AnnotatEd: A social navigation and annotation service for web-based educational resources

The World Wide Web is currently the single most popular hypertext system; however, a number of features that were common for advanced “standalone” hypertext systems are not supported by the web. These features are important for such demanding application areas as education. To answer this need, a range of projects focused on enhancing the web. The most active thread of work is content annotation. Other threads focus on enhancing web hypertext with advanced hypertext tools, including guided tours and adaptive navigation support. Existing projects enhance web hypertext with only one method. The project presented in this paper attempted to integrate annotation and adaptive navigation support into a single value-added service for accessing web-based educational resources. The AnnotatEd system that we have developed offers both and adaptive navigation support (through social navigation). The paper also reports our attempts to evaluate the AnnotatEd system.