Education BOF

[Charlie_Kaufman@notesdev.ibm.com]

This was not a traditional BOF, in that
it did not have as a goal the formation of a working group. In fact, one
of the most difficult discussions was over exactly what was being advocated.
The goals were to organize and improve the process by which people are
trained in IETF processes, including the current Tao of the IETF and Security
tutorials and the current new working group chair sessions.

The bulk of the meeting brainstormed
the sorts of improvements we could make if there were someone or some organization
that knew how to push for them. Ideas included:

Mentoring relationships, where old-timers
who volunteer are paired up with newbies who request it for advice on what's
going on and how to get things done. It was pointed out that the word "mentoring"
has different meanings in different cultures - in particular implying something
less casual than what this proposal had in mind.

A variation on this was a proposal that
old-timers who volunteer get a new dot color indicating a willingness to
be approached and to help newbies.

Brown bag lunches on selected topics.

Making it more evident what the Tao
of the IETF and the Security Tutorial were, in particular encouraging people
who might benefit to attend. Someone mentioned thinking that the Security
Tutorial was about fire safety in the IETF hotel.

Indications of the printed agenda as
to what working groups are most likely to be of interest to people who
are new to an area. Many people have to decide which WG to attend for some
time slot and it would be helpful which WGs are in stages where someone
who has not read the drafts will be completely lost vs. those likely to
have some educational value.

Avri Doria talked about the possibility
of Editor training comparable to the working group chair training that
already exists. There is a lot of information that is communicated informally
and it would be helpful to set up either mentoring relationships or training
sessions.

The meeting concluded with a discussion
of where to go from here. The "strawman proposal" was to form
a "working-group-like" organization with a chair, members, a
web page, a charter, a public mailing list, and occasional meetings at
IETF. There was some discussion of what such a thing be called. Both Working
Group and Directorate seemed inappropriate, but no one seemed to know what
it would take to create a new kind of entity. This proposal was positively
received, with Margaret Wasserman perhaps volunteering to chair it, Harold
perhaps volunteering to sponsor it in the "General" Area, and
many people indicating an interest in participating.