Definition

Authoring

Authoring

Authoring may refer to:* Writing, as by an author* Authoring systems, computer based systems that allow the creation of content for intelligent tutoring systems...

 of Adaptive hypermedia

Adaptive hypermedia

In contrast to traditional e-learning/electronic learning, e-business, and e-government systems, whereby all users are offered or even directed a standard series of hyperlinks, adaptive hypermedia tailors what the user sees to the learner's goals, abilities, interests, knowledge, etc...

 (AH) comprises the design and creation process of adaptive hypermedia

Adaptive hypermedia

In contrast to traditional e-learning/electronic learning, e-business, and e-government systems, whereby all users are offered or even directed a standard series of hyperlinks, adaptive hypermedia tailors what the user sees to the learner's goals, abilities, interests, knowledge, etc...

: creation of content (usually in the form of a resource collection and domain model

Domain model

A domain model in problem solving and software engineering can be thought of as a conceptual model of a domain of interest which describes the various entities, their attributes, roles and relationships, plus the constraints that govern the integrity of the model elements comprising that problem...

) and adaptive behaviour (usually in the form of IF-THEN rules; recently, adaptation languages have been proposed for increased generality; e.g., the LAG language by Alexander I. Cristea et al., the LAG-XLS language by Natalia Stash et al., etc.). As adaptive hypermedia adapts at least to the user, authoring of AH comprises at least a user model

User model

User model may refer to:*User Interface Modeling*Standard user model-See also:*Adaptive hypermedia*Web Personalisation* User modeling* User profile...

. Depending on the authoring framework used, different models of the static components to which an adaptation engine adapts can be represented and populated in the authoring process, such as presentation model, goal model, pedagogic model, etc.

Issues

Authoring

Authoring

Authoring may refer to:* Writing, as by an author* Authoring systems, computer based systems that allow the creation of content for intelligent tutoring systems...

 of Adaptive hypermedia

Adaptive hypermedia

In contrast to traditional e-learning/electronic learning, e-business, and e-government systems, whereby all users are offered or even directed a standard series of hyperlinks, adaptive hypermedia tailors what the user sees to the learner's goals, abilities, interests, knowledge, etc...

 has been long considered as secondary to adaptive hypermedia

Adaptive hypermedia

In contrast to traditional e-learning/electronic learning, e-business, and e-government systems, whereby all users are offered or even directed a standard series of hyperlinks, adaptive hypermedia tailors what the user sees to the learner's goals, abilities, interests, knowledge, etc...

 delivery. This is not surprising in the early stages of adaptive hypermedia, when the focus was on research and expansion. Now that adaptive hypermedia itself has reached a certain maturity, the issue is to bring it out to the community and let the various stakeholders reap the benefits. However, authoring and creation of hypermedia is not trivial at all. Unlike in traditional authoring for hypermedia and the web, a linear storyline is not enough. Instead, various alternatives have to be created for the given material. For example, if a course should be delivered both to visual and verbal

Language

Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...

 learners, there should be created at least two perfectly equivalent versions of the material in visual and in verbal form, respectively. Moreover, an adaptation strategy should be created that states that the visual content should be delivered to visual learners, whereas the verbal content should be delivered to the verbal learners. Thus, authors should not only be able to create different versions of their content, but be able to specify (and in some cases, design from scratch) adaptation strategies of delivery of contents. Issues with which authoring of adaptive hypermedia is confronted are:

• creation of exchange language for the content (some early examples are the CAM language)
• creation of exchange language for adaptation (with the LAG language and the LAG-XLS language as examples)
• creation of a framework for adaptation (see, e.g., the LAG framework)
• standardization of adaptation processes

AH Authoring Frameworks

There already exist some approaches to help authors to build adaptive-hypermedia-based systems. However, there is a strong need for high-level approaches, formalisms and tools that support and facilitate the description of reusable adaptive hypermedia

Hypermedia

Hypermedia is a computer-based information retrieval system that enables a user to gain or provide access to texts, audio and video recordings, photographs and computer graphics related to a particular subject.Hypermedia is a term created by Ted Nelson....

 and websites. Such models started appearing (see, e.g., the AHAM model of adaptive hypermedia, or the LAOS framework for authoring of adaptive hypermedia). Moreover, recently have we noticed a shift in interest, as it became clearer that the implementation-oriented approach would forever keep adaptive hypermedia away from the ‘layman’ author

Author

An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...

. The creator of adaptive hypermedia cannot be expected to know all facets of the process as described above. Still, he/she can be reasonably trusted to be an expert in one of these facets. For instance, it is reasonable to expect that there are content experts (such as, e.g., experts in chemistry, for instance). It is reasonable to expect, for adaptive educational hypermedia

Adaptive educational hypermedia

Adaptive educational hypermedia is one of the first and most popular kinds of adaptive hypermedia. It applies adaptive hypermedia to the domain of education...

, that there are experts in pedagogy

Pedagogy

Pedagogy is the study of being a teacher or the process of teaching. The term generally refers to strategies of instruction, or a style of instruction....

, who are able to add pedagogical metadata

Metadata

The term metadata is an ambiguous term which is used for two fundamentally different concepts . Although the expression "data about data" is often used, it does not apply to both in the same way. Structural metadata, the design and specification of data structures, cannot be about data, because at...

 to the content created by content experts. Finally, it is reasonable to expect that adaptation experts will be the one creating the implementation of adaptation strategies, and descriptions (metadata) of such nature that they can be understood and applied by laymen authors. This type of division of work determines the different authoring personas that should be expected to collaborate in the creation process of adaptive hypermedia. Moreover, the contributions of these various personas correspond to the different modules that are to be expected in adaptive hypermedia systems.

Relation to other research fields

Authoring of adaptive hypermedia can also be considered web engineering

Web engineering

The World Wide Web has become a major delivery platform for a variety of complex and sophisticated enterprise applications in several domains. In addition to their inherent multifaceted functionality, these web applications exhibit complex behavior and place some unique demands on their usability,...

 for adaptive web-based systems. Usually this term appears in connection with automatization of the authoring process, e.g., in automatic generation of links and contents based on meta-data. Moreover, this terms appears in connection with application of web standards

Web standards

Web standards is a general term for the formal standards and other technical specifications that define and describe aspects of the World Wide Web. In recent years, the term has been more frequently associated with the trend of endorsing a set of standardized best practices for building web sites,...

in the authoring process.

AH Authoring Systems

• MOT (My Online Teacher) http://www.dcs.warwick.ac.uk/~acristea/mot.html
• TANGOW http://tangow.ii.uam.es/opah/index.php/OPAH