don't know whether anyone followed the WG Chairs lunch at the last IETF
> meeting.  

I wasn't in Orlando, but I assume that the room was full, as usual.

> A significant amount of time was spent on discussion about
> style in a RFC as nobody knew whether that information was already out
> there.
> 
> Is the EDU team a ossified?  I mentioned previously that the Newcomers
> tutorial is boring.  It may contain a lot of important information but
> that is not useful if the audience do not retain most of the material. 

Funny, because that tutorial always gets good ratings in the post-meeting
survey.

> There are new people who can and will contribute to the IETF if they are
> given more than an opportunity to do so.
> 
> Here is an extract of Administrative and Management Plenary minutes from
> the last meeting:
> 
> I did a quick scan of the IETF mailing list archives.  I can see one or
> two examples and the individuals are not women.  I talked to the persons
> to get a glimpse of the problems they perceive.  I see very little
> active participation from people from other regions.  I would describe
> the outreach efforts as ineffective.

What has this got to do with EDU? The EDU mandate is internal to the
IETF. I'm all for outreach, but it's not EDU's problem.

> public relations exercise.

Well exactly. That's why it's called EDU rather than PR.

   Brian

---

From: SM <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2013 02:08:00 -0700

Hi Brian,
>would that fit into the agenda?

I suggest updating http://www.ietf.org/edu/team-responsibilities.html

>It's a public list, and the public didn't post, so the team didn't respond.

As a newcomer I go to http://www.ietf.org/newcomers.html  There isn't 
any quick links to find edu-discuss@ to ask questions.  Basically, 
the public does not post because it does not know about the mailing 
list or the mailing list appears as inactive.

>I wasn't in Orlando, but I assume that the room was full, as usual.

Well, there's a free lunch. :-)

>Funny, because that tutorial always gets good ratings in the post-meeting

I asked several persons for their opinion and that is the feedback I 
received.  The first response I got was that the tutorial was 
good.  As it sounded politically correct I asked  the persons some 
follow-up questions.

>IETF. I'm all for outreach, but it's not EDU's problem.

Agreed.

It might help new people if the information for the (internal) IETF 
was more accessible.  There is a generation out there who find 
"How-to" easier.  The people will skip (important) information as 
they might not understand the relevance of that information.  A lot 
of the new people do not ask questions.  They struggle to understand 
how to work within the IETF.  They go away carrying 
misconceptions.  These misconceptions end up generating more work for 
WG Chairs and, at a guess, Area Directors.

Education can be more effective in my humble opinion when there is 
dissemination.  The tutorial approach is passive.

Regards,
-sm

---

From: "Moriarty, Kathleen" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2013 07:58:56 -0400

I'm not on the list, but thank you for copying me, SM, when including a summary of what I said at the mike.  While I agree that it is good for people to work through the process, I greatly appreciated one tip I received very early on when I submitted my first draft, "be persistent".  I think it is a valuable message to pass along to people who believe their work can make a difference and are willing to do the work with others.  This also happens to be one of the most common traits of successful innovators.  I'll tell the story of the iterations and updates to the first draft I submitted (not my first FRC) over a drink sometime, persistence was key as was working with people who were interested.

I also try to help others, especially new people to my WG and different people need different things to stick with the IETF.  The theme of being persistent is one of the pieces of advice I offer, along with guiding them through first presentation (don't worry - comments are not about you, just take every comment as people trying to be helpful to improve your work).  Some need their manager's buy in, so you help there if appropriate.  I'll pan to attend the newcomer's session at the next meeting or would be happy to review content in advance.

Now for edu, I came across a post of someone doing work in .edu related to MILE, but before we spun up our WG following on from INCH.  The work could be very valuable to our overall effort.  Apparently, he tried to bring in a draft when we didn't have WG.  I have some outreach to do now that I found this, wish me luck!

My point here is to include "Be persistent" at the start of the newcomers tutorial.  I would be happy to tell my story of my first draft in a session if helpful and I can make it funny.  I am sure there are many other stories that would be helpful to newcomers.

Best regards,
Kathleen

-----Original Message-----
From: Brian E Carpenter [mailto:[email-masked]] 
Sent: Wednesday, March 27, 2013 4:03 AM
To: SM
Cc: [email-masked]; John C Klensin; Moriarty, Kathleen; Peter Saint-Andre
Subject: Re: [edu-discuss] Is the EDU team ossified?

More comments below...

   Brian

---

From: SM <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2013 06:16:30 -0700

Hi Kathleen,
At 04:58 27-03-2013, Moriarty, Kathleen wrote:
>I'm not on the list, but thank you for copying me, SM, when 
>including a summary of what I said at the mike.  While I agree that 
>it is good for people to work through the process, I greatly 
>appreciated one tip I received very early on when I submitted my 
>first draft, "be persistent".  I think it is a valuable message to 
>pass along to people who believe their work can make a difference 
>and are willing to do the work with others.  This also happens to be 
>one of the most common traits of successful innovators.  I'll tell 
>the story of the iterations and updates to the first draft I 
>submitted (not my first FRC) over a drink sometime, persistence was 
>key as was working with people who were interested.

