32 - iassist quarterly

Promoting a

Computer
Conference,

Continued:

The Experience of the

Association of Public

Data Users

by Patricia C. Becker

.City of Detroit Planning Department

Following publicaton of Chuck Humphrey's
article in the Summer 1985 issue of this

journal', Judith Rowe suggested that readers

might be interested in our experience with a

computer conference for the Association of

Public Data Users (APDU).

' C. Humphrey, Getting a turnout: the plight
of the organizer. Experiences in promoting a
computer conference. IASSIST quarterly

9(2): 14-27, Summer 1985.

APDU is an organization of organizations,

rather than of individuals, bringing together

people with an interest in the development and

use of public data. Because these activities

center around the federal government in

Washington, the membership is entirely

American. Almost everyone involved in APDU
uses demographic data from the census, but

many other kinds of data are of interest as well,

such as economic data, health statistics, and data

on specific populations such as the ageing.

Members are also interested in the software

packages available for processing these data and,

increasingly in recent years, in the potential for

the use of microcomputers in their everyday

work lives. Cross-cutting all of this is a

concern with federal statistical policy.

The APDU electronic conference (or e-conf, as

we refer to it) was the brainchild of Ken
Riopelle, APDU board member. Ken had

previous experience as a conference organizer

and promoter for the Mott Foundation,

experience that included users signing on from

around the country. I was a veteran conference

participant, but had never been an organizer.

The Wayne State University Computing Services

Center in Detroit is the "electronic home" for

both Ken and I, so it made sense to set up the

e-conf there. The software of choice was

CONFER, a sophisticated electronic conferencing

package developed for use on the MTS
operating system.

The original proposal called for a pilot project,

for Board members and a few others. This was

a group of about 13 people. We began in the

spring of 1984. A project account was

established at the Wayne State Computing

Services Center, the e-conf itself was created,

and sign-on materials were sent to each

member of the group.

The initial group was registered into the

userdirectory, and materials on the electronic

messaging system were provided as well as on

CONFER. Since all were coming in on Telenet

Spring J 986



iassist quarterly - 33

or Auionel, the appropriate phone numbers

were provided to each prospective participant

A wallet-sized "1-2-3" crib sheet with sign-on

instructions was provided. In addition, a sample

session of CONFER was created, printed and

reproduced.

How well did it work? Of the initial group of

13 people, seven (including Ken and myselO

became active participants. Active is defined,

here, as signing on at least once a month.

Three board members signed on, joined, but

rarely participated; the remaining three never

actually joined the e-conf at all.

Two major factors seem to explain

non-participation; to some degree they are

interactive, one with the other. One was lack

of equipment, and the other was a lack of of

familiarity with using computer terminals. It

appears to be necessary, to maintain active

participation, to have a computer terminal

available in the office, and to be in a position

to use it frequently for other, routine work

activities. Most non-participants either had no

access to equipment or had access only at home.

However, the seven people who did participate

had a great time. Items were entered on

internal APDU Board issues, on federal

information policy, on software and data access,

and on use of the e-conf itself. Enough was

going on to keep people interested, so that

activity levels did not drop among the seven

active participants.

After evaluation of the pilot project, the Board

decided to extend the e-conf to the

membership. To promote interest, a $20 credit

was offered to each organizational member. In

the APDU membership structure, each member
organization has a primary representative who is

responsible for the dues; additional

representatives can be added for a small fee.

The $20 credit allowed members to sign up and

tr>' out the conference at no cost Expenditures

in excess of $20, however, had to be paid for

"up front", so that APDU would not get into

financial difficulty. Additional representatives

were welcome to participate as well, but were

required to arrange for funding from their

primary organizational representatives. The
Computing Center's accounting system allows us

to control the amount of money available to

each sign-on ID, so there was no problem

managing the accounts.

In January 1985, the entire membership received

a mailing which explained the opportunity to

participate in the e-conf and included forms for

signing up. Unfortimately, the response can

best be described as underwhelming. Between

the time of mailing and the aimual "people"

conference in October, only ten sign-on IDs

were issued; of these, only three or four

became active paricipants. We picked up a few

more as a result of heavy promotion at the

conference in October, as well as having added

some new board members.

At this point in January 1986, 37 sign-on IDs

have been issued but only 14 can be described

as active participants. The number of items has

grown to 121 and discussions continue to be

lively. A great deal of information is being

exchanged. Several specific decisions have been

made "electronically". Draft resolutions, letters

of comment and the like, representing proposed

positions for APDU to take vis-a-vis the

federal statistical establishment have been put

into items to be reviewed by the Board and

other interested parties.

And the cost? It appears that 1985 expenditures

will be under the budgeted figure of $2500,

primarily because there are fewer members than

anticipated taking advantage of the $20 credit

By budget category, costs can be broken down

as follows:

E-conf maintenance: disk space, on-line

time for organizers, printing manuals, and

project accoimting. These costs would

Spring 1986



34 - iassisl quarterly

have beeen higher had the organizers not

had other Wayne State accounts through

which to participate and do some of the

maintenance work. $425

Use of system by executive secretary.

$425

Non-reimbursed use by Board members.

Those who are in work situations in

which it is difficult to obtain

reimbursement are allowed unlimited

access at present This item also includes

use of the system by the organizers of

the armual conference, for which two

people in different cities accomplished

most of their work via electronic

messaging. $950

$20 credits (excluding accounts in the

previous item). $250

Overall, the consensus of the Board is that the

expenditure is worthwhile and justifiable within

our total budget scenario. There has been some
criticism of the project within the APDU
membership, primarily of the cost to the

members. Some feel that they cannot afford

participation (since $20 really doesn't go that far

on Telenet or Autonet). As in any organization,

members belong for different reasons and have

different agendas; not all our members find

interaction with other members to be a useful

expenditure of their time and/or money.

There also remains a significant problem with

equipment access - several members who wish

to participate have been stymied by the lack of

a terminal, or a good modem and

communication software. This problem should

decrease over time, as more and more
organizations acquire microcomputers. We are

plaiming to have an on-line demonstration of

the system at our next annual conference

(scheduled for October 1986), to promote
interest in the system. We are also including a

column entitled "From the E-ConP in our

monthly printed newsletter, both to provide

information for those who are not conference

participants and to encourage them to join.

There is another participation problem of a

different kind: some participants sign on

regularly, but rarely contribute any responses.

This is the reverse of the "habitual

commentator" described in the Humphrey
articled Two factors are at work here: one

technical and one involving personalities. Many
participants sign on and simply "dump" the

conference activity to disk, to be read later, or

to a printer, without actually reading it while

they are signed on. This has the negative effect

of discouraging responses, since they must sign

on again to enter them. The other factor is, as

Humphrey' described, the "implicit norm to say

nothing." However, I think this is less a

problem in our particular conference than it

might be in others. The fact that most of the

participants have met each other "in person" at

the annual conference helps - we generally

know the people to whom we are talking

electronically.

All in all, APDU rates the e-conf a success and

it has become an integral part of the

organization's functional mechanism. We would

like to see greater participation and will

continue our efforts in that direction. What we

have, though, is a system that works - people

are communicating, and that's what an

organization is all about

ibidem

ibidem

Spring 1986