The application and evaluation of adaptive hypermedia techniques in Web-based medical education

Abstract

This article discusses the design issues involved in delivering Web-based learning materials. An existing application in the medical domain-JointZone-is used to illustrate how personalization and an interactive environment can be incorporated into Web-based learning. This work applies the combination of an adaptive hypermedia, situated-learning approach and hypermedia linking concepts to facilitate online learning. A usability study was carried out on the work described and an evaluation was undertaken to measure the effect of personalization on various learning factors. The evaluation outcome was analysed subjectively and objectively. The results proved to be contradictory but, nevertheless, the work gives new insights into the use of technology to support learning. Foreword I knew David Squires from the early 1980s, mainly through meeting him at CAL conferences and then as our friendship grew through more regular get-togethers. He was a wonderful person to work with and to call a friend-he was warm, witty and wise, and fun to be around. I have tremendous respect for his work and his influence on the world of learning technologies will be sorely missed. He was always interested in empirical work, and in the relationship between human-computer interaction and teaching and learning. So I am delighted, with my co-authors, to submit this paper for the ALT-J special issue dedicated to his memory.

Adaptive hypermedia through contextualized open hypermedia structures

“…For adaptive link hiding, the number of links presented to the user are manipulated according to the user's knowledge level. Icons are placed next to links (link annotation) to indicate how much of a page a user has read based on metrics derived from reading speed and the duration of document display [Ng et al 2002]. A "topic map" provides a form of map adaptation whereby the system displays all relevant documents associated with the current subject.…”

“…The dataset used for this test study was taken from an existing adaptive website called Jointzone [Ng et al 2002], which was constructed using a traditional AH approach and provides an educational adaptive hypermedia resource for medical students studying rheumatology. Funded by the Arthritis Research Council, Jointzone provides history-based link annotations for exploratory learning.…”

Computers in human behavior

“…A study task may involve a learning process, searching for a piece of information described in the educational material or memorising information displayed on the computer screen. The most common metric used in the educational area for measuring learning performance is Study Session Time (SST) (Ng, Hall, Maier, & Armstrong, 2002;Weber & Brusilovsky, 2001). Apart of this, other metrics such as Information Processing Time (IPT) and Information Access Time (IAT) were measured in our experimental study.…”

The use of animated agents in e-learning environments: an exploratory, interpretive case study

“…There is a growing body of literature relating to e-learning including research on the adoption of courseware (Russell, 1999), learner experiences with e-learning (Hara & Kling, 1999;Johnson et al, 2000a) and the comparison of the critical attributes of traditional and e-learning environments (Blignauta & Trollipa, 2003). Increasingly sophisticated features are being conceptualised and incorporated in e-learning systems such as intelligent agents (Lester et al, 2000;Schroeder, 2002), adaptive hypermedia (Ng et al, 2002) and game-based learning (Foreman, 2004) that aim to make e-learning friendly and engaging for both instructors and learners.…”