These three objectives are listed together because they will all use the same system based on Usenet technology. A little bit of internet history may be in order. E-mail was one of the first things invented for the internet. Millions of people use it every day. In the beginning of the internet, people often needed to send regular e-mail to lots of people. Sometimes they wanted anyone within a group to be able to submit an e-mail that was sent out to everyone else in the group. For this they created list-serve software that would maintain the list, receive the e-mails and send out the copies to everyone on the list. Many people today belong to these �listserves.� When the number of people on the lists are in the thousands it becomes very inefficient to send out all these thousands of copies of each e-mail that many people won�t even read. So someone invented Usenet. With Usenet a user submits their message to a local server. This server then shares it�s messages with lots of other servers in the system. The system is designed so that only messages that haven�t already been copied to a server get transmitted to that server. It may seem like a lot of copying but it is much more efficient than sending out all those thousands of copies of e-mails from thousands of people to thousands of other people. Each of the �listserves� is replaced by a topic within the Usenet software database called a �newsgroup.� When a user wants to read messages in a �newsgroup� they simply use special �newsreader� software (different from RSS newsreader software) which logs into their local server and downloads just the headers (subject, author, date, etc.) of the messages. The user then only downloads and reads the particular messages that interest them. A user can �subscribe� to only those newsgroups that interest them.

There are several aspects of this Usenet system that are particularly well suited for DEMML�.

• First, the messages are stored on each server and forwarded to the other servers whenever they can make a connection. No continuous internet connection is required.
• Second, the messages are then downloaded to the users computer so they can read them at their leisure and can store them for as long as they like.
• Third, an almost infinite number of newsgroups can be created in a pseudo-hierarchical structure to cover any subject or topic. The plan is to only create sub-newsgroups when the traffic becomes unwieldy in a parent newsgroup. This way each newsgroup will have a comfortable level of traffic and the number of different newsgroups will be kept to a minimum.
• Usenet technology has a long and stable history. There is lots of very good quality free and commercial software for both the server and users. This means it will be easy and inexpensive for any educational organization to set up a Usenet server to service their students. The software is well tested and reasonably free of bugs and vulnerabilities. When new vulnerabilities are discovered many programs have automatic update features for applying patches.
• Existing software already has all the features necessary to do everything required to implement the DEMML� system. Absolutely no modifications will need to be made to the software used on the server. This avoids the risk of introducing bugs or vulnerabilities. Naturally, there are certain things that would be easier for the user if the software they used had a few added features. These will be easy for developers of the existing software to add and they will be likely to do so in order to increase their user base.
• What many avid Usenet users don�t even know is that it�s possible and �legal� for Usenet messages to contain any format of media that can be on a web site. However, almost all Usenet servers in the world are configured to only allow plain text. Plain text is the de facto standard merely due to tradition. By changing a simple setting in configuration files, some Usenet server software can easily transmit messages containing HTML content with their multimedia components stored as attachments.

In order to protect the integrity of the newsgroups, all institutions running a DEMML� Usenet server are required to maintain control of their users. Users may use nick-names in the system but are required to register through their institution with proven identities. Users then log in to their institution�s server using a password. Those who abuse the system will be reported to their institutions, who will remove their access privileges. Institutions who cannot control their users will not be allowed to post messages to the system. They can still download messages and their students can still download content from the content distribution servers. But they cannot post messages. 

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