Hypertext

Definition

• A hypertext is a non-linear text that connects various elements (nodes, pages) through links.

• “Hypertext is text with links, or pointers, showing relationships between parts of the information. Hypermedia extends this concept - information with links - to collections including text, audio, video, photographs, or any multisensory combination” (Alessi & Trollop, 2001:138).

• From the Wikipedia: “In computing, hypertext is a user interface paradigm for displaying documents which, according to an early definition (Nelson 1970), "branch or perform on request." The most frequently discussed form of hypertext document contains automated cross-references to other documents called hyperlinks. Selecting a hyperlink causes the computer to load and display the linked document.”

• Hypertext is not just HTML.

• Hypertext systems allow users to author, edit and follow links between different bodies of text. Hypermedia systems, are similar to hypertext systems, except that the user can use other forms of media as well.

Hypertext and hypermedia architecture

Semantic and rhetorical link types

Burbules (1998) made a categorization based on rhetorics:

• Metaphor: “a comparison, an equation, between apparently dissimilar objects, inviting the listener or reader to see points of similarity between them while also inviting a change in the originally related concepts by "carrying over" previously unrelated characteristics from one to the other.”
• Metonymy: “an association not by similarity, but by contiguity, relations in practice”.
• Synecdoche: “figurations where part of something is used as a shorthand for the thing as a whole or, more rarely, vice versa. [..]. In the context of Web links, this trope is particularly influential in identifying, or suggesting, relations of categorical inclusion”
• Hyperbole: exaggeration for the sake of tropic emphasis (or its opposite, understatement for the same effect), i.e. “there is a tacit implication with each collection, each archive, each search engine, of a degree of comprehensiveness beyond its actual scope”
• Antistatis: the "same" word - in a different or contrasting context.
• Identity: identity denies difference and emphasizes equivalence
• Sequence and cause-and-effect: indicate real relations, not simply allusive ones.
• Catechresis: "far-fetched" uses of familiar words in a new context. “In the context of the Web, catechresis becomes a trope for the basic working of the link, generally: any two things can be linked, even a raven and a writing desk, and with that link, instantaneously, a process of semic movement begins”

Harrison's (2002) paper explores the semantic and rhetorical principles underlying link development and proposes a systematic, comprehensive classification of link types that would be of use to researchers and Web production teams:

• Authorizing: Describes an organization's legal, formal policies, contact information, etc. that authenticate the site and its content.
• Commenting: Provides opinion about the site and/or its content.
• Enhancing: Provides more factual information about site content by offering greater detail or painting the "bigger picture."
• Exemplifying: Provides a specific example of content within a broader category.
• Mode-Changing: Moves users from the reading mode to one that requires a different kind of activity.
• Referencing/Citing: Provides information that "informs" or supplements the site's content.
• Self-Selecting: Allows users to narrow a search by making choices based on their age, sex, geographical location, life situation, personal interests, and so on ([1], retrieved 18:47, 6 November 2006 (MET))

A technical classification of links

In the history of hypertext we can distinguish "minimal" technology such as HTML and systems that provide a richer set of link types. E.g. the XLink standard which did/does not have much success with industry defines a whole lot of linking attributes.

Simple links

• On element on the screen (e.g. a word or a button) points to another screen or other element within the screen. After clicking the link, current content is replaced by target content. E.g. like in a Web Browsers.

Complex links

There are many, e.g.:

• Fat (multi-tailed) links: a fat link could open several windows simultaneously with one click of the mouse
• Multiple-choice links: the user can choose among several options from a menu.
• Labelled links: A user can see what a link is good for (e.g. and "example", a "theory", etc.)
• Aggregations (include various smaller documents into a single text)
• Inclusions: A link that expands contents in place to include other contents.

Navigation types from a GUI perspective

In a hypertext or hypermedia system, there can be many kinds of navigational devices (most of which are links). E.g.:

• Simple word or button links
• Menu bars
• Context menus
• Graphics (concept maps, maps, time lines)
• Table of contents, Indexes, Glossaries
• Search

Standards

HTML

HTML has more links than just the "a" tag

needs some elaboration

• The "rel" and "title" attributes
• The "base" element
• The "link" element
• The "meta" element

The basic link mechanism in HTML is very simple, too simple to build certain kinds of educational applications. To build more sophisticated links in HTML web pages, one has to rely on Javascript. Since the DOM interface (computer representation of page content) is now almost standardized (cross-browser compatible), one can increasingly find pages on the Internet that implement some of the complex link types we described above.

