Hypertext and CAE

This course is an attempt to use hypertext for computer aided education (CAE) (sometimes also called CAI, for computer aided instruction). This does not mean that the computer takes over the entire role of the teacher. The computer merely aids the teacher. You can learn a lot about hypertext by taking this course. However, the computer cannot tell how well you have done, and hence it cannot evaluate your knowledge to the extent of actually grading your work.

Using hypertext it is relatively easy to ask multiple-choice questions. When you click on an item, you are then told whether your answer is correct or not, and why this is so. Implementing this kind of quiz can be done using nothing but nodes, anchors and links, and thus requires no (artificial) intelligence on behalf of the courseware. This course contains a number of multiple choice tests, giving you feedback on your progress, and a final test which has been made a little more difficult by not giving you any feedback other than a score. (So you must find out by yourself which questions were not answered correctly, and why.)

A more intelligent type of quiz would also be possible with some hypertext systems, because they are capable of invoking external programs to evaluate answers. In fact, when you answer the multiple choice tests the evaluation is done by an external program, and when you complete this course and finish the assignment, you will invoke another external program to notify the professor that your work is ready to be evaluated. (The evaluation itself is still done by a human.)

A truly valuable self-test for this course cannot be just a set of questions. You master this course when you are able to understand hypertext literature, read and write hyperdocuments, and use them to find the information you are looking for. Therefore, the assignment at the "end" of this course lets you create a hyperdocument, to show that you have mastered this skill.