ACTIVE DISTRIBUTED FRAMEWORK FOR ADAPTIVE HYPERMEDIA

Navigation through large hypermedia information spaces is complex and is an important application area for adaptive hypermedia systems. User navigation can be best supported when the design of the hypermedia sy stem is embedded in an evolutionary process model that takes into acco unt the decentralization of data sources and the variety of users. The paper deals with distributed frameworks for open hypermedia systems; it focuses on the design work done to make adaptive an existing actor- based architecture for hypermedia. The approach follows the initial de sign approach used in the definition of the hypermedia platform, i.e. the actor-based computational model. We present in detail the new acto r classes and the cooperative schemes which allow adaptation within th e resulting architecture. (C) 1997 Academic Press Limited.