Hypertext/hypermedia systems and user-model-based adaptive systems in the areas of learning and information retrieval have for a long time been considered as two mutually exclusive approaches to information access. Adaptive systems tailor information to the user and may guide the user in the information space to present the most relevant material, taking into account a model of the user's goals, interests and preferences. Hypermedia systems, on the other hand, are `user neutral': they provide the user with the tools and the freedom to explore an information space by browsing through a complex network of information nodes. Adaptive hypertext and hypermedia systems attempt to bridge the gap between these two approaches. Adaptation of hypermedia systems to each individual user is increasingly needed. With the growing size, complexity and heterogeneity of current hypermedia systems, such as the World Wide Web, it becomes virtually impossible to impose guidelines on authors concerning the overall organization of hypermedia information. The networks therefore become so complex and unstructured that the existing navigational tools are no longer powerful enough to provide orientation on where to search for the needed information. It is also not possible to identify appropriate pre-defined paths or subnets for users with certain goals and knowledge backgrounds since the user community of hypermedia systems is usually quite inhomogeneous. This is particularly true for Web-based applications which are expected to be used by a much greater variety of users than any earlier standalone application. A possible remedy for the negative effects of the traditional `one-size-fits-all' approach in the development of hypermedia systems is to equip them with the ability to adapt to the needs of their individual users. A possible way of achieving adaptivity is by modeling the users and tailoring the system's interactions to their goals, tasks and interests. In this sense, the notion of adaptive hypertext/hypermedia comes naturally to denote a hypertext or hypermedia system which reflects some features of the user and/or characteristics of his system usage in a user model, and utilizes this model in order to adapt various behavioral aspects of the system to the user. This book is the first comprehensive publication on adaptive hypertext and hypermedia. It is oriented towards researchers and practitioners in the fields of hypertext and hypermedia, information systems, and personalized systems. It is also an important resource for the numerous developers of Web-based applications. The design decisions, adaptation methods, and experience presented in this book are a unique source of ideas and techniques for developing more usable and more intelligent Web-based systems suitable for a great variety of users. The practitioners will find it important that many of the adaptation techniques presented in this book have proved to be efficient and are ready to be used in various applications.

This state-of-the-art survey provides a systematic overview of the ideas and techniques of the adaptive Web and serves as a central source of information for researchers, practitioners, and students. The volume constitutes a comprehensive and carefully planned collection of chapters that map out the most important areas of the adaptive Web, each solicited from the experts and leaders in the field.

The refereed proceedings of the 9th International Conference on User Modeling, UM 2003, held in Johnstown, PA, USA in June 2003. The 20 revised full papers and 28 revised poster papers presented together with 12 abstracts were carefully reviewed and selected from 106 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on adaptive hypermedia, adaptive Web, natural language and dialogue, plan recognition, evaluation, emerging issues of user modeling, group modeling and cooperation, applications, student modeling, learning environments - natural language and paedagogy, and mobile and ubiquitous computing.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the first International Conference on Adaptive Hypermedia and Adaptive Web-Based Systems, AH 2000, held in Trento, Italy, in August 2000.
The 22 revised full papers presented together with 35 short papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 55 submissions. Among the topics covered are hypertext, user modeling, machine learning, natural language generation, information retrieval, intelligent tutoring systems, cognitive science, web-based education, etc.

Hypertext/hypermedia systems and user-model-based adaptive systems in the areas of learning and information retrieval have for a long time been considered as two mutually exclusive approaches to information access. Adaptive systems tailor information to the user and may guide the user in the information space to present the most relevant material, taking into account a model of the user's goals, interests and preferences. Hypermedia systems, on the other hand, are `user neutral': they provide the user with the tools and the freedom to explore an information space by browsing through a complex network of information nodes. Adaptive hypertext and hypermedia systems attempt to bridge the gap between these two approaches. Adaptation of hypermedia systems to each individual user is increasingly needed. With the growing size, complexity and heterogeneity of current hypermedia systems, such as the World Wide Web, it becomes virtually impossible to impose guidelines on authors concerning the overall organization of hypermedia information. The networks therefore become so complex and unstructured that the existing navigational tools are no longer powerful enough to provide orientation on where to search for the needed information. It is also not possible to identify appropriate pre-defined paths or subnets for users with certain goals and knowledge backgrounds since the user community of hypermedia systems is usually quite inhomogeneous. This is particularly true for Web-based applications which are expected to be used by a much greater variety of users than any earlier standalone application. A possible remedy for the negative effects of the traditional `one-size-fits-all' approach in the development of hypermedia systems is to equip them with the ability to adapt to the needs of their individual users. A possible way of achieving adaptivity is by modeling the users and tailoring the system's interactions to their goals, tasks and interests. In this sense, the notion of adaptive hypertext/hypermedia comes naturally to denote a hypertext or hypermedia system which reflects some features of the user and/or characteristics of his system usage in a user model, and utilizes this model in order to adapt various behavioral aspects of the system to the user. This book is the first comprehensive publication on adaptive hypertext and hypermedia. It is oriented towards researchers and practitioners in the fields of hypertext and hypermedia, information systems, and personalized systems. It is also an important resource for the numerous developers of Web-based applications. The design decisions, adaptation methods, and experience presented in this book are a unique source of ideas and techniques for developing more usable and more intelligent Web-based systems suitable for a great variety of users. The practitioners will find it important that many of the adaptation techniques presented in this book have proved to be efficient and are ready to be used in various applications.

This volume contains a thoroughly refereed collection of revised full papers selected from the presentations at the First East-West International Conference on Multimedia, Hypermedia, and Virtual Reality, MHVR'94, held in Moscow, Russia, in September 1994.
The 22 full papers presented in the book were selected from a total of 76 initial submissions and have been carefully updated for publication. Also included are two invited papers and summaries by the session chairpersons. The volume is organized in chapters on hypermedia models and architectures, enhancing multimedia support, new technologies for virtual reality, hypermedia and multimedia for group collaboration, hypermedia and multimedia for learning, and personalized hypermedia.

Social information access is defined as a stream of research that explores methods for organizing the past interactions of users in a community in order to provide future users with better access to information. Social information access covers a wide range of different technologies and strategies that operate on a different scale, which can range from a small closed corpus site to the whole Web. The 16 chapters included in this book provide a broad overview of modern research on social information access. In order to provide a balanced coverage, these chapters are organized by the main types of information access (i.e., social search, social navigation, and recommendation) and main sources of social information.