Adaptive Navigation Support in Educational Hypermedia: An Evaluation of the ISIS-Tutor

Abstract

Adaptive navigation support (ANS) is a new direction of research within the area of adaptive interfaces. The goal of ANS techniques is to help users find an appropriate path in the learning and information space by adapting link presentation to the goals, knowledge, and other characteristics of an individual user. This paper is devoted to evaluation of adaptive navigation support in educational context. We present an educational hypermedia system ISIS-Tutor that applies several ANS technologies - adaptive annotation, adaptive hiding, and direct guidance - and describe a study which evaluates the first two technologies. The results show that adaptive navigation support is helpful and can reduce user navigation efforts.