Hypertext 2007

Ted Nelson Newcomer Award

2007-09-19T10:22:00.000+01:00

Hypertext '99 introduced a new annual ACM SIGWEB award for the best newcomer paper presented at the annual ACM SIGWEB Hypertext Conference. Papers that are rated among the best papers overall and are written solely by authors who have never published in earlier Hypertext proceedings are eligible for the Nelson Award (affectionately named the "Teddy"). Papers authored and co-authored by members of the award committee are not eligible for an award. The award committee reserves the right to give both awards to the same paper, not to give an award, or to split an award among several papers The award is named after Theodor H. Nelson, in recognition of his numerous contributions to the field of hypertext and hypermedia over the past 35 years. The award carries a $1,000 cash price

This years winner was Elizabeth Brown with the paper Real users, real results: examining the limitations of learning styles within AEH . This paper examines the current state of AEH (adaptive educational hypermedia) research into explicit learning style modelling for user personalisation. It addresses the problem of nonnaive test subjects, who are often in user trials, thus contributing to experimental bias. Instead, the authors suggest using real people, i.e. users with a range of backgrounds and abilities, in order to gain a truer insight into evidence-based research. The report on a study carried out with No statistically significant differences were found between experimental groups, learning style preferences or learning environments. We discuss the significance of this, and then critically analyse the use of learning styles in relation to this study and also in the wider context.real users: around 80 children at a UKprimary school. The study investigated sequential and global learning styles as a personalisation mechanism in an AEH system. The user trial involved matching and mismatching users and learning environments to see if learning improved. The AEH system used by the children was DEUS, a new e-learning platform that is conceptually similar to WHURLE, an AEH that also used learning styles as its user model. No statistically significant differences were found between experimental groups, learning style preferences or learning environments. We discuss the significance of this, and then critically analyse the use of learning styles in relation to this study and also in the wider context.

The Ted Nelson Newcomer Award was presented by Theodor Holm Nelson to Elizabeth Brown during an awards presentation at the conference dinner.

Full Paper: http://doi.acm.org/1= 0.1145/1286240.1286261_

Douglas Engelbart Best Paper Award

2007-09-19T09:50:00.000+01:00

The Douglas Engelbart Best Paper Award is given for best paper presented at the annual ACM SIGWEB Hypertext Conference. The award is named after Douglas C. Engelbart, in recognition of his life's work and contributions to the field of hypertext and hypermedia.

This years winner was m. c. schraefel with the paper What is an analogue for the semantic web and why is having one important?. This paper postulates that for the Semantic Web to grow and gain input from fields that will surely benefit it, it needs to develop an analogue that will help people not only understand what it is, but what the potential opportunities are that are enabled by these new protocols. The model proposed in the paper takes the way that Web interaction has been framed as a baseline to inform a similar analogue for the Semantic Web. While the Web has been represented as a Page + Links, the paper presents the argument that the Semantic Web can be conceptualized as a Notebook + Memex. The argument considers how this model also presents new challenges for fundamental human interaction with computing, and that hypertext models have much to contribute to this new understanding for distributed information systems.

The Douglas Engelbart Best Paper Award was presented by Dr Mark Bernstein. Unfortunately m. c. schraefel was unable to attend the award ceremony and so Professor Wendy Hall received the award on her behalf.

Full Paper: http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1286240.1286271

The Return of the Prodigal Web

2007-09-06T14:56:00.000+01:00

Manchester is proud host to the 2007 Hypertext Conference, the 18th in an international series of conferences which has seen the birth and revolutionary impact of the hypertext system that has changed our lives - the World Wide Web.

The Conference will be opened by Prof Carole Goble, the pioneer of hypertext and the Semantic Web, whose work also embraces the emerging social web known as Web 2.0. "As the Web has evolved we have seen exciting developments in different parts of the research community", said Prof Goble, "It's now time for everyone to bring these back together".

Prof Goble is uniquely qualified to tell this story. Building on Manchester's world-leading Semantic Web expertise and the principles of Web 2.0, her team has designed and delivered software which is used by scientists worldwide on an everyday basis. "We have shown that the Semantic Web gives us the infrastructure to enable new scientific discoveries, but ultimately it's about people and this is the power of Web 2.0".

