Terms and Concepts

This list of definitions provides some of the terms and concepts used in the language of hyperstructures. The terms which directly apply to the course have been defined more completely in those paragraphs dealing with each concept.

Access - used about user rights to information in regard to security/privacy.

Attribute - a characteristic of an entity. A registration date is an attribute of a link.

Attribute value - the specific attribute content. For example: 31/12/94.

Author - a user who creates hypermedia information.

Design - a hypersystem seen from the point of view of the developer.

Designer - the person who develops the hypersystem. S/he is the opposite number of the user.

Entity - applied to various objects with common traits which may be digitally represented as independent units.

Filtering - an option for a user to reduce the available information to which he has access, making it easier to find relevant information by limiting attributes.

Groupware - a system permitting several persons to work on the same information at the same time.

Hyper document - A set of nodes and links which together may be considered a unit.

Hyperbase - the total amount of information compiled in the hyper system.

Hyperbase system - those elements of a hypersystem which manage the hyperbase. This concerns issues such as access control, consistency and variants.

Hypermedia functionality - a system or an application which employs elements of hypermedia functionality.

Hypermedia system or Hypersystem - a system offering complete hypermedia functionality, e.g. systems resembling Intermedia, Neptune or KMS.

Information object - an information unit which contains pure information, which may be various forms of multimedia information, e.g. audio, images, video and text.

Information unit - an information carrier. Elementary units are nodes and links. Complex units are diagrams and hyperdocuments.

Query - a request for information from a database. A query may be a search in the database or an inquiry based on a unique key.

Reader - a user who exclusively receives information from a hypersystem.

User interaction - the interaction between man and computer.

User interface - the physical and logical setup of an application to communicate with a user, for example a mouse, a keyboard and a screen display.

User - the user of a hypermedia system. The user may either follow the information as a reader or be the author of the information.