The MacroNode Approach: Mediating Between Adaptive and Dynamic Hypermedia

In this paper, we discuss an approach that tries to blur the distinction between adaptive hypermedia and dynamic hypermedia. The approach aims at finding an optimal trade-off between resource reuse and flexibility: existing atomic pieces of data are collected and properly annotated; at the interaction time, the system dynamically builds the nodes of the hypermedia composing different pieces together. The proposed annotation formalism is illustrated and a rule-based system to compose hypermedia nodes exploiting different knowledge sources is presented. Finally, the advantages of this approach with respect to adaptation and dynamic generation are discussed.