MOVE OVER HYPERTEXT, HERE COMES HYPERMEDIA
George Por

Do you remember my story about VCRs and CCing in the last Netweaver? I talked about the Educational Excellence Through Telecommunications grant program, a large scale ($10 million per year for 15 years) project funded by The Annenberg School of Communications and managed by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The project allocates funds to develop innovative telecom applications in higher education.

I've just read reports of the research currently sponsored by Annenberg/CPB and thought you would enjoy learning about the one I found the most promising. Brown University's Institute for Research in Information and Scholarship (IRIS) is exploring ways to visualize abstract concepts, and is developing collaboration
between faculty and students as they browse through computer "worlds" of information and simulation.

IRIS is creating prototypes of software to be used as educational tools in the arts, humanities, social sciences, and science. The software tools are being developed in a "hypertext/hypermedia" framework. The project is obviously built on Ted Nelson's concepts published many years ago in his "Literary Machines". The IRIS report defines hypertext/hypermedia as follows:

Hypertext is a tool that allows authors to link
written material together in a coherent web of
information. With a hypertext system, authors and
GROUPS OF AUTHORS can create original documents and
link them directly to reference materials, articles
and other manuscripts. [EMPHASIS added - GP]

Colleagues or students can read the author's work and
follow the links to footnoted texts, adding their own
annotations, suggestions for revision, and links to
recommended readings. Like an encyclopedia, hypertext
directs readers to texts that can enrich their
understanding, providing connectivity of ideas.
Unlike an encyclopedia, however, hypertext grants
readers the navigation tools--electronic bridges and
links--to reach the referenced information in an
orderly but nonsequential manner.

Hypermedia extends hypertext's capabilities to include
other media, such as graphics, dynamic animation,
video, laser recordings, photographs and the like.
For example, a music professor teaching a course on
Mozart could prepare a hypermedia corpus containing a
biography of the composer's life with links to musical
scores of Mozart's works, associated laser recordings,
critics' commentaries, and interactive video recording
of The Magic Flute. Students could, in turn,
contribute additional links to the hypermedia corpus,
creating a rich world of information on Mozart and his
music.

I'm enthralled by the perspectives this "hyperworld" opens, both in academia and beyond it. Imagine the ways in which you could play with a toy like this. I'll find out more about how IRIS is doing with this project and get back to you in the next Netweaver. If you happen to read this story on the screen of a computer at Brown University, let me know.