Experience Report: Serving Hypermedia and the Web Online with HA3L

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Description/Abstract

HA3L is an agent-based adaptive hypermedia system which uses existing technology developed by the IAM group in the form of the SoFAR agent framework and the Auld Linky contextual hypermedia structure service. In a nutshell, HA3L provides guided tours of a topic which are adapted according to user preferences. The book Hypermedia and the Web, by David Lowe and Wendy Hall, outlines an engineering approach to the design and management of Web hypermedia applications. Lowe and Hall wish to create an online resource which compliments (but which does merely replicate) the content presented in the book, providing extra material and examples, and which provides adaptive presentations of its content tailored to individual visitors to the site. The purpose of this report is firstly to briefly recount my experiences in getting to grips with the operation of HA3L, and secondly to describe how I have applied the system to provide adaptive tours through part of the Hypermedia and the Web book. The suitability of HA3L for serving an online, adaptive Hypermedia and the Web resource is also briefly discussed.