A compound multi-media document consists of a mix of continuous media elements (audio, video, instrument sensors, etc.) and computational elements that display, chart, record, and process the media elements. In a network envh-onment, where these elements exist at different locations on the communication fabric, there are obvious synctu-onization problems. However, there is also a class of problems we call dynamicity issues, which m~e concerned with the need to: reconfigure the network, add and remove connections that bind the elements, deal with mobile elements. In this paper we characterize the different types of dynamicity that occur in networked compound documents and present a top-level architecture for managing dynamicity. BackgroundFor the last two years, our group has been involved in the design of multi-media environments. This work has consisted of two parts: 1. We have been an active participant and contaibutor to the design and development of the Athena Muse multi-media authoring system by the Visual Computing Group at M1T Project Athena [Hodge89]. Our collaboration also consisted of the loan of one of our group members, one of the original designers of Muse, to the Muse project.2. The consu'uction, in cooperation with other research ~oups at GTE Laboratories, of a hybrid, digital broadband network capable of supporting multi-media connectivity among our offices. This hybrid network utilizes a (GTE proplietm30 SONET-compatible digital switch that was used to provide video connectivity to/fi-om multiple sources, a computer conlxollable ISDN switch for voice connections, and an Ethernet network for data connections. We have ported and made modifications to Muse to make use of this network and created prototypes with Muse of cooperative documents for multiuser, multi-media applications~

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