Instructions for using the adaptive courseware

These instructions explain how to use the courseware on-line, through a World Wide Web browser connected to Internet (either permanently or using a dialup connection). We have separate instructions on how to study this course off-line.

This courseware assumes you are using a WWW browser capable of displaying documents that comply with the HTML-3.2 standard, including cascading style sheets and Java applets. If you are using an older or incompatible browser you may find that some information is not displayed correctly (or not even displayed at all). We also assume you are using a color monitor, and have configured your browser correctly. Please read the instructions for Netscape Communicator or the instructions for Internet Explorer, depending on the browser you use. If you are using Netscape Communicator or Internet Explorer, versions 4.0 or newer, you should be safe. Older versions of these browsers most certainly do not work properly for this course. Your mileage with other browsers may vary.

What you did to get to this page is called following a link. Reading this course text involves this equivalent of turning pages. There are a few differences though:

  1. There are no real pages, and of course no paper. The equivalent of a page is called a node. Not all nodes have the same length (or height if you wish). Some nodes are too long to be viewed at once (this node is one of these longer nodes). A scroll bar appears to the left or right of the text. It lets you move up and down in the node. On most systems the up and down arrow keys and the page-up and page-down keys can also be used for this.
  2. You cannot easily jump directly from a node to any arbitrary other node, like you can with pages in a normal book. Some words or phrases appear in a different color. They are called link anchors. If you click on them with the left (or only) mouse button (like you did to get to the current node) you jump to a specific node, tied to that anchor. This operation is called following a link.
    If you wish to go back, you click (with the left (or only) mouse button) on the "back button" which most browsers display in the upper lefthand corner of their window. This button might look like . Whenever you go back to a previously read node the browser must (conditionally) request this node again from the server. The instructions for Netscape Communicator and the instructions for Internet Explorer explain how to ensure that this happens.
  3. With some browsers, when you click on an anchor, using the middle mouse button, you also follow the associated link, but a new window is created, so the old and the new node can be viewed side by side (on a large screen). The "File" menu may contain a "close" option, or there may be a "close" button (e.g. looking like ) which you can use to get rid of extra browser windows you no longer want.
    If you use this browser feature, you may confuse the software that dynamically generates the link structure for this course text. So use this at your own risk.
  4. If following a link would lead to a node which you have already read, the color of the link anchor changes. The color is determined by the courseware, not by the browser.
  5. The pages in this course can be recognized by means of a standard banner (and footer) and a background pattern which is faintly visible. The banner includes a progress report, which is individualized for every student. It not only tells you how many (out of how many) pages you have read, but also provides access of the list of pages you have read and the list of pages you have not yet read. This looks like: (these read, these still to do).
  6. The course contains links to documents located elsewhere, throughout the whole world. These documents are not part of the course and can be recognized because they lack the standard banner, footer and background. Links to external documents also have a different color than links to pages of the course.
  7. Link anchors in this course text only appear when you are ready for viewing the page associated with these links. For example, you will notice that after reading this instruction page (for the first time) a few more link anchors appear in the index page. This is a result of the adaptive features of the courseware. When you revisit pages the content of these pages and the link anchors may be different from a previous visit. Such use of adaptive hypertext is one of the subjects of this course. If you have not configured your browser properly these adaptations such as extra link anchors may not appear.
  8. You can configure the courseware to change the colors of link anchors. This is done through the change configuration "button" which is part of the page-banner. The button looks like this:
  9. Important announcements, but also discussions between students or between students and the professor are facilitated by a message board. The button which provides access to the message board is also part of the page-banner. It looks like this:

In order to get back to the previous (index) page, you must now click on the "back button". If there are still no (visible) links to some chapters but when you press the "reload" button these links appear, you should change the browser setup so it will always verify whether documents have changed. This is explained in the instructions for Netscape Communicator and the instructions for Internet Explorer.