The hyperText Project

This document was written and refers to work and subjects undertaken in 1995.

Successes...

bought to you by the letter a... part from the technical, theoretical, and practical problems that are arising through the laboratory sessions there are substantial positive outcomes.

Technological comfort

As students begin to consider hypertext as a non-linear and link driven method of writing and publication there is a significant (but often not quite recognised) shift in their relationship to this technology. For many students this was simply a new familiarity and comfort with computers, extending to include an appreciation that even when their computer 'crashed' nothing had broken, nor had they done something 'wrong' (usually).

'Multimedia' uses

Several students immediately took advantage of hypertext's possibilities and in some cases started using Storyspace to write essays, plan essays, and to think about film scripts. In other cases previous work was marked up in HTML and placed on the web, and there are currently a group of students producing essays for HC342 Modernism in the Cinema as Storyspace and/or HTML documents.

The ability to incorporate scanned images, film stills, and digitised video clips in their work was also immediately useful to many students and several are currently using these facilities to produce cinema studies essays.

Virtual access

One of the advantages of working in this medium, and one that students quickly took advantage of, was the easy accessibility to their work that digitisation and computer networking offered. For example a student could come to my office (or send me email from any of the web pages I've written, which includes all of the pages for HM302 Advanced Seminar and HC342 Modernism in the Cinema) and we could view their work from my office computer. In this way any errors or problems could be immediately fixed, and if necessary a brief 'tutorial' conducted.

Similarly I can review a student's work, when requested, and simply leave a note or link containing my questions within their work for the student to read. This is particularly effective in Storyspace, where I write a text space that contains links to all the areas of their web that I wish to comment upon.

Collaborative writing

Finally, with Storyspace some webs are being written in small groups and we have developed a system whereby a web can be made 'public' so that all members could have access to it simultaneously. This meant they could work collectively, while at individual computers, and at the end of the session they would send me email and I could incorporate all of their new webs into the original shared web, and this in turn would become a new shared web.

In general the major outcomes of the project are still being evaluated (particularly as students are only just beginning to produce major pieces of assessable work in Storyspace and HTML). However the short term benefits have been obvious and highly effective. These include

'demystification' of HTML and the WWW
familiarity with digital texts and issues of 'digitisation'
ability to offer multiple modes of assessment within subjects
ability for students to incorporate multimedia elements within their work (this has particular benefits within HC342 Modernism in the Cinema)
substantial shifting of students understanding of multimedia issues, practically and theoretically, towards questions its implications for knowledge 'work'
recognition of design and content issues in multimedia, internet, and hypertext authoring and publication
development of vocational skills in computing and hypermedia authoring

What has been obvious in many cases is the pleasure that students have experienced as they actually manage to do something that they didn't think they could. Indeed, many students have commented to me about the excitement that the medium has generated, and most are disappointed that it has only been offered to them in the final semester of their final years study.

http://hypertext.rmit.edu.au