Incentive structure

Whether or not the future of writing academic hypertexts will be bright, largely depends on the incentives given to academics to explore these new ways of presenting their results. We may draw an obvious parallel here with the way E-journals become accepted in the academic communities. In many disciplines, there are already journals which only exist in electronic format. Not so long ago, a publication in such a medium would not be rewarded by academic promotion boards. This era seem over by now: E-journals, if at least seriously refereed, are accepted. The standard format of linear texts remains, however, the rule. Except for a few enthusiasts, nobody in academia would invest much effort in writing hypertexts if they would not be rated as valuable items on one's publication list.

As with E-journals, I assume that the more hypertext projects there will be, the more academics will join and explore these new opportunities.

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Modules linking to here: organisational_issue; readability; Structure;