Research in Structural Computing

Structural computing is one of the latest research threads to emerge in the field of hypermedia. Though many of the ideas inherent in structural computing originated in the open hypermedia systems area of research, structural computing is actually a confluence of a number of research threads. Its component research areas include the identification and investigation of alternative hypermedia domains, the study of structuring mechanisms and the important roles they play within application domains, and the design and development of hypermedia architectures. This paper examines research in the structural computing field. It provides an overview of existing research results that have been reported in the structural computing area along with a look at the direction of ongoing research projects. The paper continues in the following section with background material that briefly defines structural computing and describes the developments that lead to the establishment of the field. The third section examines several specific structural computing projects to provide an overview of the existing research along with an indication of the direction in which ongoing research is leading. The discussion in the fourth section