XLink

SMIL and SVG

• Make use of a subset of XLink

Topic Maps

• See Topic map

Links for books

A book is from a cognitive ergonomics point of view also a hypertext. Good word processors can render a text in HTML or PDF with links and therefore turn a book text into a physical hypertext:

A hypertext link always establishes a connection between to related nodes

• Structural links (e.g. all the chapters/sections of a book)
• References (cited documents)
• Footnotes
• Associative links (internal cross-references or references to other on-line texts)

Hypermedia systems

Typically, a hypermedia system should include for the user point of view

• A dabase of information
• Navigation that includes hyperlinks, buy may also include search
• Multiple media for the presentation of information.

Technically speaking:

• The database can be just any storage technology. I.e. several files, a single file, databases.
• Links are implemented with various technology, e.g. markup languages (like in SMIL) or through programming with event-handlers.
• Whether hypertext is defined with some explicit markup technology or through some binary computer code, we need an interpreter (player) to render the contents.

Hypertext in education

• “Hypertext/hypermedia is a field of study which comes with a number of issues, which we will explore, for example:what it means to learn in a nonlinear fashion and the related implications for designing online learning and learning from the current structure of the Web: learner control, navigational problems, cognitive overload, issues of type of structure and how much structure, and so on. Hypertext has two main features: nonlinearity and changeability. That is, the user may follow someone else's links, or s/he may design her own.These two different purposes have important learning consequences.” (Diane McGrath, retrieved 18:47, 6 November 2006 (MET)).

Hodges and Asnett (1993) cited by [2], retrieved 6 November 2006) identified six groups of educational applications that were made with ATHENA developped at MIT and one of the earlier hypermedia systems.

1. Virtual Museums
2. Simulations, in particular interactive fiction for language learning
3. Analysis Tools, in particular analysis of films (see e.g. cognitive flexibility hypertext)
4. Editors, e.g. color editors, lesson tools
5. Information management, e.g. meeting tools, calendars, etc.
6. Electronic Books

Instructionalist designs

In main-stream instructional design, hypertext is usually a component to build learning activities that include strong sequencing constraints (at least at module level) and MCQ's. Some very general design guidelines for more open hypertexts usually include:

• clear structure
• navigational transparency
• consistency

See e-learning, mastery learning, etc.

Constructivist designs

Hypertext requires the reader to be an active participant in the evolution of the learning path and therefore are of interest to various constructivist designs.

• Cognitive flexibility theory that focuses on the nature of learning in complex and ill-structured domains and builds on top of cognitivist thinking shows interest for hypertext technology.

• Exploratory learning designs

• Some microworlds, like BioLogica or WISE all include hypermedia. This technology is also known as Hypermodel and refers to a type of learning technology that blends aspects of models, simulations, and hypermedia

Constructionist designs

• Students write hypertext (e.g. Lohr et. al, 1995).
• See writing-to-learn

Dumb designs

• Why do we add Hypertext to the Category:Instructional design models ? Because there are people who believe that one can learn by surfing through hypertext. It's the constructivist "spray and pray" equivalent to the "page turning" design idea popular with some LMS users ....

• Or in other words, hypertext in good educational designs is usually used not as a pedagogical model, but as a technology that supports designed learning activities, sometimes as a stand-alone tools, sometimes (as in modern microworlds) in conjunction with other tools.

Language theoretical models

Tom Boyle (2002) argues that a central concept for educational multimedia design is context, “a construction that makes selective, holistic sense of the environment of interaction. This construct then guides adaptive action in that environment, e.g. what type of learning actions to undertake. The central challenge for educational multimedia designers is to create contexts that promote effective learning.”

He then identifies two major challenges arise in the design of contexts:

1. the structuring of contexts in relationship to each other;
2. the creation of the internal structure of the context.

He calls the structuring of context montage, that in education usually implies the the framing of content along with associated interactivity. A good examples are certain kinds of Microworlds, e.g. the DOVE system which implements a kind of virtual field trip in Biology.

Regarding the formal internal structure of context, Boyle (2002) then refers to the concept developed in systemic linguistics and that argues “that language has evolved to provide communication in context, and the deep structure of language reflects this fundamental influence. It argues that there are three abstract macro-functions that underpin the production of all linguistic communication”

According to Boyle (2002), these macro-functions concern:

• the construction of the content of the message - the coherent linking of agents, actions states and objects to convey a message (called the ideational function);
• the management of the interpersonal roles and relationships in the communication - whether the message is embedded the form of a statement, question, order etc. (called the interpersonal function);
• the integration of all the other elements to create of a coherent overall communicative 'text', e.g. a coherent description stretching over several sentences (called the textual function).
  

