Common Knowledge: Pittsburgh

Bridging the Urban Landscape

Quarterly Report for April - June, 1995

The project's third quarter saw a maturing of activities in the various project sectors and openings toward expanded activities in each of these sectors. We will review activities separately for each of the three logical components of the project:
  1. High-bandwidth connectivity and educational applications which use this connectivity.
  2. Community networking in the Hill District of Pittsburgh and elsewhere about the region.
  3. An online presentation of Pittsburgh history through photographs from the Pennsylvania Room of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh.

1. High-bandwidth connectivity

Work continues on the deployment of a fiber link between TCI's head end and the Common Knowledge: Pittsburgh Internet access point at Mellon Institute. This link required an agreement between TCI and TCG (Teleport Communications Group, formerly Penn Access), which was successfully concluded during this quarter. Following the conclusion of this agreement, fiber splices were made to supply a fiber link into Mellon Institute. Fiber transmitters and receivers were purchased, and a fiber node was installed in the machine room at Mellon Institute. This node is the same type that is used to supply neighborhood-level connectivity on rebuilt portions of TCI's cable infrastructure. Once this node is powered up and the fiber link is tested, it will be possible to provide a 10 megabit data path from the Internet to Carrick High School. This link is expected to be complete earlier in the next quarter.

Cable drops are in place at East Hills Elementary School, George Westinghouse High School and the Hill House Association. TCI is now in the process of establishing and tuning the return channels for these sites which are required for the provision of data services via ChannelWorks, and we are working with TCI to determine the best paths for internal distribution of the necessary data service at each of these sites. All of the new links will use the common fiber path from TCI's head end.

ISDN lines have been installed at Mellon Institute, Hill House and Phillips Elementary School. Tests were performed on lines attached to a Northern Telecom switch that serves Mellon Institute, and additional tests scheduled for the AT&T; switch that will be used at other project sites. It is anticipated that ISDN will be used as a backup for all ChannelWorks sites pending the acquisition of reliable data on the performance of the ChannelWorks links.

Server development work continued with a port of the network services software used by Common Knowledge: Pittsburgh to DEC Alpha workstations running Digital Unix. Following the completion of beta tests of this server, a unit will be deployed at Carrick High School to provide network services for the school and permit extensive performance testing of the high-speed link to this school.

Web foundry machines were received and configured for deployment at the Carnegie Library and Hill House. Additional machines are on order for school sites associated with the project. Sites have a choice of Foundries built on Pentium PCs or Apple PowerMacs.

2. Community networking

Community activity continued to grow at Hill House during this quarter. Dozens of e-mail accounts were created, and more than 200 people registered for instruction on the use of the Internet. Several community volunteers are now working to help new users at the community center. A bimonthly newsletter has been started to inform registrants of plans and activities for the Hill House Community Access Network.

The Hill House online presentation has been installed on the Hill House server, where it can be accessed at http://hillhouse.ckp.edu/hhcan/home.html The exhibit now includes a number of enhancements such as clickable images and backgrounds. Pending establishment of high-bandwidth connectivity to Hill House, the server has been placed at the Common Knowledge: Pittsburgh central site in Mellon Institute.

Through the aupsices of the Office of the Mayor of the City of Pittsburgh, plans have been developed to extend connectivity to three additional sites in the Hill District - Youth Fair Chance, the New Beginnings Learning Center and the Wadsworth Hall Community Center. Using funds available through the Weed and Seed program of the United States Department of Justice, a connectivity hub will be established at Hill House with ISDN links to each of the satellite sites. This arrangement will provide a model for the city to use for neighborhood connectivity at other sites around the city.

3. Online presentation

The exhibit continued to be expanded, with the addition of a rich assortment of new material. New items include biographies of prominent residents of the city's North Side - authors Willa Cather and Gertrude Stein and engineer George Ferris, inventor of the Ferris Wheel. The Downtown section of the exhibit now includes an interactive presentation of "The Mystery." This was an abolitionist newspaper published in Pittsburgh by Martin Delaney prior to the Civil War. The online version contains images and text from the only surviving copy known to exist, which is currently in the collections of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh.

The broad range of material included in the exhibit make it a valuable educational resource and a fascinating touchstone for Pittsburgh residents. Hypertext "photonotes" provide textual information on images used to illustrate neighborhood narrative pages. A "Photographers" section has been added to provide biographical information on the photographers represented in the exhibit. This section was largely contributed by Peggy Domer, an intern from the University of Pittsburgh's School of Library Science, who has been working with Barry Chad. These added elements are designed to increase viewer interest in the exhibit and provide the sort of depth possible online in a hypertext presentation. Demonstrations of the exhibit continue to be given both locally and as part of conference presentations. Viewer response continues to be very positive.

4. Other activities

Project staff continued to develop the coalition that was formed during our preparation of the TIIAP 1995 proposal "Planning the Information Renaissance." A series of meetings have been held with community groups and foundations across the city and county, including representatives of the following organizations: The thrust of these meetings has been to introduce new groups to the Internet and to help coordinate the networking activities of these groups.

In the course of organizing these meeting we have seen the need to establish an ongoing demonstration facility. This will likely include a network information server, two user devices (one PC and one Apple Macintosh), a network concentrator and an ISDN router.

Common Knowledge: Pittsburgh staff have participated in several conferences and workshops during this quarter. These events included meetings sponsored by DECUS (Digital Users' Group), the Pennsylvania Information Highway Consortium, the Rural Datification Conference and a workshop on cost-effective networking of schools and homes sponsored by John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. These interactions are helping the project to define a unique and coherent vision of community networking, which brings together a broad range of community participants and spans a wide range of network applications. We believe that this breadth is essential for the development of a sustainable regional networking infrastructure.