Submitter: 
 
 Giuseppe Zito
 Sezione
 INFN Bari (Italy)
 c/o Dipt. Fisica
 via Amendola 173
 Bari,Italy I-70126  
 zito@vxcern.cern.ch (e-mail)
 39-80-5442433 (phone)
 39-80-5442470 (fax)

 Authors:

 G.Gelao,G.Raso,G.Zito
 Sezione INFN Bari(Italy)
 
 Topic area:

  Worldwide Collaboration

 Title:

  Hypertext, the new language of collaborations:the experience of the Hcal
Electronic logbook

Abstract:

 As WWW continues its impressive  growth on the Internet, it is more and
more  clear that  WWW  hypertext in  the  HTML  format, is  becoming the
language of  the Net. A new  language,  with its  potentialities largely
unexplored, that unites all people  with a common interest independently
from space and time.  Although now all  experiments use WWW to implement
the   experiment    information  system  and to   pubblish   results,its
potentiality to  support the  collaborative work of a  group has not yet
been fully exploited.

We will  report here on the  experience  of using HTML  hypertext as the
support of  a group of  around 50  people  responsible for  monitoring a
piece  of the  Aleph  detector  called  Hadron    Calorimeter(Hcal). The
hypertext  has  been  called  "Hcal  Electronic   Logbook" to  relate it
metaphorically to the medium used in the past to document the monitoring
of hep detectors. But  of course the  "electronic logbook" is a lot more
than its paper counterpart:in fact  it contains all information relevant
for Hcal monitoring. But it is more  than an information system since it
allows the collaborators to communicate among them through hypertext and
also to monitor the apparatus directly from the hypertext.

There is nothing more easy to use than a paper logbook, so why replace it
with a  WWW   hypertext?  The main  reason  is  the   possibility of the
electronic logbook to be accessed  by the expert, from everywhere in the
world,instantly.   The  WWW  technology  makes  this  possible  from any
platform,without the necessity to install special software or to connect
by remote login to the online  computer: a dial-up connection to Internet
is  enough to  access  the  electronic  logbook  and  start  monitor the
apparatus and communicate with other collaborators.

  Another reason  for the use of  WWW is that you can, not only document
monitoring   procedures,  but  actually  start  them  directly  from the
hypertext.  This is accomplished with links that activate scripts on the
online computers and this is,of course not possible from paper!

  The  last  important  feature of  the WWW   hypertext as  used in this
application,is the  possibility to make easy  the access of informations
to novices. Since experiments like Aleph, run for many years the problem
of the training  of new  collaborators is crucial. Up  to now there were
many different sources of information that the novice should consider:

   - online help
   - paper logbooks
   - paper or online manuals
   - sheets of paper glued in the place where some information was needed
   - Oral tradition
   etc

In fact any collaborator contributed his or her part of information in a
format different  from other  collaborators and the  training of novices
was a formidable  task. Now with  WWW hypertext, it  is possible to have
all   information added  in a  uniform  way and   connected to  a single
address:the URL of the  electronic logbook.  This will make the training
more easy.

 Our   experience  will  be   beneficial to  all    collaborations where
communication among  members is crucial to  accomplish a task.  They can
learn from how we dealt with problems like
 - Protection of information and especially monitoring procedures from
   unauthorized access.
 - Exploitation of the WWW interface through forms to make more easy the 
   monitoring of the apparatus and the communication among collaborators.
 - Training of collaborators in this new technology:in principle every
   collaborator should know how to write hypertext since this IS the
   "language" of the collaboration.
 - Maintenance of the hypertext

 How reliable  is this new  technology?  Although we have  to report a few
problems, the rewards  are so big, that we  heartily recommend it to any
collaboration.