AHA meets Interbook

1
AHA! meets Interbook

• Paul De Bra
• Tomi Santic
• Peter Brusilovsky

2
Topics

• The AHA! Project
• Layout in Interbook and AHA!
• The (new) AHA! Layout Model
• Compiling Interbook into AHA!
• Conclusions / Future Work

3
The AHA! Project

• AHA! Adaptive Hypermedia Architecture
• Open Source project, Web-based adaptive engine
• Built on Java Servlet technology, XML and XHTML
• General-purpose user-model and adaptation rules
• Data storage (domain, adaptation, user model)
  using XML files or mySQL database
• High-level authoring of domain- and adaptation
  model through Java Applets
• Compilers from authoring to engine structures

4
Main AHA! Engine Features

• AHA! mainly reacts to page accesses
• Each resource (page) is associated with a concept
• The access event triggers rules that update
  attributes of user model concepts
• Each attribute update may trigger more rules that
  update more attributes of more concepts
• Links in the requested page are annotated based
  on expressions on attribute values
• Fragments and objects are conditionally included
  based on expressions on attribute values

5
Interbook Built-In Layout (different types)
6
AHA! Author-defined Layout (no built-in)
7
The View-Based AHA! Layout Model

• The smallest layout construct is the view
• ltview name"v5" type"ToolboxView"
  title"Toolbox"
• background"IBookbluesq.bmp"
  params"leftspace70"gt
• ltsecwndsgt
• ltsecwnd link"TOC" viewgroup"TOC"
  imgTocBtn.bmp"/gt
• ltsecwnd link"Glossary" viewgroup"Glossary
  "
• img"GlossBtn.bmp"/gt
• lt/secwndsgt
• lt/viewgt
• The view defines the background decoration
• The primary view refers to secondary views that
  are called upon through buttons.

8
The View-Based AHA! Layout Model

• Views are placed in viewgroups to form a complete
  layout
• ltviewgroup name"MAIN" wndOpt"width800,height
  600"gt
• ltcompound framestruct"rows20,"
  border"0"gt
• ltcompound framestruct"cols,130"
  border"0"gt
• ltviewref name"v1" /gt
• ltviewref name"v5" /gt
• lt/compoundgt
• ltcompound framestruct"cols,130" gt
• ltviewref name"v3" /gt
• ltviewref name"v2" /gt
• lt/compoundgt
• lt/compoundgt
• lt/viewgroupgt
• This viewgroup defines compounds (HTML frames).
• Each compound contains compounds or a view.

9
The View-Based AHA! Layout Model

• The overall structure is
• at the highest level there is a layoutlist
• the layoutlist contains layouts
• a layout contains viewgroups
• a viewgroup contains compounds
• a compound contains compounds or views

10
AHA! Simulates Interbook Layout
11
Alternative AHA! Layout for Interbook
12
Compiling Interbook to AHA!

• Interbook applications are written in MS-Word
  (using special comments)
• Interbook is then compiled from MS-Word to a
  special Interbook format (HTML files and codes to
  connect sections and glossary concepts)
• The Interbook format is compiled to AHA! concepts
  with adaptation rules
• A predefined layoutlist defines the layouts that
  give the resulting AHA! application an Interbook
  look and feel

13
Conclusions and Future Work

• AHA! has been extended with layout in order to
  offer Interbook functionality and look and feel
• A compiler was built to automatically translate
  Interbook courses to AHA! applications
• The layout extensions and compiler illustrate
  that AHA! can be used as a back-end (engine) to
  serve applications for different adaptive
  applications
• We will investigate compiling more different
  adaptive systems into AHA! structures
• The layout and compiler work enables authoring
  tools for different AHS to serve as authoring
  tools for AHA!