Learning about learning from hypertext

Hypertext is a term now applied so widely that it is no longer clear that it means anything other than the ability to retrieve information rapidly and relevantly by direct selection. In fact, the differences between hypertext systems for, say, information management, specialist writing environments, design or learning systems, so outweigh their similarities that it no longer seems sensible to talk about hypertext as though it is a generic technology with features, such as browsers, that are intrinsically desirable. Instead, it is more important to consider hypertext within the context of specific applications, each with its own task demands. In this paper we attempt first to illustrate this specificity by considering some of the features of hypertext from the point of view of learning requirements. Secondly, we ask how we can actually discover what the optimal features of a hypertext learning system might be.

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