Boyle (1997) argues that the creation of multimedia contexts involves the action of three corresponding macro-functions. In the construction of educational multimedia these involve:

• the content structuring macro-function: the selection and structuring of the learning content in the multimedia context;
• the interactivity macro-function: designing for user interaction with this content;
• the compositional macro-function: the creation of a coherent overall composition, both within and across contexts.

These macro functions strongly relate was is called sequencing and that concerns both structuring of contents and structuring of learner interactions.

History

This is a very incomplete time-line:

1. 1945: V. Bush, As We May Think
2. 1965: Ted Nelson invents the word "Hypertext"
3. 1968: Engelbart demoes "HyperMedia" over the network
4. 1981: Start of Ted Nelson's Xanadu project which never managed to take off, however there finally was an available implementation in 1999 (?)
5. 1985 Intermedia was the best known hypertext project to emerge from Brown University, after HES (1967) and FRESS (1969). It was started by Norman Meyrowitz and became popular in literature criticism and education through the work of George Landow.
6. 1987 HyperCard, a hypermedia authoring system (but with limited text linking).
7. 1992 First commercial hypertext system by Eastgate (still sold as Storyspace). This system was based on Intermedia.
8. 1989: Tim Berners-Lee builds the first prototype of the WWW and invents HTML, formally as a SGML application.
9. 1991: Gopher (Menu-based navigation through files and services on the Internet)
10. 1992-1993: The WWW starts spreading
11. 1992 / 1997 Hytime is a complex SGML application. Hytime is an ISO standard that has rarely been used, but it had a big influence on the definition of more recent Web Standards like XLink.
12. Early 90' (?) Adaptive hypertexts
13. 1995 Ward Cunningham invented the first Wiki. Wikis are probably the only popular CMSs that are compatible with the Hypertext concept.

(To do: add more recent developments + exotic hypertexts)

Links

Examples on the Internet

There are not many good hypertext examples on the Internet. Some exceptions are:

Encyclopedias

• The Wikipedia

Concept mapped hypertexts

• Beat's Biblionetz

(Simple) hypertext books

• The Theory into Practise DataBase (TIP)

Some social software

• E.g. citation indexes

Some visualization software

Standards

• Internet resource locators (URLs, URNs)
• HTML / XHTML and associated linking mechanisms (e.g. the "A" tag and the "href" attribute)
• XML Linking standards like XLink and associated mechanisms to point to documents and parts of documents (XPointer and XPath)
• Topic Maps, a ISO standard to define maps for information spaces
• Some languages based on RDF, e.g. ontology languages like OWL or social software standards like FOAF.
• HyTime
• Text Encoding Initiative Guidelines

Software and technology

• Some gaming engines
• Wikis
• Web-based solutions (also need a Wikipedia:HTTP Server):
  • Wikipedia:HTML clients
  • Wikipedia:XML clients that support Wikipedia:XLink
  • Wikipedia:SVG clients
• Storyspace (quote: "is widely considered the tool of choice for hypertext writers."
• Interactive fiction engines and MUDs/MOOs
• Multimedia authoring system, such as ToolBook and Authorware or earlier systems like HyperCard
• Some concept maps, e.g. the ones that are used to visualize information spaces in search engines like Kartoo, wikis, etc.
• Various other diagram software (see visualization).

Other

• George Paul Landow Professor of English and the History of Art, Brown University (according to DSchneider, the pioneer for hypertext in higher education).

• Hypermedia for Educators, retrieved 18:47, 6 November 2006 (MET). A seminar given by Dian McGrath at college of education, Kansas State University. This page has good links.

• Exemplary Hypertext applications (author ??)

• ACM Computing Surveys Hypertext and Hypermedia Symposium. A huge index by names and keywords.

References

• Alessi, Stephen. M. & Trollop, Stanley. R., (2001) Multimedia for Learning (3rd Edition), Pearson Allyn & Bacon, ISBN 0-205-27691-1.

• Boyle Tom (2002). Towards a Theoretical Base for Educational Multimedia Design. Journal of Interactive Multimedia in Education, 2002, (2). ISSN:1365-893X HTML [www-jime.open.ac.uk/2002/2]

• Burbules N.C. (1998). "Rhetorics of the Web: Hyperreading and Critical Literacy," In: I. Snyder (editor). Page to Screen: Taking Literacy into the Electronic Era. London: Routledge. HTML reprint. Michael Roy made a short excerpt of this piece

• Bush,V. As We May Think HTML, and HTML originally published in Atlantic Monthly, July 1995.

