Improving the Usability of Hypertext Courseware through Adaptive Linking

Hypertext is being used more and more for on-line course texts. But the navigational freedom offered by a rich link structure is a burdon for students who need guidance throughout the learning process. This paper presents a framework for adaptive link structures. By enabling links when a student is ready to read the pages these links lead to, and by disabling links to pages that are no longer needed, the student can be assured that links always lead to interesting new information she is ready to read. This framework is illustrated by means of courseware for an on-line course on “Hypermedia structures and systems”, developed at the Eindhoven University of Technology, and currently offered at six different universities in the Netherlands and Belgium.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 1997
• Where: HT
• Authors: Licia Calvi, Paul De Bra
• Keywords: HT 1997, Internet Technology, Link Structures, On-line Course, On-line Course Texts