A hypermedia authoring tool for augmented and virtual reality

Most existing hypermedia authoring systems are intended for use on desktop computers. These systems are typically designed for the creation of 2D documents and therefore employ 2D authoring mechanisms. In contrast, authoring systems for nontraditional multimedia/hypermedia experiences for 3D virtual or augmented worlds focus mainly on creating separate media objects and embedding them within the user's surroundings. As a result, linking these media objects to create 3D hypermedia is a tedious manual task. To address this issue, we present an authoring tool for creating and editing linked 3D hypermedia narratives that are interwoven with a wearable computer user's surrounding environment. Our system is designed for use by authors who are not programmers, and allows them to preview their results on a desktop workstation, as well as with an augmented or virtual reality system.     

支持网络学习的超媒体写作系统的设计与实现

写作环境理论的研究及写作系统的开发是计算机辅助教学领域的主要研究方向之一，而网络学习对写作系统提出了新的要求，对基于网络的写作系统的理论和相关技术进行了深入的分析，开发了支持网络学习的超媒体写作系统，经实际使用表明，该系统取得了较好的效果。     

A cross-cultural comparison of gender differences in computer attitudes and anxieties: the United Kingdom and Hong Kong

This study examined the computer attitudes and anxieties of 207 United Kingdom nationals and 286 Hong Kong nationals to determine the factorial structure for each sample and any gender differences. Both samples share a comparable educational environment and level of technological sophistication. The United Kingdom sample, however, reported more computer-related experience, less anxiety and more positive attitudes. There was a large degree of overlap between the factorial structure for computer anxiety and attitudes between the two samples which is consistent with previous research. For the United Kingdom sample, there were no gender differences in computer anxiety but males held more positive attitudes than females. For the Hong Kong sample, there were no gender differences in computer attitudes but males reported greater computer anxiety than females. This is the first sample in which males have been found to be more computer anxious than females, despite Hong Kong males reporting more computer experience than females. An item-by-item analysis identifies Hong Kong males are more anxious when anticipating using computers (rather than when actually using computers).     

Development procedure of a hypermedia application in support of industrial tasks

A technical environment which involves great amounts of specifications and procedure instructions is conducive to hypermedia technology. In a hypermedia environment, pertinent information is relationally retrieved and presented via a multitude of media avenues such as text, fullmotion video, photographs, audio, and graphics. This technology greatly reduces both the documentation search time and the confusion of interpretation associated with an information overload. Ultimately, a substantial increase in productivity is the result.

In this paper we report our experience in the development of a hypermedia-based information center. This development procedure is a by-product of a pilot project currently being conducted at the University of Central Florida (UCF) in Orlando, FL. The subject of our research is the working environment of the Orbiter Processing Facility (OPF) at Kennedy Space Center (KSC). A typical process from routine work instructions was selected and served as a basis of our development and evaluation. The outcome of the study is a computer-based hypermedia information center which employs full-motion video (via a laserdisc player), hypertext, graphics, and an authoring language.     

Educational hypermedia resources facilitator

Within the university the introduction of computers is creating a new criterion of differentiation between those who as a matter of course become integrated in the technocratic trend deriving from the daily use of these machines and those who become isolated by not using them. This difference increases when computer science and communications merge to introduce virtual educational areas, where the conjunction of teacher and pupil in the space–time dimension is no longer an essential requirement, and where the written text is replaced (or rather complemented) by the digital text.In this article, a historical defence is made of the presence of this new standard in the creation of digital educational resources such as the hyperdocument, as well as the barriers and technological problems deriving from its use. Furthermore, HyCo, an authoring tool, is introduced which facilitates the composition of hypertexts, which are stored as semantic learning objects, looking for that through of a simple and extremely intuitive interface and interaction model, any teacher with a minimum knowledge of computer science has the possibility of transforming his or her experience and knowledge into useful and quality hypermedia educational resources.     