• Cicconi, Sergio (1999). ""Hypertextuality"". Mediapolis. Ed. Sam Inkinen. Berlino & New York: De Gruyter.: 21-43. HTML

• Charbonneau, Johanne (1999), Typologie des liens hypertextuels dans les journaux électroniques, Documentation et bibliothèques, 45 (1).

• Chen, P. & McGrath, D. (2003). Knowledge construction and knowledge representation in high school students'design of hypermedia documentss. Journal of Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia.

• Conklin, J. Hypertext: An Introduction and Survey, IEEE Computer, vol. 1(9), pp. 17-40, September 1987.

• Cunningham, Patricia, S. Teacher Knowledge, Cognitive Flexibility and Hypertext: Case-Based Learning and Teacher Education, (on-line) Proceedings of the Second International Technological Directions in Music Learning Conference, http://music.utsa.edu/tdml/conf-II/II-Cunningham.htmlM. Jacobson, C. Maouri, P. Mishra, C. Kolar, Learning with Hypertext Learning Environments: Theory, Design and Research, in Journal of Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia, 4, 1995, pp. 321-364.

• Dillon, Andrew and Ralph Gabbard, Hypermedia as an Educational Technology: A Review of the Quantitative Research Literature on Learner Comprehension, Control, and Style, Review of Educational Research, Vol. 68, No. 3. (Autumn, 1998), pp. 322-349. Abstract/HTML/PDF

• Eyman, Douglas Andrew. "Hypertext And/As Collaboration in the Computer-Facilitated Writing Classroom." Kairos: A Journal for Teachers of Writing in Webbed Environments 2 no. 2 (Fall 1997). HTML

• Hammond N. (1993) Learning with Hypertext: Problems, Principles and Prospects. In McKnight C., Dillon A. and Richardson J. (Eds) (1993) Hypertext: A Psychological Perspective. Ellis Horwood.

• Harrison, Claire (2002). Hypertext Links: Whither Thou Goest, and Why, First Monday, volume 7, number 10 (October 2002), HTML

• M. Jacobson, R. Spiro, Hypertext learning environments, cognitive flexibility, and the transfer of complex knowledge: an empirical investigation, in Journal of Educational Computing Research, vol. 12, 1995, pp. 301-333.

• Jonassen, D. H. (1989). Hypertext/Hypermedia. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Educational Technology Publications.

• D. Jonassen, S. Wang, Acquiring structural knowledge from semantically structured hypertext, in Journal of Computer-Based-Instruction, 20, 1993, pp. 1-8.

• E. Shin, D. Schallert, W. Savenye, Effects of learner control, advisment, and prior knowledge on young students learning in a hypertext environment, in Educational Technology Research and Development, vol. 42, 1994, pp. 33-46.

• Kahney, L. (1999, August 25). Programmer reaches his Xanadu, Wired HTML

• Hodges and Sasnett (1989).

• Hodges and Sasnett (1993). Multimedia Computing: Case Studies from MIT Project Athena. Addison-Wesley.

• Landow, G.P. (1992). Hypertext: The convergence of contemporary critical theory and technology. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press.

• Lohr,Linda, Ross,Steven, Morrison,Gary, (1995), Using a hypertext environment for teaching process writing: An evaluation study of three student groups, Educational Technology Research and Development, 43, 2, 6/18/1995, Pages 33-51, DOI 10.1007/BF02300471 (Access restricted)

• Romiszowski, A. J., & Cheng, E. (1992). “Hypertext’s contribution to computer-mediated communication: in search of an instructional model.” In M. Giardina (Ed.), Interactive multimedia learning environments. Springer, Berlin.

• Spiro, R.J., Coulson, R.L., Feltovich, P.J., & Anderson, D. (1988). Cognitive flexibility theory: Advanced knowledge acquisition in ill-structured domains. In V. Patel (ed.), Proceedings of the 10th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. [3]

• M. Wenger, D. Payne, Comprehension and retention of nonlinear text: considerations of working memory and material-appropriate processing, in American Journal of Psychology, 109, 1996, pp. 93-130.

Links

• Hypertext 2.0: An Interview With George Landow

• Martin Ryder's collection of hypertext links

• ACM Hypertext 2006 conference