Hypertext 2002
Advance Program : Panels

HT2002 panels will provide venues for vigorous debate of controversial, unresolved, or emerging issues related to all aspects of hypertext. Panel proposals should describe the proposed topic of discussion, list the expected panelists and their affiliations, and provide a brief synopsis of each panelist's position or viewpoint. Panel sessions will be held during the general conference sessions.

June 13th

1400 - 1530 Peer-to-Peer Hypertext

Over the past several decades, hypertext system architectures have evolved from the early monolithic systems to the middleware-oriented, component-based, and open systems of today. But these architectures continue to rely on traditional client-server based approaches. Recently, a peer-to-peer based approach to hypertext systems has been discussed as an alternative. This panel will try to identify, clarify, and discuss some of the issues and potential benefits involved in peer-to-peer hypertext. The panel will examine the issues from different perspectives: from the perspective of hypertext system developers, hypertext authors (writers), and hypertext readers.

Moderator: Uffe K. Wiil (Aalborg University, Denmark)
Panelists: Niels Olof Bouvin (Aarhus University, Denmark), David C. De Roure (University of Southampton, UK), Deena Larsen (Lakewood, Colorado, USA), Mark K. Thompson (University of Southampton, UK)



June 14th

0900 - 1030 Self-Assembling Hypertexts, Weblogs, and Wikis

Although most theory and research in the hypertext community has been directed toward systems and implementations with fairly conventional patterns of authorship, hypertext as it has evolved on the Internet contains a number of stranger species: Web logs (or "blogs") that consist largely of citations or pointers to other Web content; reader-writeable text spaces sometimes called "Wikis"; and in spaces outside the Web, shared writing environments like MUDs and MOOs. This panel brings together several writer/designers who have experience in one or more of these areas. The panelists will consider how open-form and self-assembling texts fit and stretch the hypertext paradigm, and what contribution these writing practices might make to the future of writing on the Net.

Moderator: Stuart Moulthrop (University of Baltimore, MD, USA)
Panelists: Mark Bernstein (Eastgate Systems, MA, USA), Sean Carton (Carton-Donofrio Partners)

1100 - 1230 Chain Saws for Sculptural Hypertext

The term "Sculptural Hypertext", coined by Mark Bernstein in his Hypertext '01 paper "Card Shark and Thespis", refers to a style of writing hypertext where the document author starts with a massively connected structure, and the task of authoring links consists of cutting away those links that are not wanted, much as someone sculpting in stone in the traditional way starts with a block of stone and forms an image by cutting away the "excess" material. The opposing term, "Calligraphic Hypertext", refers to the more familiar method of finely authoring each link. This panel seeks to address questions pertaining to authorship and tools for the sculptural approach to hypertext. Among the questions we want to address are: How does one write a sculptural hypertext? How does this concept scale -- or is it only suited to small works? What differences are there for the _reader_ of a sculptural hypertext vs. a calligraphic hypertext? How does the "subtractive" concept work with other models of hypertext than the node-link model, e.g. spatial hypertext? What are the differences in requirements for tool designers of sculptural vs. calligraphic hypertext systems?

Moderator: Jim Rosenberg (Grindstone, PA, USA)
Panelists: Mark Bernstein (Eastgate Systems, MA, USA), Cathy Marshall (Microsoft, USA), Paul deBra (Eindhoven University of Technology, Netherlands), David Millard (University of Southampton, UK), Frank Shipman (Texas A&M University, USA)

1400 - 1530 Seven Issues Revisited

It has been 15 years since the original presentation by Frank Halasz at Hypertext'87 on seven issues for the next generation of hypertext systems. These issues are:

  • Search and Query
  • Composites
  • Virtual Structures
  • Computation in/over hypertext networks
  • Versioning
  • Collaborative Work
  • Extensibility and Tailorability

    Since that time, these issues have formed the nucleus of multiple research agendas within the Hypertext community. Befitting this direction-setting role, the issues have been revisited several times, by Halasz in his 1991 Hypertext keynote talk, and by Randy Trigg in his 1996 Hypertext keynote five years later. Additionally, over the intervening 15 years, many research systems have addressed the original seven issues, and new research avenues have opened up.

    The goal of this panel is to begin the process of developing a new set of seven issues for the next generation of hypertext system. Toward this end, we have convened seven experts on hypertext, and charged them with determining one issue, something deserving significant focus by the research community, and one non-issue, a red herring no longer worthy of consideration.

    At the end of the panel, the panelists and the audience will vote on which issues they consider to be the most important, and which non-issue is the least important.

    Moderator: Jim Whitehead (University of California, Santa Cruz, USA)
    Panelists: Paul De Bra (Eindhoven University of Technology, Netherlands), Kaj Grønbæk (Aarhus University, Denmark), Deena Larsen (Lakewood, Colorado, USA), John Leggett (Texas A&M University, USA), monica mc schraefel (University of Toronto, Canada), Frank Shipman (Texas A&M University, USA), Ken Anderson (University of Colorado, Boulder, USA)



  • June 15th

    0900 - 1030 Hypermedia and Multimedia

    Though Nelson gave us "hypermedia" practically in the same breath as "hypertext," initial literary explorations of hypermedia stuck fairly closely to verbal models. Over the last five years this bias has begun notably to decay. As poets, graphic, and narrative artists become more familiar with powerful end-user tools like Macromedia Flash, and as these tools evolve more sophisticated scripting support, the old line between multi-dimensional hypertext and more linear multimedia has considerably blurred. This process raises important questions both for artists and for hypertext theorists. What is the place of verbal forms in a context of dynamic images? How can the spatial agenda of hypertext navigation be reconciled with animation, simulation, and other primarily temporal techniques? What can creators of hypertext systems learn from aesthetic encounters between word and image?

    Moderator: Stuart Moulthrop (University of Baltimore, MD, USA)
    Panelists: Diana Slattery, Jim Rosenberg (PA, USA), Nick Montfort






    Original Call for Proposals


    Submissions

    If you are interested in organizing a panel session, please send a short proposal (about 1000 words) to the address shown below. The proposal should specify:

  • Panel title
  • Proposed panelists and moderator and their affiliations
  • Panel topic and goals. Be sure to identify specific areas of controversy
  • Panel format
  • A brief statement describing each panelist's position
  • The intended audience

    For further details, or to submit a proposal, please contact the Panels chair: Cathy Marshall


    Important Dates

    January 3rd, 2002: Panel proposals due
    March 15th, 2002: Notification of acceptance


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