I think that the above is good advice.  I was not persistent.  The 
IETF looked like a select club and it was difficult for me to 
understand how the process worked.

>I also try to help others, especially new people to my WG and 
>different people need different things to stick with the IETF.  The 
>theme of being persistent is one of the pieces of advice I offer, 
>along with guiding them through first presentation (don't worry - 
>comments are not about you, just take every comment as people trying 
>to be helpful to improve your work).  Some need their manager's buy 
>in, so you help there if appropriate.  I'll pan to attend the 
>newcomer's session at the next meeting or would be happy to review 
>content in advance.

I try to meet with all the participants in my working group whenever 
I can.  I give the new people more leeway.  I also try to help new 
people who are not part of my WG.  Sometimes I discover that the new 
person is actually someone with experience who can help the IETF work 
I am interested in.  It is only since the last meeting that I 
actually did something about that.

There was someone (second meeting) who was persistent.  She did not 
seem to have anyone to show her around.  I got her to meet a few of 
the usual folks which might be of interest for her work.  I also made 
a few suggestions which I won't mention on this mailing list. :-)

>Now for edu, I came across a post of someone doing work in .edu 
>related to MILE, but before we spun up our WG following on from 
>INCH.  The work could be very valuable to our overall 
>effort.  Apparently, he tried to bring in a draft when we didn't 
>have WG.  I have some outreach to do now that I found this, wish me luck!

I wish you luck. :-)

I was helping someone from South America and the person told me about 
some discussions in a group in his country which is related to 
SPFBIS.  I contacted the person but I did not suggest bringing in the 
work into the working group as it has a restricted charter.  The 
angle in all this is that there is work out there which I would not 
be aware of if I did not go outside the usual circles.

>My point here is to include "Be persistent" at the start of the 
>newcomers tutorial.  I would be happy to tell my story of my first 
>draft in a session if helpful and I can make it funny.  I am sure 
>there are many other stories that would be helpful to newcomers.

I think that it would be a great story.  It might also help to "break the ice".

Regards,
-sm

P.S. I enjoyed listening to the comment you made at the mic.  It's a 
change from what I usually hear from the mic line.

---

From: "Bradner, Scott" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2013 14:56:31 +0000

good idea - I'll work in some of this discussion

tnx

fwiw - people do come up to me during the week to thank me for the newcomers presentation
and to say that it had been helpful - maybe the people who think it is boring are polite 
enough to not say so

Scott

On Mar 27, 2013, at 7:58 AM, "Moriarty, Kathleen" <[email-masked]> wrote:

> _______________________________________________
> edu-discuss mailing list
> [email-masked]
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-discuss

---

From: SM <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2013 22:17:46 -0700

Hi Scott,
>and to say that it had been helpful - maybe the people who think it 

If I were to take a survey I would rate the newcomers presentation as 
helpful and assume that I have to learn all of that before I can do 
anything in the IETF.

What puzzles me is that there hasn't been any feedback over the years 
about how to improve the orientation.  I haven't see any "excuse me, 
I did not understand X" question afterwards (I am ignoring immediate 
feedback after the orientation).  I looked at the 1st-timers mailing 
list archive for the two last meetings.  There wasn't any newcomer activity.

This is a general comment.  Is there an expectation that the process 
should as difficult for the new people as it was for those who went 
through that before?  What is the purpose of the newcomers orientation?

Regards,
-sm

---

From: Spencer Dawkins <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 28 Mar 2013 08:41:01 -0500

On 3/28/2013 12:17 AM, SM wrote:

Hi, SM,

I'm not on the EDU team any more, but I was for several years, and gave 
the Newcomers Orientation a couple of times before switching to WG Chair 
training/WG Leadership training. So, responding to a couple of things.

> helpful and assume that I have to learn all of that before I can do

If you're asking for a First-time Attendees Survival tutorial, which 
doesn't tell you as much as the existing Newcomers Orientation does, but 
is focused on making sure you have as productive an IETF week as it's 
possible for a newcomer to have ... that could be interesting.

It might also interact with the pairing-up that was proposed immediately 
after IETF 86, so probably asking in a broader context than edu-discuss.

The current orientation is pretty comprehensive, it's stuff that I hope 
IETF attendees learn eventually, but as I think you're saying, you don't 
have to know everything in the tutorial to get started on Monday morning 
of IETF week.

> about how to improve the orientation.  I haven't see any "excuse me, I
> did not understand X" question afterwards (I am ignoring immediate

So, would adding a pointer for where to send feedback or ask follow-on 
questions help?

