The interim materials all consist of one long scrolling field per topic, with pointers at the beginning of each to internal subtopic headings. In our opinion, the use of computers as merely another way to read long passages of text is a misuse, and we have employed it temporarily only to serve the pressing need indicated previously. This format increased interactivity because each field that was initially visible on the screen contained text designed as an advance organizer, to prepare the reader to receive new information. Clicking on an advance organizer field caused another short field containing more detailed information to pop up. The interactivity and chunking of information achieved this way was popular with the students and was effective.
Long texts take longer to load, but it needs to be done less frequently.
We compromised by using moderately short text documents. Other physical arrangements of the textual material, e.g., putting all of it into a single document, with anchors to appropriate internal locations might be capable of yielding the same or nearly the same effect, but with less processing overhead. We intend to explore some of these approaches. Preliminary data from student surveys, however, confirms our opinion that long scrolling fields are not desirable. An outline consisting of all the individual HTML documents, with each outline item linked to its corresponding document, would meet this need on web browsers that change the color of the anchor after the corresponding file has been viewed.