Text Chat on Distance Collaboration

Take me to the Distance Collaboration main page!

Take me to the April 13th Assignment!

4/13/99 Update: The first on-line session, Distance Collaboration, took place on 13 April 1999 at 11:00 AM EDT. For this session, participants connected to the DALnet and joined channel UNAccess (no spaces), which is now a registered channel. For the latest update, visit the 13 April Text Chat Web page or contact Matt Bonham.

Image of Matt Bonham During a Video Conference

The objective of this text chat session is to demonstrate new digital technologies for distance collaboration that can help give participants access to the policy process. In addition, participants will be offered the opportunity to create their own Web sites for global collaboration with the help of easy-to-use Web publishing tools.

This segment of the Seminar on Internet Accessibility is being offered by Matt Bonham, who is Professor of Political Science, and Chair of the International Relations Program in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University.

The Path to Accessibility Policy

For more information about Web accessibility, visit the WAI Web site.

Prior to the first text chat session, participants should complete the following assigmments:

1. Download and install an IRC Client.

We recommend that participants download and install the mIRC to access channels on Internet Relay Chat (IRC). MAC users can download and install Ircle. Alternatively, participants can use any other IRC client or simply telnet to the IRCNet to join the special UNAccess channel (see below).

Here are instructions for using the mIRC32 client to connect with the UNAccess chat room on the DALnet.

2. Blind persons can participate in the chat sessions by using a telnet-based system with a DOS reader (or a Windows screen reader, such as Jaws for Windows 3.3, which costs $1200).

Darrell Shandrow has given us this advice about about DOS systems:

"Chat programs are extremely difficult for us blind folks using Windows screen reading solutions. The best way is to use Internet Relay Chat or another telnet based system with a DOS screen reader and a communications program. You can use a communications program like Terminate or Commo under DOS. The JAWS screen reader for DOS is available free of charge from Henter-Joyce. You will, of course, need to have service with an Internet provider that offers shell accounts, and you will need to have a supported internal or external speech synthesizer for the DOS screen reader. This can all be accomplished successfully in a DOS box."

We would like to thank Tziporra Ben Avraham for supplying this information.

3. If you are unable to use a Windows, MAC, or UNIX client, such as mIRC, Ircle, or Pirch, to connect to an IRCnet server, you can telnet directly. Please allow at least 15 minutes to connect to the DALnet and our UNAccess channel. Here are the instructions for using the DALnet client:

Step 1: Telnet to telnet.dal.net.

Step 2: When you get a login prompt, enter dalnet in all lower case letters.

Step 3: If you get a password prompt right after login, simply hit enter without typing anything. If you enter anything here, you will not be allowed in.

Step 4: The IRC client should start and try to connect to a server. Be patient! The telnet client can be very slow at times. Should a problem occur, try connecting again or wait awhile and return. Sometimes the client is taken down for maintainence. If it is down for an extended period (more than 24 hours) please notify the Help Desk.

Step 5: Join our channel by entering: /join #UNAccess. Note that there should be a space after /join.

4. If you are participating from the United Nations headquarters, follow these instructions:

Step 1: One uses the TELNET feature which is listed under the set of "Internet" programmes on the Windows 95 START bar. In the event that you do not have TELNET listed among your set of internet programmes, please see your LAN administrator to set a short cut, since the application is delivered under CMS. You cannot telnet via Netscape, to my understanding; I stand corrected if one is able to do this.

Step 2: Once at telnet, you click on the *session* buttion and click on *new* on the scroll down menu, and type in telnet.dal.net and *connect*. Dalnet is public domain and there often is a "lag" in logging on, of about one to three minutes; the lag is not too bad before mid-day and gets worse as the day goes on.

Step 3: Once in DALnet, you need a unique nickname, such as *lorenzo-d*; hopefully one is not too obscure or anonymous.

Step 4: In DALnet you need to enter at the prompt, which shows up as small black square in my telnet application, the following command : /join #UNAccess. Note that there should be a space after /join.

Step 5: You then hit "enter" and you should get into our chat channel with your unique nick name. This takes about one to three minutes, depending on the traffic on the net.

We would like to thank Clint Rapley for supplying this information.

5. If you do not have a recent version of MS Word or other word processing programs that can convert text into HTML, then download and install one of the following editors:

Webber32
Hotdog Express
HTML Assistant Pro97

Netscape Composer (e.g., Netscape Communicator 4.5)
FrontPage98

13 April Chat Session

A one-hour chat session on Distance Collaboration took place on 13 April 1999. At 11:00 EDT participants connected to the DALnet (using any DALnet server) and joined channel UNAccess (no spaces). I moderated this chat session. My nick name is matt-b.