> through that before?  What is the purpose of the newcomers orientation?

I can't answer for the thousands of IETF participants we have at 
meetings and on mailing lists, but I can answer for myself ("no"), and I 
can say that the IAB provided some updated material for the IETF 86 
version of the tutorial (describing the relatively-new IAB programs, for 
example), and Scott quickly incorporated that material into the tutorial 
and asked for confirmation that he'd gotten it right. So people are 
trying to make improvements, and not just once.

Your question about the purpose seems helpful. Thanks for raising it!

Spencer

---

From: SM <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 28 Mar 2013 11:07:46 -0700

At 06:41 28-03-2013, Spencer Dawkins wrote:
>I'm not on the EDU team any more, but I was for several years, and 
>gave the Newcomers Orientation a couple of times before switching to 
>WG Chair training/WG Leadership training. So, responding to a couple of things.

Ok.

>doesn't tell you as much as the existing Newcomers Orientation does, 
>but is focused on making sure you have as productive an IETF week as 
>it's possible for a newcomer to have ... that could be interesting.

What I noticed (assume that my opinion is heavily biased) is that the 
tutorial is not generating as much interest from new people as what 
one might like to see.  The problem is not the material as such.  It 
may be the level at which the group interaction occur.  The question 
is whether a survival tutorial or an the current approach is more 
effective.  I would go for the former as it brings down the 
information to a level which is accessible to new people.

>It might also interact with the pairing-up that was proposed 
>immediately after IETF 86, so probably asking in a broader context 
>than edu-discuss.

Someone mentioned peering on ietf@.  I don't really know how that can 
be done.  I would look at it from a broader context.  It's not like 
edu-discuss@ has to limit itself to a Sunday afternoon at a meeting.

>The current orientation is pretty comprehensive, it's stuff that I 
>hope IETF attendees learn eventually, but as I think you're saying, 
>you don't have to know everything in the tutorial to get started on 
>Monday morning of IETF week.

Yes.

>So, would adding a pointer for where to send feedback or ask 
>follow-on questions help?

Yes.  It's not easy to get people to ask questions though. :-)

>meetings and on mailing lists, but I can answer for myself ("no"), 
>and I can say that the IAB provided some updated material for the 
>IETF 86 version of the tutorial (describing the relatively-new IAB 
>programs, for example), and Scott quickly incorporated that material 
>into the tutorial and asked for confirmation that he'd gotten it 
>right. So people are trying to make improvements, and not just once.

It is good for people to know about the IAB programs.  I would not 
put it as part of the tutorial as it turns into cramming in too much 
information.  There is no best way to improve all this.  A lot is 
beyond an EDU team discussion.  Pushing more passive information 
reduces the amount of time for interaction.  It's the interaction 
that helps in moving IETF work forward.  I liked Kathleen's story as 
it is interactive and new people can relate to it.

At 08:12 28-03-2013, John C Klensin wrote:
>It might also interact with some other comments made in that set
>of conversations.  If we believe, and are willing to admit to
>newcomers, that no one can be expected to be fully up to speed
>at their first meeting, especially if they haven't participated
>significantly on-list, then:
>
>         * Perhaps what you refer to as a survival guide might be
>         appropriate for Sunday afternoon or early Monday morning.
>
>         * Perhaps most of the current tutorial could better be
>         left for a second meeting or for Thursday evening or
>         Friday morning of the first one.  That would give the
>         first-timers the opportunity to observe both plenaries
>         and some WG sessions, letting that tutorial more about
>         providing context and advice.  In the current schedule,
>         it seems to me that there is a lot more material in it
>         that won't make much sense without at least some of that
>         context.

Yes.  And that's where the current material or a variant of it fits 
it.  I don't know when to schedule it as I haven't had time to look 
into what new people are actually doing with their time.  The current 
schedule can be reshuffled in different ways depending on what wants 
to achieve.

>If those two tutorials were done by different people, it would
>give the newcomers exposure to more than one perspective.  That
>would also be a good idea, IMO.

Yes.  BTW, a tutorial can also be done by two persons.  In my short 
experience such sessions are more dynamic.

Regards,
-sm

---

From: Spencer Dawkins <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 28 Mar 2013 15:30:46 -0500

> Someone mentioned peering on ietf@.  I don't really know how that can be
> done.  I would look at it from a broader context.  It's not like

Oh, I agree about more than Sunday afternoon. The EDU team also does 
working group chair continuing education on Wednesdays, and I don't know 
what else since I'm not on the EDU team now.

And for what it's worth, the IAB is meeting during the current Sunday 
afternoon slots - at least the first one, and maybe both - so we can't 
drop in and answer questions.

There may be things that the EDU team doesn't control, like what gets 
sent to people who register for the first time, that need to be talked 
about with the people who do control them.

That's what I meant by "broader context".

Spencer