Closing Remarks
Jerry Woodall
Purdue University
It is not easy to encapsulate the outcome of this workshop. There was a strong unanimous consensus among both the presenters and other attendees in their certainty of the importance of the workshop. On the other hand, in reviewing the discussion group results there was no consensus among the representatives of the materials and processes (M&P) research community that there are currently strong or compelling reasons to get on-line as soon as possible. Neither was there a clear vision of a pathway to bring the M&P research community on-line. An exception to this was the discussion group on “Improving Communications between Researchers and End-Users,” which was extremely positive about having the M&P research community on-line. This group felt that there are strong market drivers which should offset the problems associated with the numerous barriers and unresolved issues. There are strong economic reasons to connect the M&P research community with end-users. There was a consensus that the information highway can be a unique vehicle for making this happen.
As evidenced by the presentations, demonstrations, and discussion groups, most everyone agreed that the information highway presents a multitude of opportunities for the M&P community. However, it was also felt that there was a multitude of barriers and issues that need addressing and/or fixing before the M&P research community starts making serious journeys on the information highway. Finally, there seemed to be a consensus that as a necessary but not necessarily sufficient condition for making the information highway compelling to the M&P research community, much effort must be spent developing highly intelligent search engines and sophisticated network and information managers as well as developing a taxonomy for the information.
Questions and Last Remarks
Knowles stated that he has familiarity with medical research experiences in using the information highway. The key to success in pharmaceuticals was up-front work on a thesaurus, standards, data definition, and a taxonomy. Need an early investment in infrastructure. Woodall noted that our problem may be that the M&P research field is too old and established. Any advice? Knowles suggested starting over. Baglin said that the M&P research community needs to consider how to get funding for an M&P Internet infrastructure. It should do marketing over a wide audience for support to develop electronic libraries. Also need simpler access for libraries.
Sonwalkar stated that students today expect to see information available on the Internet. This attitude needs to permeate the whole M&P research community.
