UK MANs Group

Brief notes of the meeting held on Tuesday 27 October 1998 at City University.

These notes are an indication of the topics discussed and particular actions raised, rather than full minutes of the proceedings.

Peter Linnington from the TAU and Bob Day, Tim Kidd and Steve Percival from UKERNA joined the group in the afternoon.

1. Sharing of legal documents

MANs used a variety of legal frameworks that reflected the different circumstances in each MAN. These ranged from loose memoranda of agreements between HEIs to the establishment of a separate company for the MAN owned by the member HEIs.

It was agreed to circulate agreements to the group as the exchange information would save effort. Mick Kahn agreed to keep copies of documents circulated for later reference.

2. Status of the group.

It was agreed to keep the group with its current informal status. There was enough existing overlap with UCISA NG.

Dave Vinograd would continue to act as Convener for the group. Mick Kahn would draw up a brief statement about the group and ensure that interested parties were aware of our existence.

It was agreed that the mailing list should stay closed and, in particular, that UKERNA should not be invited to join.

3. Oftel licences

The position relating to Oftel licences for MANs was not at all clear. Bruce Mitchell had done some useful work for the Scottish MANs and it was agreed to ask him to find out about the current state of play for the group.

4. Regional Development Authorities

The appearance of RDAs was noted. It was important that MANs positioned themselves to be able to take advantage of RDAs, which were likely to be an important channel for funding.

5. JISC conference

It was noted that the JISC were holding one day conference on MANs on Thursday 19 November at CVCP. Dave Vinograd has been invited to give a talk on the activities of the group.

6. HEFCE MAN Initiative

The response from HEFCE/JISC to the group’s concerns about the HEFCE MAN Initiative had not been satisfactory. Mick Kahn agreed to draft a note to the Chair of the ACN raising particular concern over the exclusion of network management. Issues raised in items 7 and 8 below were relevant.

7. Contracts with UKERNA

Bob Day from UKERNA presented a paper on the problems with the existing MAP contracts and their operations. Following a wide ranging discussion, it was agreed that substantial revision was required. Bob Day agreed to circulate the existing contract and establish a mechanism for consultation with the group and other interested parties.

It was noted that in some cases the MAN management and the MAP management were not the same.

8. Traffic monitoring and reporting

Peter Linnington from the TAU had produced an issues paper which led to much lively discussion. A major difficulty was that uniform information was desirable for central reporting, but not always possible to achieve. The group felt that there was some merit in the proposed solution (section 6 of the paper): part (a) could actually be achieved on JANET equipment, but part (b) required more discussion and clarification. No firm conclusions were reached.

9. Next meeting

It was agreed to arrange the next meeting for February by email.