Interacting with Threaded Event Scenarios

线程事件网络是一种类似超文本的结构，PI已经在三个领域（科学教育、叙事和数字保存）中探索了这种结构，采用了不同但相关的形式：定性因果图、情节单元和角色活动图。虽然这些形式看起来通常是有效的，但它们比简单的节点-链接超文本要复杂得多。此外，事件网络通常与文本段落相关联，通常用于教育用途，在这种情况下，按照不同的路径在网络中重复导航是预期的。在这些上下文中，为了使形式对用户有效，用户访问的便利性是至关重要的。在这个项目中，PI将扩展他在线程事件场景方面的工作，以解决接口问题，并通过将复合超文本应用于复杂领域来进一步开发他早期工作中创建或建议的时间轴工具包，从而开发支持导航地标。他将开发更具互动性和适应性的演示文稿，允许用户在活动网络中扩展已建立的导览，并且随着用户对网络的熟悉程度提高，可以调整所呈现的地标，为用户提供上下文。作者和其他用户还可以向事件网络添加注释，甚至结构化的元评论，从而支持对话管理和修辞结构。PI将进行三个级别的评估：低级工具、高级任务中工具的使用，以及作为发展中社区讨论科学和历史的基础。更广泛的影响：由于因果关系的讨论在科学和历史等不同领域非常普遍，因此突出和探索事件网络的工具可能具有广泛的应用范围。这些工具应该帮助学生发展对科学和历史事件更丰富的概念性理解。这些工具也可以被公众用来创建关于历史的讨论网站，它们应该对实践科学家、历史学家、档案保管员和家谱学家有用。

Threaded event networks are hypertext-like structures which the PI has previously explored in three domains (science education, narratives, and digital preservation) employing distinct but related formalisms: qualitative causal maps, plot units, and role-activity diagrams. While these formalisms appear to be generally effective, they are considerably more complex than simple node-and-link hypertext. Moreover, event networks are often associated with text passages and are often intended for educational uses where repeated navigation through the network following different paths is to be expected. In these contexts, ease of user access is crucial in order for the formalisms to be effective for users. In this project, the PI will extend his work on threaded event scenarios to address interface issues and develop supporting navigational landmarks, by applying composite hypertexts to complex domains to further develop timeline toolkits that his earlier work have created or suggested. He will develop more interactive and adaptive presentations, which allow users to branch from established guided tours within the event networks, and which, as the users gain greater familiarity with the network, enable adjustment of the landmarks that are presented to provide context for the users. Authors and other users will also be able to add annotations, and even structured meta-comments, to the event networks, for which dialog management and rhetorical structures will be supported. The PI will conduct three levels of evaluations: for the low-level tools, for the use of the tools in high-level tasks, and as the basis for developing communities discussing science and history. Broader Impacts: Because discussion of causation is so common in areas as diverse as science and history, tools to highlight and explore event networks potentially have a wide range of applications. These tools should help students to develop richer conceptual understanding of events in science and history. The tools may also be used by the public to create discussion sites about history, and they should be useful for practicing scientists, historians, archivists, and genealogists.