MICROCOSM: An Open Hypermedia Environment for Information Integration

This report examines open hypermedia systems, and argues that such systems provide users with richer and more diverse ways to access and integrate information from large and dynamic data sets in a distributed, heterogeneous environment. In particular, the enhanced Microcosm model for open hypermedia is examined, and the ways in which it provides such an environment are discussed. The paper continues by investigating the advantages and the short comings of this model and identifies areas in which further work must be completed before such systems can become widely adopted, in particular the granularity of link anchors, editing, and version control. Possible solutions to these problems are presented and discussed.