Prof Goble believes that we are now ready to realise - and transcend - the original visions of hypertext and hopes that her talk will act as a call to arms. "Let's grasp the opportunity, embrace the returning son and celebrate."

Programme Schedule

2007-08-28T09:02:00.000+01:00

The conference programme schedule has now been finalised and can be found on the main and programme pages.

Reading Room Open!

2007-08-23T16:43:00.001+01:00

The hypertext reading room for 2007 is now open. http://www.sigweb.org/ht07/programme/hypertexts/wiki/ Read the online work and then comment and argue into the night!

Hypertext is a kind of writing. While most writing is typically presented in a sequence (e.g., in a book, the second page always comes directly after the first), hypertext uses links to create multiple paths through a document. The reader typically chooses links to move from one node of text to the next, and in this fashion arranges a story from a deeper pool of potential stories. The Hypertext Reading Room Wiki allows participants to submit hypertexts (poetry, fiction, non-fiction) and allows others within the community to intereact with them and post comments, ideas, thoughts and suggestions about the hypertext. With the kind sponsorship of Eastgate, there will be a prize for what is considered to be the best hypertext submitted to the Hypertext Reading Room.

Creche Registrations closing mid August

2007-07-16T09:49:00.001+01:00

With the generous sponsorship of Hoppers, Hypertext 2007 will be able to provide free creche services to delegates with small children. The creche can have child carers for children aged 6 months and above.

The creche will be based in the Museum's Discovery Centre but the carers will be recruited from Manchester City Council's Early Year's Centre in St Peter's Square. As such, the carer:child ratio will adhere to current UK government regulations. As of February 2007, this ratio was set as:

6 months - 2 years: 1 adult per 3 children
2 - 3 years: 1 adult per 4 children
2 years onwards: 1 adult per 8 children

To reserve your child a place at the creche, please indicate on the Conference Registration form how many places you will require and the ages of the children who shall be attending.

Preliminary Programme Schedule Released

2007-07-16T09:44:00.000+01:00

Find preliminary details about the schedule and the social events on our main page.

Palace Hotel Rooms

2007-07-10T10:40:00.000+01:00

Hi there This is just a reminder that the Palace Hotel will release any rooms not taken up in a couple of days. They have reserved 20 rooms for Hypertext 2007 which they won't be able to hold after the 10th of July. If you need one of these reduced rate rooms please get in touch with the Palace Hotel directly. When making a reservation, delegates should use the reference number "UNI090907" and the quote "Hypertext 2007 on the 09th September 2007". Price: 98 (GBP) per night during Conference (149 (GBP) per night at other times) Address: Oxford Street, Manchester Telephone: +44 (0)161 288 1111 URL: http://www.palace-hotel-manchester.co.uk

Whither SIGWEB and Hypertext?

2007-06-27T20:30:00.000+01:00

Since the founding of SIGWEB (as SIGLINK), the Hypertext conference has been the SIG's flagship event and the site of its annual meeting. But SIGWEB's activities have become more diffuse in recent years and the Hypertext conference is no longer the clear center of mass.

Here is a rough summary of the conferences that SIGWEB is sponsoring this year:

Name	Attendance	Budget	Sponsorship level
Hypertext	80-100 people	$40K	100% sponsored
DocEng	50-60 people	$25K	100% sponsored
CIKM	360 people	$130K	50% sponsored
WSDM	200 people estimated	$40K	25% sponsored
JCDL	500 people	$200K	33% sponsored

So today, both CIKM and JCDL are at least as important as Hypertext for SIGWEB's conference attendance and budget. SIGWEB is also discussing a sponsorship relationship with the International World Wide Web Conference and that meeting has 1000 attendees and a $1M budget, though I think SIGWEB would only sponsor 25-50%.

When you consider that SIGWEB's acronym also emphasizes "the Web", this picture presents a challenge for the SIG. Our leadership is still drawn primarily from the two smaller meetings that are 100% sponsored by the SIG. The 100% part is exactly right, but the small part is not. I love hypertext (the topic) and Hypertext (the conference), but SIGWEB needs to change something to reflect today's activities.

