What's the need?

• Educational applications
• Online information systems (Information retrieval systems)
• Personalized websites (this is a growing area) (e.g. My Yahoo)

Personalized websites typically do not exibit the behavior we call an adaptive system. Typically, the user sets up a profile and the system will not change it. However, competition between sites, such as My Yahoo and My Excite, will continue, and progression towards an adaptive system seems logical.

Adaptive Hypermedia Application Model (AHAM)

• is an extension of the Dexter hypermedia reference model
• provides a foundation for developing new Adaptive Hypermedia Systems

"AHAM acknowledges that doing "useful" and "usable" adaptation in a given application depends on three factors:

1. The application must be based on a domain model, describing how the information content of the application or "hyper-document" is structored (using concepts and concept relationships).
2. The system must construct and maintain a fine-grained user model that represents a user's preferences, knowledge, goals, browsing history and other relevant aspects.
3. The system must be able to perform adaptation of the content and link structure, based on the domain model and user model. In order to do so the author must provide an adaptation model consisting of adaptation rules. The rules define both the process of generating the adaptive presentation and that of updating the user model. An AHS may offer some built-in rules for common adaptation aspects and user model updates. This reduces the author’s task of providing such rules. The AHS may also offer a rule language through which authors can define additional rules.