Computer attitudes of primary and secondary students in South Africa

This study investigated computer attitudes of 240 students from eight primary and secondary schools in South Africa. The student population of six of the eight schools that participated in the study can be characterised as middle or upper class. Two schools were from South African townships. All eight schools used computers for educational purposes, although the availability and use of the computers differed. The research question of the study was whether differences in computer attitude could be found between boys and girls, and to what extent these differences could be explained by student, school, and environment characteristics. In contrast to most studies on gender differences and computer attitudes, no gender differences in computer attitudes were found. However, this study showed differences in computer attitudes between students from the upper/middle class schools and students from the township schools. The latter showed a less positive attitude towards computers, but more interest in computer-related careers compared with the students in the upper/middle class schools. The study found that computer access and experience, which was significantly lower in the township schools, was also related to computer attitude.     

HM-Card: A new hypermedia authoring system

HM-Card is a novel hypermedia authoring and presentation system for the development and use of a diverse range of hypermedia applications on PCs/MS-Windows. It is the first tool to implement the HM data model, a recent approach to provide a sound theoretical basis for the sophisticated structuring and navigating of hypermedia databases. However, in this paper we only cover the HM data model as the underlying theoretical foundation for the actual authoring system HM-Card. HM-Card offers an extensive set of functional and structural authoring elements, such as animations, question/answer dialogs, transparent import of external documents, and execution of other MS-Windows applications. The user-interface of HM-Card is intended to support rapid prototyping and authoring of complex hypermedia applications. Finished HM-Card applications can be run as stand-alone systems, used in MS-Windows' OLE (Object Linking and Embedding concept) clients, as well as be integrated as modules into large-scale distributed hypermedia systems.     

Towards A New Authoring Methodology for Large-Scale Hypermedia Applications

As the amount of information technology increases, managing information resources, so that the correct people can find the information easily, becomes a critical issue. Hypermedia systems are considered one solution to this problem as they provide a means for representing higher level relationships between the underlying information. However, the amount of information available electronically is increasing at an accelerated rate. Using standard hypermedia authoring techniques, the effort required managing and maintaining large-scale hypermedia systems is enormous. Hypermedia authoring in the large requires new methodologies if it is going to be feasible.This paper presents a new model for building and structuring large-scale hypermedia applications. It describes a case study that explored the delivery of hypermedia information in an industrial environment on a small scale. Models and techniques developed for that case study were then refined and augmented so they could support the construction of large-scale hypermedia systems. In order to support such endeavors a new linking model is presented that allows the author to explicitly represent abstract concepts contained within the underlying information and interconnect them in some meaningful manner. A prototype system applying this linking technique is presented.     

WWW环境下超媒体协同创作系统的设计

1 引言大型文献的创作是一种涉及到总编、美术、策划以及多个作者之间的协作活动,超媒体技术的出现为大型文献创作者提供了一种新的创作方式,能够很好地支持这种协作活动。常规文献是连续的线性结构,文献在组织结构上没有划分手段,因此协同写作时难以进行分工。超媒体文献的离散化节点和超链组织有利于多人协作时任务的划分,多成员可在分布环境下分担完成文献中的不同部分,通过超链可将各部分链接起来,保持整个文献的完整性。对于读者,超文本技术允许有选择地阅读其中感兴趣的部分,而忽略其他部     

Modeling, authoring and formatting hypermedia documents in the HyperProp system

This paper discusses multimedia and hypermedia modeling, authoring and formatting tools, presenting the proposals of the HyperProp system and comparing them to related work. It also highlights several research challenges that still need to be addressed. Moreover, it stresses the importance of document logical structuring and considers the use of compositions in order to represent context relations, synchronization relations, derivation relations and task relations in hypermedia systems. It discusses temporal and spatial synchronization among multimedia objects and briefly presents the HyperProp graphical authoring and formatting tools. Integration between the proposed system and the WWW is also addressed.     

