The influence of adaptation on hypertext structures and navigation

Abstract

In adaptive hypertexts the user is guided in two ways: through the existence of link and through link annotation or hiding. Link structures have been investigated, starting with Botafogo et al, and the effect of link annotation has been studied, for instance by Brusilovsky et al. This paper studies the combined effect of link structure and annotation/hidin on the navigation patterns of users. It defines empirical hubs and studies their correlation with hubs as defined by Kleinberg without considering adaptation. The data for the analysis have been extracted from the logs of the course "Hypermedia Structures and Systems," an online adaptive course offered at the Eindhoven University of Technology.