Automatic construction of hypertexts for self-referencing: the Hyper-TextBook project

We present the results of the Hyper-TextBook project. The aim of the project was to design, develop and test a methodology and a tool for the fully automatic authoring of hypertexts from full-text documents. The target documents were textbooks because of their specific characteristics and usage, and the project aimed at automatically creating hypertextual versions of textbooks, i.e. hyper-textbooks. In this first phase of the project hyper-textbooks have been designed and implemented to be used mostly as self-reference sources. The results of a formative design evaluation of a hyper-textbook support the conclusion that our conceptual structure and navigation enhance the usability of the textbook with respect to both paper and online versions of the same textbook. Yet, this evaluation indicates a number of possible ways to improve it. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.