9/123.4.7 Using Hyperwave for Education
In Section 3.3.9 I already discussed how distributed hypermedia information systems like the World Wide WWW provide suitable means for online education. It has, indeed, been used in many cases![[*]](/Teaching/theses/1997/_idbde_/rpersche/images/foot_motif.gif)
. I also mentioned that WWW, because of its
simplicity, lacks important functionality which is vital for online
education. Let us discuss those features of Hyperwave which could enhance
the WWW's functionality for educational purposes.
- Hyperwave's hierarchical structure allows for the storage of the hypermedia course material in a structured way to avoid the ``lost in hyperspace'' syndrome. The server can be divided into logical sections, e.g., a virtual workshop for collaboration, a virtual common room for communication, a virtual lecture theatre for course material, and a virtual library for additional reading [Len97] (see Section 4.4).
- User and group access rights are essential for online education
for multiple reasons:
- Only subscribed students should have access to the course material and to group discussions.
- Students should not have access to all material on the server.
- Students should have a private space in the Hyperwave database where they can store private information like bookmarks, annotations, or assignments which are not ready to be published.
- Hyperwave's searching facilities enable students to easily retrieve information.
- Hyperwave's link management, described in Section 3.4.2.4, helps to produce high quality course material.
- The attributes TimeOpen and TimeExpire allow documents to become visible and invisible at certain dates. Thus, course material can become visible piece by piece so as to avoid shocking students with an information overload.
- Annotations allow group discussions, question and answer databases, and private notes.
- WaveMaster allows students to access the Hyperwave server with a WWW client, and thus they should be able to join the online lecture from any computer which is connected to the Internet and has a WWW browser installed.
- HG-CSP (see Section 3.4.3) supports synchronous communication among users who have sessions on the Hyperwave server. Hence, tools for collaboration (e.g, electronic whiteboards and chat programs) can be developed for synchronous online lectures.
- Hyperwave's supports the idea of modularization. Experts all over the world can create course modules which can be reused by others to create their course material. For instance, if you want to teach a lecture about sorting algorithms, you will look for modules describing the different sorting algorithms. If the modules are satisfactory, you will include them in you course. Modules could be whole collections in Hyperwave, or just pieces of HTML code or multimedia elements which can be combined by using Hyperwave's multiclusters.
During the last few years, Hyperwave (Hyper-G) has been used to create learning environments. In Graz, Austria Hyperwave has been used as a discussion platform for Prof. Hermann Maurer's lecture on social aspects of Telematik (information and communication technologies). In Paderborn, Germany, Hyperwave has been used to present lectures in the field of ``Informatik und Gesellschaft'' (computer science and society) [BKS95], [EKSS95].
The ``Authoring on-the-fly'' project in Freiburg, Germany uses Hyperwave to archive multimedia material captured during online lectures on-the-fly (see Section 4.2).
Dr. Jennifer Lennon in Auckland, New Zealand follows a similar approach as in Freiburg. In her graduate level multimedia class, Lennon uses a Hyperwave server to realise A Distributed Learning Environment (see Section 4.4).