John J. Leggett & Frank M. Shipman

1. Directions for Hypertext Research: Exploring the Design Space for Interactive Scholarly Communication John J. Leggett & Frank M. Shipman Department of Computer Science and Center for the Study of Digital Libraries Texas A&M University

2. Motivation for topic • Class at Texas A&M University • Computers and New Media (Shipman, 2001 & 2004) • Class at The University of Texas • Readers, Authors and Libraries: Effects of New Media (Leggett, 2001 & 2002)

3. Overview of talk • Motivation for a community developed framework for interactive scholarly communication • Seven dimensions of interactive communication • Previous work in the context of the seven dimensions • Open research questions • Conclusions/Goals

4. Brief timeline for improved scholarly communication • 1940’s Vannevar Bush • 1960’s & 1970’s Nelson, Engelbart, Licklider, van Dam • 1980’s Hypertext research field coalesces • 1990’s Digital libraries and interactive digital storytelling research fields coalesce

5. Current practices of scholarly communication • Focus on text and continuance of existing methods of writing the scientific record • Restructuring old media via point-to-point conversions from the static physical world to a part of the digital world that is also static • The way we make the record is essentially unchanged from Vannevar Bush’s time

6. A new approach to scholarly communication • A wide-open exploration of the design space created by new media for writing the scientific record • Focus on interactive authoring tools and systems that will help scholars record the record of their ideas and scientific contributions • Authoring tools for the digital libraries of tomorrow

7. Why are new forms of scholarly communication needed? • Infrastructure is available: • Internet for dissemination • Digital Libraries for archival storage • Interactive faction is not keeping up with results from interactive fiction • Scholarly communication is already broken • Existing forms may not be the most efficient • New media may be more immersive and engaging

8. Plan of attack • Draw upon our collective prior work on hypertext systems, interactive fiction, digital libraries, interactive digital storytelling, etc. to build an initial framework • Refine and expand this framework through evaluations comparing the impact of different interactive media on scholarly communication

9. Research agenda • Design new systems for making and consulting the scientific record • Evaluate and disseminate the results of interactive media studies on scholarly communication • Generate and distribute new interactive media, authoring tools, and storytelling engines • Improve the general framework for interactive scholarly communication

10. Initial framework • Interactive media tend to change the relationship between the reader and the author • A simple model will suffice to discuss the design space of interactive scholarly communication

12. Seven dimensions of interactive communication • Roles • Voices • Interaction • Indirection • History • Narrative • Media

13. Seven dimensions of interactive communication • Roles • Voices • Interaction • Indirection • History • Narrative • Media

14. Prior systems • Spatial hypertext (VKB) • Digital Scholarship and Publishing (Synchrony) • Metadocuments (Walden’s Paths) • For each system: • Brief review as media for interactive scholarly communication • Locate in design space provided by the seven dimensions

16. VKB Spaces as media for interactive scholarly communication • Publishing unit is an evolutionary space • Authors construct the space over time through direct manipulation of visual representations • Readers explore the space to understand its message • Existing media types: text, images, music files, internal and external links • Constructed media types: classes, lists, collections

17. VKB Spaces in the design space • Multiple roles • Multiple voices • Moderate level of interaction • Low level of indirection • High level of support for history • VKB spaces are most often non-narrative • Low to moderate level of media use

21. Synchrony PADLs as media for interactive scholarly communication • Publishing unit: a structured presentation of streaming video segments and text (transcripts, original writing, annotations) • Authoring through direct manipulation • Readers watch streaming video and read text • Existing media types: streaming video, text • Constructed media types: presentations

22. Synchrony PADLs in the design space • Multiple roles • One voice • Low level of interaction • Low level of indirection • No history • Highly narrative • Moderate level of media use

25. Walden’s Paths as media for interactive scholarly communication • Publishing unit: an annotated path • Authoring via a path authoring tool • Readers browse paths linearly, jump between pages of a path, or navigate off the path • Existing and constructed media are those offered by the web

26. Walden’s Paths in the design space • Separate author and reader roles • Multiple voices due to component pages • Medium level of interaction • Medium level of indirection • No history • Medium level of narrative • Moderate level of media use

28. Characteristics of communication supported by ends of spectrum

29. Research questions • Should we build research systems to cover the high end of these dimensions independently or take on several dimensions at a time? • Are any of our research systems stable enough to support a community’s scholarly writing? • Which dimensions should we target? • Indirection (e.g. authoring in VKB) • Interaction (e.g. AuthorSim) • How can we share our interactive media and systems?

30. Expected results • Conceptual framework for interactive scholarly communication • Categorization scheme • Applicability conditions for the dimensions • Tradeoffs among areas in the design space • Open source systems providing new forms of interactive scholarly communication • Writings in our interactive medias that provide examples of the scholarly communication we aim to enable and facilitate

31. Conclusions/Goals • A new community of researchers investigating the use of interactive scholarly communication • Bridging methods, terminology and context of several diverse research communities • Broaden the groups presenting their research at the hypertext conference • Change scholarly practice for the better