DISTRIBUTED MULTIMEDIA INFORMATION-SYSTEMS

This paper summarises and elaborates on the findings of a report commissioned by RARE on distributed multimedia information systems. A simple abstract model of these systems is developed, and the requirements of research and academic network users for network access to multimedia information are outlined. We describe existing information systems such as Gopher, WAIS and World-Wide Web in terms of the abstract model, and summarise their support for multimedia information. Some interesting hypermedia systems emerging from the research community are also studied. Relevant existing and developing standards in this area are discussed. We identify the gaps between the capabilities of currently deployed systems and the user requirements, and propose further work centred on the World-Wide Web system to rectify this.