First Workshop on Spatial Hypertext

Åruhs, Denmark

August 14, 2001

Workshop Theme:

Spatial Hypertext has been an important hypertext research topic since its inception with the first well-known spatial hypertext system, VIKI, which appeared in 1994. Since that time a number of other spatial hypertext systems have appeared: Web Squirrel, CAOS, and VKB among others, and the
spatial hypertext research is widely cited. The moment is opportune to bring together researchers in this field for a specific meeting on the subject of spatial hypertext. Among the expected topics would be:

Spatial hypertext systems in progress
User experience with spatial hypertext
Spatial hypertext implementation issues
Integrating spatial hypertext with other hypertext frameworks and other software environments generally
Rhetoric issues posed by spatial hypertext

Goals for the workshop include:

Surveying the state and variety of research areas in spatial hypertext
Providing guidance to spatial hypertext system implementers from user experience
Surveying spatial hypertext for open questions and future research directions
Providing a framework for broadening the reach of spatial hypertext by integrating it with the software environment generally

Intended audience:

Spatial hypertext system implementers, hypertext framework integrators, users of spatial hypertexts, writers and researchers on hypertext rhetoric working in spatial hypertext, hypertext researchers generally interested in alternative models of structure, researchers in structural computing.

Activities Planned:

Each accepted position paper will be briefly presented at the workshop. Sessions will be organized around spatial hypertext themes with the goal of leaving most of the time for discussion of issues between participants. At least part of the session will be devoted to demonstations of tools/applications if there is interest among the participants.

Organizers:

Frank Shipman, Texas A&M University, is a senior hypertext researcher and one of the original authors on the VIKI project. He is currently the principal investigator on the VKB project, which is a successor to VIKI, and is supervising PhD research in spatial hypertext. He is the author or co-author of numerous important papers in spatial hypertext, one of which received the Engelbart best paper award at Hypertext 99.

Jim Rosenberg, Grindstone PA, is an independent poet and hypertext researcher who has been executing spatial hypertexts since 1988. He is the author of several papers of relevance to this area, two of which were nominated for the Engelbart best paper award at Hypertext 96 and 98.