We propose to develop a NetReviewer system which provides a secure, networked, transparent environment to facilitate information exchange and review processes by geographically distributed workgroups. The approach is based on the Object- Oriented book paradigm and the World Wide Web (WWW) client/server technologies, implementing HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP/1.0), to provide an interactive framework for effective, easy, and secure electronic collaboration across the Internet. Documents of evaluations, which may contain plain text, formatted text, inline graphics, audio clips, video sequences, and other multimedia data, will be represented in a familiar book form that can be easily and comprehensively retrieved, viewed, and managed.Encryption, authentication, multi-layered access control, and integrity checking schemes will be provided to secure the system, so that evaluation can be restricted to predefined groups as needed. In addition, work flow management will be included to notify the reviewer about the status of reviews. We will apply our research results to many areas that require a secure and collaborative environment, such as evaluations of security incidents in the NASA NASIRC program and reviews of proposals in the NASA SBIR and STTR programs. As the client applications and servers are installed over the networks, the workgroup collaborative review process will be established. The resulting NetReviewer system will solve the complexity of heterogeneous distributed collaborative management problems and help NASA as well as other government agencies improve their document review processes efficiently, securely and privately. In Phase I, a prototype NetReviewer will be demonstrated on a UNIX platform connected over the Internet network accessing NASA applicable programs. Phase II will refine and develop the NetReviewer system into a fully developed system with client implementations for PC's and Macs as well as other workstations.The proposed methodology will facilitate the information exchange and review process across heterogeneous networked environments among many private, commercial, and academic as well as government organizations. It is applicable to any application in which the review of proposals, budgets, journal publications, contracts, request for comments (RFC's), and any other critical documents where a secure, distributed, and collaborative environment is essential.
Keywords: Phase_I, NASA, Abstract, FY94
