Adaptive hypermedia through contextualized open hypermedia structures

Abstract

The aim of this article is to produce an alternative view of the adaptive hypermedia (AH) domain from a contextually-aware open hypermedia (OH) perspective. We believe that a wide range of AH techniques can be supported with a small number of OH structures, which can be combined together to create more complex effects, possibly simplifying the development of new AH systems. In this work we reexamine Brusilovsky's taxonomy of AH techniques from a structural OH perspective. We also show that it is possible to identify and model common structures across the taxonomy of adaptive techniques. An agent-based adaptive hypermedia system called HA 3 L is presented, which uses these OH structures to provide a straightforward implementation of a variety of adaptive hypermedia techniques. This enables us to reflect on the structural equivalence of many of the techniques, demonstrates the advantages of the OH approach, and can inform the design of future adaptive hypermedia systems.