What should SIGWEB do? We could retrench to a narrower scope in which the Hypertext conference would be the dominant element, but I don't think this makes sense. Rather, I'd like to see two things happen. First, I'd like to see the Hypertext conference grow in intellectual scope and in attendance, perhaps by merging with other meetings. The goal would be to ensure that Hypertext reflects the breadth of interest of SIGWEB's members and can remain a suitable site for the SIGWEB annual meeting. Second, I want SIGWEB to strengthen its ties with the other conferences that it sponsors. These stronger ties should expand the pool of volunteers that SIGWEB can call on for its activities and should increase interaction among the conferences. I think this will benefit both the SIG and the conferences.

2007-05-07T13:30:00.000+01:00

There has been a lot of interest expressed in submitting papers to Hypertext 2007 and indeed, the Practical Hypertext Programme received its first submission six weeks before the Original Submission Date. However, due to attendance of the World Wide Web Conference 2007 and conflicting submission deadlines with European FP7 Proposals, we have received several requests for extensions to the original submission date of 7th May. We are therefore pleased to announce that we will be extending the submission date for Technical Papers, Hypertexts and Student Research Competition Papers to Friday 11th May 2007 Midnight Hawaii Standard Time.

For a full listing of the revised important dates, please see the Important Dates Page.

Please also note that any papers that have been uploaded to the Hypertext 2007 Paper Submission Systemcan be re-submitted up until 11th May .

We wish all attendees of WWW2007 an enjoyable conference and success to those submitting an FP7 Proposal. See you all at Hypertext in September.

Practical Hypertext

2007-04-12T12:21:00.000+01:00

The Practical Hypertext Autonomous Programme covers a range of topics that have been popular in the Hypertext conferences in the past, and we anticipate it being well-subscribed again this year. According to our records, there has already been a lot of activity in the viewing of our programme's web pages and we have even had our first submission, a full six weeks early!

We have collected an excellent programme committee whose expertise will help us choose the best and most interesting papers for the Practical Hypertext Programme. Some are already well-known to Hypertext conference past attendees, while others are new to the conference series and bring us their expertise in adjacent areas such as adaptive hypermedia and information retrieval. This reflects the contributions of other related areas to hypertext research, but also the way hypertext research contributes to other areas - such as how links are used in page ranking on the Web, for example.

For the Practical Hypertext Programme, we're looking for papers that may be about creating or maintaining everyday hypertext, or how practical hypertext improves other work or leisure pursuits. As long as your paper broadly covers this, then we are interested in receiving it for review!

Call For Participation

2007-04-02T08:40:00.000+01:00

Hypertext 2007 celebrates its 20th anniversary trying to fight the last years' flux and overshadowing by Web. Trying to keep Hypertext's identity as an interesting and interdisciplinary conference, we offer more than 40 different research areas ranging from Web Design to Literature and Philosophy. I agree with the Registration Chair's comments about how important is to bring people from different disciplines in order to produce more dynamically diverse discussions and hence better results. As a Publicity Chair, I have to let the world know about the conference but also inform them about the diverse range that Hypertext 2007 tries to cover. Five distinctive programs will be offered to show how unique this conference is. We are seeking participants focusing, but not limited to:

Scholarly, Structural, Dynamic and Adaptive Models and Theory of hypertext.
Applications of hypertext including The Web, Semantic Web, Web Engineering, and Web Design.
The effect of hypertext on Developing Regions, Social Tagging and Annotation, Blogs, and eLearning.
Human Centred hypertext including Browsers and Interfaces, Web Accessibility, Usability, Evaluation and Observational Studies.
Culture and Communication, Art, Literature, Philosophy, and the hypertext tools to support them.

In addition, we provide the opportunity to participants to submit:

Hypertexts in order for others within the community to read and interact with them through the Hypertext Reading Room
Posters and Demonstrations to test new ideas, generate interest in a research area, or describe useful or interesting work.
For the Student Research Competition, so that students can participate in an ACM conference and get visibility for their research by displaying a poster and making a brief presentation to a panel of judges and
For a community discussion forum where people with similar interests can flock together and discuss their research.

Looking through the list of subjects covered one can easily notice that not only this conference is of interest to people from Computer Science background but also from Engineering, Humanities, HCI, Arts, Literature, even Philosophy! So, in this post I am calling you to participate in an interdisciplinary, diverse and exciting conference but also seeking your help:

Do let me know of any community mailing list or discussion groups that are relevant to hypertext! and
Let your colleagues know about HT07 and ask them to pass the information.

