The University of Auckland, NZ At The University of Auckland we have created an interactive distributed learning environment, using new Hyperwave collections supplemented by material from previous years. Since there is a wide range of hardware that has had to be supported, we have relied on common web browsers that support Java applets. The course outline, accessible to students from the beginning of the year, consists of lines which both describe the course, and also are links which point to further material automatically after each lecture is held. As the course proceeds, additional lecture material, consisting of PowerPoint slides, are stored in Hyperwave, sequentially linked, and tables of contents generated. For distant lectures to the university's satellite campus user feedback is of utmost importance.
Students can ask short questions either in written or spoken form.
Both students and lecturers can annotate material, and restrict access to the annotations through Hyperwave's group access rights. The system can be used in either asynchronous or synchronous modes. Even specialists are having difficulty keeping up to date when relating their own fields to the Internet. Systems such as HyperWave may play a part in providing the information in a useable, manageable form. Towards the next generation of networked information technology.