Seven Issues, Revisited

It has been 15 years since the original presentation by Frank Halasz at Hypertext'87 on seven issues for the next generation of hypertext systems. These issues are: Search and QueryCompositesVirtual StructuresComputation in/over hypertext networkVersioningCollaborative WorkExtensibility and Tailorability Since that time, these issues have formed the nucleus of multiple research agendas within the Hypertext community. Befitting this direction-setting role, the issues have been revisited several times, by Halasz in his 1991 Hypertext keynote talk, and by Randy Trigg in his 1996 Hypertext keynote five years later. Additionally, over the intervening 15 years, many research systems have addressed the original seven issues, and new research avenues have opened up. The goal of this panel is to begin the process of developing a new set of seven issues for the next generation of hypertext system. Toward this end, we have convened seven experts on hypertext, and charged them with determining one issue, something deserving significant focus by the research community, and one non-issue, a red herring no longer worthy of consideration. At the end of the panel, the panelists and the audience will vote on which issues they consider to be the most important, and which non-issue is the least important.