Gender differences in computer-related attitudes and behavior: A meta-analysis

A meta-analysis of studies of gender differences in computer-related attitudes and behavior using US and Canadian participants found that men and boys exhibited greater sex-role stereotyping of computers, higher computer self-efficacy, and more positive affect about computers than did women and girls. These effect sizes varied as a function of study population — adult, college, high school, and grammar school — with the largest differences generally found for high school students. Gender differences in beliefs about computers approached zero and did not vary by study population. Gender differences in computer-related behaviors were small and did not differ as a function of study population. Implications of these findings are discussed.     

A framework for automatic semantic video annotation

Hypermedia composite templates define generic structures of nodes and links to be added to a document composition, providing spatio-temporal synchronization semantics. This paper presents EDITEC, a graphical editor for hypermedia composite templates. EDITEC templates are based on the XTemplate 3.0 language. The editor was designed for offering a user-friendly visual approach. It presents a new method that provides several options for representing iteration structures graphically, in order to specify a certain behavior to be applied to a set of generic document components. The editor provides a multi-view environment, giving the user a complete control of the composite template during the authoring process. Composite templates can be used in NCL documents for embedding spatio-temporal semantics into NCL contexts. NCL is the standard declarative language used for the production of interactive applications in the Brazilian digital TV system and ITU H.761 IPTV services. Hypermedia composite templates could also be used in other hypermedia authoring languages offering new types of compositions with predefined semantics.     

Does computing anger have social elements? A comparison with driving anger

Computer-related anger is compared with driving-related anger in the context of considering whether the concept of ethopoeia can help in explaining computer-related anger and to test whether appraisal theory applies to human–computer interactions to the same extent as it does to interactions between humans. Using retrospective self-report questionnaires, a pool of 140 UK students and members of the public provided data on recent incidents in which they experienced anger while using a computer and while driving. The motivational relevance of incidents and need to communicate anger to computers are shown to be independently predictive of computer anger intensity. Also, as a group, all three appraisal components (motivational relevance, motivational incongruence and other-accountability) that are taken to be central in the generation of anger in the Smith and Lazarus variant of appraisal theory are shown to be more predictive of anger intensity in computing situations than in driving situations. Findings such as computers and other drivers being held equally accountable for anger-inducing incidents, and computer-accountability and other-driver-accountability being equally correlated with anger intensity across the two situations are argued to be consistent with the idea that ethopoeia may play a role in many instances of computer-related anger.     

Composer: meeting non-functional aspects of hypermedia authoring environment

This paper discusses the importance of non-functional requirements in the design of hypermedia authoring tools, which typically provides multiple graphical abstractions (views). It focuses on creating products and services that operate robustly across a broad range of environments, and that take into account the changeable needs of their users over time, as they become more familiar with the tool. In order to meet these non-functional aspects, this paper proposes a microkernel-based architecture for authoring tools, where the microkernel is responsible for instantiating the requested extensions (plugins), maintaining the core data model that represents the hypermedia document under development, and notifying changes in this model to plugins interested in them. Based on the proposed architecture, a new version of Composer (an NCL authoring tool) is presented, rewritten from scratch. Results from experiments show that the discussed non-functional requirements are adequately met.     

Hypermedia—introduction and survey

Our paper begins with an introduction to hypermedia presented with the example of a hypothetical hypermedia system. This is followed by an overview of the main hypermedia components visible to the user—data structures, authoring tools, navigation tools, and user interface. In the next section, we present a brief history of hypermedia, list applications in which hypermedia systems have been used, and describe several important commercial products and research projects. The last two sections introduce the major issues facing hypermedia technology and attempt to predict what direction it might take in the near future.     