The more participants the better understanding we will get about hypertext and its applications. I am looking forward to hear from you!

Hypertext 2007 Submissions Now Open

2007-03-26T11:56:00.000+01:00

The Eighteenth International ACM Conference on Hypertext and Hypermedia (Hypertext 2007) is now open for submissions. Seven programmes with more than 40 designated areas are waiting for your input. They include:

The programmes indicate many intersections with other fields of interest, not only in computer science. Decades of research and development has lifted hypertext from its esoteric existence to a higher level. It is no longer exclusively for computer geeks, but rather provides solutions potentially for everyone who deals with connecting information. (These must be quite many.) This includes people working in the fields of natural sciences, humanities, or knowledge management and covers new developments, such as social networking or Web 2.0. People who work with structures or knowledge are of interest for hypertext and hypertext is of interest for people working on structures or knowledge.

This general relevance of hypertext for various fields of interest is also expressed by this year's conference theme: Hypertext, The Web, and Beyond: Five Autonomous Programmes, One Unified Conference. It expresses the diversity in research directions we have in hypertext, but in a very positive way. Diversity means broadening our horizons, opening our eyes. It also pays attention to the broad application of hypertext technology or paradigms outside computer science. The big challenge is to connect the different ideas so that we gain from synergy. At the end, however, we unify in our common goal: providing means to people for organising their knowledge.

I am looking forward for your submission, whatever area it has its focus on.

Humanities Honour Scheme

2007-03-12T14:23:00.000Z

In the first Hypertext conference (HT87), it was highlighted that ``the Conference on Hypertext and Hypermedia brings together scholars, researchers, and practitioners from diverse disciplines to consider the form, role and impact of hypertext and hypermedia in a forum of discussion of ideas, design and use of hypertext and hypermedia in a variety of domains''. This shows that from the beginning the Hypertext conference was established as an interdisciplinary conference. I believe for better discussions and outcomes it is important to organise a conference in an international and interdisciplinary fashion. To me the former means bringing people together from different cultures and the latter means bringing people from different backgrounds and diverse disciplines. These are important features for cross-pollinating ideas; having different insights; sharing and transferring experiences; having applications in different domains; having better discussions and most importantly for producing better results. Hypertext conferences have always been among the few that have managed to be true interdisciplinary conferences. They have always brought together computer scientists, writers, sociologists, psychologists, designers, ethnographers, engineers and many others. That's why HT conferences have always been interesting and fun to attend.

In order to continue and strengthen this, this year we are introducing a new "Humanities Honour Scheme". With this scheme we would like to ensure that attendees from Humanities get as much discounts as Computer Scientists. Hence we would like to support and continue with the interdisciplinary aspect of the Hypertext conferences. We hope that this scheme will encourage researchers, artists and designers in Humanities to continue to contribute to the success of Hypertext research. This was demonstrated by the Web and hopefully Hypertext research will produce many more such successful examples. This year, as it was emphasised in HT01, HT07 ``will continue to provide a forum where attendees can exchange and discuss ideas on hypermedia, as well as its design and use in a variety of domains, while also considering the transformative power of hypermedia and its ability to potentially alter the way we read, write, argue, work, exchange information, or entertain ourselves''. See you all in Manchester!

Inspirations for a Media Chair

2007-03-01T11:08:00.001Z

When I was originally asked to design the Hypertext 2007 Website, I sought as my inspiration the works of L. S. Lowry, a Manchester based artist who painted urban landscapes populated with "match-stick" human figures depicting life in an industrialised city. After all, Hypertext 2007 is being held in Manchester and it seemed appropriate to have a theme that reflected its industrial heritage. However, while Lowry accurately represented the host city of the conference, he didn't capture the essence of hypertext, which for me is the browsing of information linked together by nothing more than the thoughts and associations of the author. The real beauty of hypertext is not only the exploration and acquisition of knowledge, but also the joy and surprise of discovering the new; found through following a link to an unfamiliar piece of information that you had never before associated with the piece of information you are currently looking at.

In many ways this mirrors real life. How often have colleagues made associations between two concepts that initially seem bizarre but after some thought seem perfectly logical? Or how many times have friends suggested places to visit that you have never before considered but then upon going, wonder why you have never been before? It was one of these seemingly strange associations that led me to taking the photograph that was the basis for the picture that sits at the top of every page on this Website.

