Experiences migrating microcosm learning materials

ABSTRACT

Microcosm was an open hypertext system that evolved in the early 1990s, before the advent of the Web. Apart from its success as a research platform it was widely used for presenting interactive educational materials. Since the commercial version of the product ceased to be supported it became necessary for users to migrate their educational materials, generally to the Web. However, the SToMP consortium chose to implement their own environment copying parts of the functionality of Microcosm in order to achieve their educational objectives. This paper examines the motivations of this work in order to understand whether there were features that were available in Microcosm that were not replicated in current Web based solutions.

REFERENCES

• 1: Wendy Hall , Hugh Davis , Gerard Hutchings, Rethinking Hypermedia: The Microcosm Approach, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Norwell, MA, 1996
• 2: Linking Experiences: Issues Raised Developing Linkservices for Resource Based Learning and Teaching, Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies, p.401, August 06-08, 2001
• 3: Niels Olof Bouvin, Unifying strategies for Web augmentation, Proceedings of the tenth ACM Conference on Hypertext and hypermedia : returning to our diverse roots: returning to our diverse roots, p.91-100, February 21-25, 1999, Darmstadt, Germany [doi>10.1145/294469.294493]
• 4: Bacon, R.A. & Swithenby, S.J. A strategy for the integration of IT-led methods into physics - the SToMP approach. Computers & Education, 26 pp135--141 1996.
• 5: Mark Bernstein, Storyspace 1, Proceedings of the thirteenth ACM conference on Hypertext and hypermedia, June 11-15, 2002, College Park, Maryland, USA [doi>10.1145/513338.513383]

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  K. Computing Milieux
  K.3 COMPUTERS AND EDUCATION
      K.3.1 Computer Uses in Education

Additional Classification:
  K. Computing Milieux
  K.2 HISTORY OF COMPUTING
  K.3 COMPUTERS AND EDUCATION
      K.3.1 Computer Uses in Education
          Subjects: Distance learning

General Terms:
Design, Human Factors

Keywords:
authoring, hypertext for education, microcosm