Recent recognition of the importance of writing and critical thinking skills, both within and beyond the scope of the university, has focused attention on the role of the research paper in the composition course. However attempts to teach the research paper, for the most part, have been unsuccessful. What is needed is a new model for the research paper which can be incorporated into the composition course. At USC we have developed such a model in the Project Jefferson interface. In this paper we discuss our experience in using the Project Jefferson model to author hypermedia based curricular tools and discuss issues in authoring hypermedia structures based on that experience. We report the results of structured interviews carried out with the personnel who were responsible for authoring the hypertext and index for Project Jefferson. We also interpret features of the authoring process in terms of their impact on the resulting compatibility between software structures and student cognitive structures, as observed in two related studies (Teshiba and Chignell, 1988; Valdez, Chignell, and Kinnell, 1988). The version of the Project Jefferson prototype interface used in this research is an adaptation of Hypercard to teach freshman students how to do research within the framework of a writing assignment. It is a self-contained research tool which assists in the development of skills to do research in the real world. Its overall conceptual metaphor is that of an electronic notebook with which students can gain access to a paper assignment on the US Constitution; read a dictionary or encyclopedia for background information on Constitutional issues, and download key ideas to their electronic notebook; search a database of bibliographic information, taking notes if need be, or simply downloading 'citations; and finally dumping all this information into a text file as the raw materials of a research paper. In this paper we discuss our experience in using the Project Jefferson model to author hypermedia based curricular tools and discuss general issues in authoring hypermedia structures based on that experience.
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