A wide-area networking (WAN) conference was held in April. 1989 at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana. The event was a combination of hands-on experience with computer networking and learning new techniques from a variety of presenters. Three LTER representatives gave demonstrations of their use of networks and various speakers introduced Internet resources and support services, the evolution of NSFNET and the current Internet, network security and secure passwords, David Kingsbury’s “collaboratory” concept, the future of computer networks for biologists, and the possible uses of supercomputers for graphics.
Participants agreed to trade information via electronic mail (e-mail) about computer purchases and GIS hardware, and the need to develop common standards, protocols and software for the integrated activities (data sharing, synthesis, comparative research) was recognized. Also discussed were [inks between LTER sites, supercomputers and remote sensing, centralized image-processing and georeferencing, as well as the development of an LTER database consisting of cross-referenced lists of publications from all LTER sites, which would be available both to LTER and non-LTER scientists.