Using hypermedia in computer-aided instruction

The previous article in this issue (see ibid., 1996) described the Discover distributed interactive visualization system, which has been running at National Cheng-Kung University Hospital since 1993. Shortly after Discover was implemented, we observed that physicians were having trouble understanding and navigating through Discover processes for image analysis and generation. To address this problem, we developed a computer aided instruction mechanism based on hypermedia technology-multimedia with hypertext navigation. Hints (Hypermedia Information Network System) is built around the concept of hypercontrol-the use of a multimedia document to control hardware or software systems. It is currently being used with Discover at the university hospital. Physicians use this hypermedia network system to learn the processes of the discover visualization system and to help them standardize the way they examine images