Applying Metrics to the Evaluation of Educational Hypermedia Applications

Emilia Mendes (Multimedia Research Group, University of Southampton, UK)

Wendy Hall (Multimedia Research Group, University of Southampton, UK)

Rachel Harrison (Declarative Systems and Software Engineering Group, University of Southampton, UK)

Abstract: This paper reports the results of applying metrics to hypermedia authoring under the SHAPE research project. The aim of SHAPE is to help authors develop high quality large hypermedia applications for education. The quality characteristics considered are the reusability of information, the maintainability of applications and the development effort. Although a number of metrics for hypertext systems have been proposed, we believe that many of the measures proposed in the past lack the necessary mathematical and/or empirical justification. The metrics proposed in this paper have been developed using the Goal-Question-Metric approach, and adhere to the representational theory of measurement. We describe the development of the metrics and the results of a quantitative empirical study which compares two different hypermedia authoring systems.

Keywords: evaluation, hypermedia, hypermedia authoring, maintainability, metrics, reusability