A friend was visiting from Sweden and so we did all the tourist stuff. We walked around the city, poked around the Roman Ruins in Castlefield and then spent the afternoon sat in a pub. As we were sat there, my Swedish companion made an association between UK fashions and winter, which I had never before considered. This link led us on a trip to a popular department store, which by coincidence was hosting a free food & drink sampling session. And, it was whilst tasting our fragments of Goat's Cheese and New Zealand Chardonnay that we looked out of the window and saw the vista that sits above this page.

In a similar fashion that following links and trails of thoughts in hyperspace brings us the thrill of stumbling upon new and mysterious views of knowledge, so too following the links and trails of a visiting friend brought an unexpected view of Manchester.

As a native of Greater Manchester I feel that I should not only welcome you to Hypertext 2007 but also to The City. HT07 promises to be a diverse fusion of research, people and art. Manchester too is a thriving multicultural metropolis with a reputation for academia, the arts and sports. In this respect both HT07 and Manchester compliment each other quite nicely.

Template for hypertext-format submissions

2007-02-16T01:06:00.000Z

One of the wonderful things about ACM Hypertext is that it gives authors of scholarly works to create their articles in hypertext format. So far ACM conferences have accepted five articles in hypertext format. Hypertext explicitly requests full paper submissions in that form.

There are many great ways to use hypertext for your submission. Which of those methods you use depends on your intention. Here's what's been done so far:

Deena Larsen and Richard E. Higgason [1] used Flash, and
David Kolb [2] used a combination of tools, including StorySpace, to create articles for HT'04 that were, for the most part, tailored to their specific articles.
Also in 2004, Mona Noor and I [3] published a hypertext article in HTML using a format that was specifically intended to be re-used in other articles.
In 2005 Anders Fagerjord [4] presented a brilliant hypertext (written largely in HTML) that used stretchtext to discuss stretchtext!
Last year Paul De Bra, David Smits, and Natalia Stash [5] ran an adaptive hypertext system on a server to present their article.

If you want to write a hypertext article for this year's HT conference, one way to do it is to use an updated version of the design I developed for the article Mona and I published in 2004. I've put a template to help anyone who wants to engage the power of hypertext to express their ideas at http://users.cs.dal.ca/~jamie/HT07/readme.html.

If you decide to use the template for your submission please note the source of the template (or the original article) since ACM owns copyright of the original article.

What other templates and recommendations do you have?

Welcome to the 2007 Hypertext Conference in its 20th Anniversary Year

2007-01-18T10:35:00.000Z

Welcome to Hypertext 2007 (HT07) in this the 20th anniversary year of the inagural conference. I think it would be fair to say that the hypertext community has been in flux over the past few years, looking for its place in a climate where the Web predominates.

I find that in this climate, where hypertext (and its conference) is becoming overshadowed by the Web, a reexamination of our roots is not only useful but also necessary. Indeed, I feel that the 1987 conference has a particular resonance in a research climate of interfaces: the life science interface, the information interface, the medical interface... it seems to me that we have taken our eye of the true meaning of hypertext and its differences from the Web.

On further consideration, by realising the importance of interfaces, we can understand the importance of hypertext, the non-linear narrative, and research to support them. I believe that when Ted Nelson first coined the term 'hypertext' he was not thinking of a purely cold information flow but a warm and vibrant conduit for art, culture, and communication - or at least with these properties at its heart. Indeed, looking at Jakob Nielsen's 1987 Hypertext trip report he alludes to just these cultural roots:

"HyperTEXT'87 was the first large-scale meeting devoted to the hypertext concept. Before the workshop, hypertext had been considered a somewhat esoteric concept of interest to a few fanatics only."

"Andy van Dam in his opening speech called HC "beautifully engineered in spite of its many flaws" and suggested that it would "enculture" the computer community. It is simple enough to be widely used and is already emerging as somewhat of a cult (19) phenomenon. On the other hand, Jef Raskin said that HyperCard is only cheap and popular for the software itself. To run it, you need an expensive computer in the form of a Macintosh, so in reality it is "yuppie-text."

So in a world of interfaces where is Hypertext in 2007? I'd suggest at the forfront of the cultural interface.