The experimental conference, which is planned for the summer of 1993, is sponsored by the American Chemical Society Division of Chemical Education's Committee on Computers in Chemical Education. Most commercial conferencing systems are developed for a specific computer platform or network. As in a conventional physical conference, the focal point is invited and contributed papers submitted by authors and distributed electronically to the participants. We structure the discussion period, according to a schedule distributed to conferees beforehand, into a sequence of time periods for each paper. During each discussion period, limited to one particular paper, all discussion is public, seen by all participants.
Participants are able to ask questions of the authors or of any other participant.
A moderator monitors the discussion to keep it on track and to discourage excessive digression, overly long messages, and inappropriate behavior. The time frame for this discussion is on the order of minutes to hours - longer for people in other time zones. We are making some basic assumptions about the skills and capabilities of potential participants. All participants are assumed to possess basic computer literacy and to have a personal e-mail address on Internet, Bitnet, or any connected network or commercial information service. We assume participants can send, receive, and read plain text messages via e-mail.