CS1951V Hypertext/Hypermedia

CSCI1951-V, “Hypertext/Hypermedia: The Web Was Not the Beginning and the Web Is Not the End,” looks at hypertext systems that came before and after the World Wide Web as a basis for discussing what next generation hypertext systems could look like. Students will be doing writing assignments, reading, annotating, and writing technical papers, participating in in-class brainstorming sessions, discussing materials in a roundtable format, and developing software prototypes with Javascript and the state-of-the-art MERN (MongoDB, Express, React and Node.js) stack. Students will learn not only about hypertext, but will use that knowledge to develop full-stack applications using modern technologies and high-level software architectures as they prototype systems of the future. The course will be capped at 35 students to facilitate participation and discussion.

This is a course for undergraduates and graduate students with CS systems background, object-oriented design and programming knowledge, and software architecture and development experience. Students must have taken at least an introductory CS sequence or equivalent, and preference will be given to those who have taken additional relevant systems courses or who have had significant experience in software development through jobs or internships. Experience with Javascript or Typescript and full-stack development is not required but is a plus. Interest in reading journal articles and papers, and writing, commenting, and presenting on those readings is essential.

• Understand...
  • ...the foundations of the ubiquitous computing environment you have grown up with
  • ...the scope of hypermedia systems – from personal information manager to full multi-user, local to global
  • ...the features from early systems/research...
    • ...that have made it into today’s environment
    • ...that have not made it into today’s environment and why not?
  • ...the technical/architectural issues of hypermedia systems and…
    • ...how they have evolved over the years,
    • ...how some old assumptions have held back improvements for the future,
    • ...how current technology can drive those improvements.
  • ...tradeoffs - state-of-technology, time vs. features vs. quality, etc. – what is/was the right choice?
  • ...the applications of hypertext
  • ...the societal implications of hypertext systems
• Learn...
  • ...to do a critical analysis of technical papers
  • ...to do comparisons of systems
  • ...to create crisp summaries and presentations of research and projects/products
  • ... to use the MERN stack
• Build...
  • ...a hypertext “corpus” using Dash, a modern hypermedia system being developed in Prof. van Dam’s research group
  • ...a hypertext system as a group project