Integrating Concept Networks and HyperMedia

This paper reports on an integration of concept mapping for manipulating and structuring knowledge with multimedia presentation technology. It presents the current development of the HyperMedia Activated Network authoring environment. HAN is an intelligent hypertext demonstrator system. The first HAN module, called ICADT, was developed initially to teach Computer Aided Architectural Design (CAAD) using the GABLE 4DTM CAAD environment at Sheffield University, (Scott and Lawson, 1990; Scott, Lawson and Ryu, 1991; Scott, 1993). Following a detailed evaluation of the use of this system to teach second year students of Architecture at Sheffield University the authoring and inference aspects of the system were substantially improved. The system is now being extended to demonstrate the support of some aspects of Cognitive Science and Psychology. The HAN system integrates artificial intelligence and flexible learning techniques in a dual-platform experiment with hypertext and semantic network architectures.