This existing set of involved parties is bewilderingly large and diverse, and it is growing. It is also fragmented … A consequence of the broadening and fragmentation is that the concerns of the research, education, and library communities are not consistently addressed and are in danger of not being heard.
Predictor: National Research Council
Prediction, in context:In 1994, the NRENaissance Committee, appointed by the Computer Science and Telecommunications Board of the National Research Council, produced a special report titled “Realizing the Information Future: The Internet and Beyond.” Among the committee members were Internet pioneers Leonard Kleinrock, David Clark, David Farber, Lawrence Landweber and Robert Kahn. The committee’s goal was to “study issues raised by the shift to a larger, more truly national networking capability.” Among its statements about the blossoming of the National Information Infrastructure (NII) is this: ”There is a shift from a voluntary community that has effectively run the Internet to a set of more formal and informal organizations … Prominent among them are the administration’s cross-agency IITF [Information Infrastructure Task Force]; the multi-agency High Performance Computing, Communications, and Information Technology subcommittee (under the Office of Science and Technology Policy – National Science and Technology Council – Committee on Information and Communication R&D umbrella)…; the multiagency Federal Networking Council and its associated advisory committee; federal mission agencies whose programmatic needs drive network implementation in their portions of the NREN program; and an assortment of private entities … such as the Council on Competitiveness, the Telecommunications Policy Roundtable, the Coalition for Networked Information, EDUCOM, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility, the Computer Systems Policy Project, the Internet Society, the Cross-Industry Working Team, and so on, as well as direct representation from the entertainment, cable, telephone and other telecommunications, and information-providing and publishing industries. This existing set of involved parties is bewilderingly large and diverse, and it is growing. It is also fragmented … A consequence of the broadening and fragmentation is that the concerns of the research, education, and library communities are not consistently addressed and are in danger of not being heard. Events to date suggest that these communities are barely present at the table for key discussions, notwithstanding the rhetoric about serving public interests and the political appeal of investing in education. The risk that the research and education communities may be isolated or underrepresented is magnified by the prominence of players in the infrastructure arena that have minimal if any historic relationship with these communities.”
Date of prediction: January 1, 1994
Topic of prediction: Information Infrastructure
Subtopic: General
Name of publication: Realizing the Information Future: The Internet and Beyond
Title, headline, chapter name: Leadership in Education
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://stills.nap.edu/html/rtif/
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney