Enhancing Web support for resource-based learning

Description/Abstract

Successful resource-based learning using hypermedia systems needs a combination of guided tutorials, questions and answers, and simulations, with resource material such as research papers, bibliographic databases and document archives. It is much more than browsing: learners must be both readers and authors in order to carry out constructional activities and to integrate their own work with the corpus of materials. While the Web can support many aspects of resource-based learning, the embedded link approach makes it difficult to reuse a resource, and there is a fundamental distinction between authors and readers. In this paper we describe ways in which we have experimented with external link databases in the Web, in support of the resource-based development and delivery of learning materials. Our extensions to the Web enable information reuse and republication for different purposes and in different contexts, and they facilitate authoring - i.e. the necessary basis for resource-based learning. This approach is based on our extensive experience with the Microcosm model.