Simple semantic enhancement of instructional hypertext

Abstract

This paper proposes a simple enhancement of current e‐learning systems by reducing the learner's need to deviate from the linear path through instructional content. This approach enables the learner to drag a chosen word from the text and drop it onto another word in order to query the text for any relations between the notions denoted by these two words. The aim of the approach is to facilitate the memorization of complex concepts by providing partial information, that is, relations between particular notions that form the concept, on the spot, eliminating the need to browse back through the instructional content to review these relations that were probably given earlier and may have not been memorized when read. Firstly, the user experience and the structural aspects of the approach are given. Secondly, the evaluation design and results are discussed. Finally, lessons learned and directions of further development and research are presented. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Comput Appl Eng Educ 24:799–812, 2016; View this article online at http://www.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/cae; DOI