Cognitive style, hypermedia navigation and learning

This study examined the influence of cognitive style, spatial orientation and computer expertise on hypertext navigation patterns and learning outcomes when participants interacted with a hypermedia presentation. A sample of 306 undergraduates was pre-tested both on their cognitive style and on their self-reported frequency and ability in using computers. From the initial sample, 40 students were selected to form four groups with the following characteristics: (a) 10 high computer users – sequential thinkers, (b) 10 high computer users – holistic thinkers, (c) 10 low computer users – sequential thinkers and (d) 10 low computer users – holistic thinkers. All participants completed a self-report questionnaire measuring spatial orientation and were then requested to browse freely a hypermedia presentation on the ancient Mayan civilisation. Finally, the students completed a post-test to assess the recall of the hypermedia presentation and the cognitive organisation of the acquired knowledge. The results indicated that hypermedia navigation behaviour was linked to computer skills rather than to cognitive style and that learning outcomes were unaffected by cognitive style or by computer skills. However, learning outcomes were positively affected by specific search patterns, that is by re-visiting hypermedia sections and visiting overview sections in the early stages of hypermedia browsing. Further, navigating overview sections and holistic processing fostered knowledge representation in the form of maps. These findings suggest that individual differences can affect hypermedia navigation even though their role in learning is complex and the impact of cognitive style on learning outcomes was proved to be less important than initially predicted.     

Gender,Internet and computer attitudes and experiences

It is widely assumed that participation by females on the Internet is hampered by their attitudes towards computers, which in turn is reflective of their attitudes towards new technology. Research generally supports that females have less overall experience with computers and are more likely than males to have negative attitudes towards computers. Although limited, research on Internet experiences and attitudes has found parallel gender differences, with females reporting lower levels of experience and more negative attitudes. This paper explores whether Internet and computer experiences, skills and attitudes are related, using evidence from two studies of incoming college students, in 1989/90 and 1997. There were significant gender differences in many computer experiences and attitudes of incoming students in 1989/90. Males were more experienced with computers, more likely to have taken high school courses requiring computer use, and reported higher skill levels in applications such as programming, games and graphics than females. By 1997, incoming students were more experienced with using a computer than the earlier students. However, gender differences in computer experience and skill levels had diminished in some areas. The 1997 survey also assessed Internet experiences, skills, competence and comfort. Students had more exposure to computers than to the Internet. Males were more experienced and reported higher skill levels with the Internet than females, with the exception of e-mail. The overall competency and comfort level for students in 1997 was significantly higher for computers than for the Internet; 19% of the students did not feel competent and/or comfortable with the computer compared to 36% with the Internet, with females reporting higher levels of incompetence and discomfort for both. Competence and comfort levels with the Internet and computers were highly intercorrelated, and both predicted Internet skills and experiences.     

Synchronization in Specification-based Multimedia Presentations

Several information protocols exist for exchange of multimedia information. The {H}yper{T}ext {T}ransfer {P}rotocol (HTTP) of NCSA combines hypertext techniques with multimedia to provide an intuitive, easy-to-use hypermedia interface. However, HTTP does not provide the means to synchronize different multimedia channels. The NCSA hypermedia browser, Mosaic, has been modified to incorporate synchronization constraints. Platform-independent multimedia authoring programs have been combined in a new synchronization scheme. The {H}yper{T}ext {M}arkup {L}anguage (HTML) has been extended to allow the specification of temporal dependencies between different media channels. This extension allows synchronization in the authoring of hypermedia presentations using Mosaic.     

Motivational influences on computer-related affective states

Previous studies have established the importance of computer-related affective variables in predicting user satisfaction, frequency of use, and students academic performance. This study examined the effects of motivation to learn to use computers, and previous experience with computers on three computer-related affective states: anxiety, attitudes, and self-efficacy. Participants included 59 male and 52 female university and college students enrolled in introductory computer programming and fundamental courses. Gender differences were found in previous experience with computers, as well as most of the motivation, and all of the affective variables. A path analysis was used to further investigate these relations and to examine their effect on academic performance in introductory computer classes. Results supported the theoretical model, with some modifications. Gender differences in structure were negligible. Finally, students were grouped according to reasons for taking the course: intrinsic, extrinsic, or both. Significant differences among the three groups were found for six of the 10 variables, in all cases favoring an intrinsic motivational orientation.