Adaptive Information Presentation

Nowadays, presentation tools such as PowerPoint and Keynote play an important role when transferring knowledge in educational or business settings. Nevertheless, a number of shortcomings of existing presentation tools in terms of the management, visualisation and navigation of content have been pointed out in literature. Some of these limitations are based on the fact that slideware tools were originally used for the production of physical slides (e.g. transparencies) and existing solutions still simulate the affordances of physical slides. We investigate innovative forms to manage, visualise and navigate the content of a presentation, which, for example, includes the transclusion or integration of content from other presentations and cross-media sources, as well as the non-linear navigation in a presentation. In order to explore and experiment with innovative human-information interaction techniques, we have developed the extensible MindXpres cross-media presentation platform. The modular architecture of MindXpres and its plug-in mechanism enable the reusability of content as well as the integration of new visualisation and interaction components which ultimately may improve the transfer of knowledge.

There exist various audience response systems (ARS) and other standalone solutions to enrich presentations with supplementary active learning content. We propose a unified communication platform for enriching and enhancing presentations with active learning components where third-party solutions can easily be integrated via data adapters, activity plug-ins as well as a multi-directional communication channel based on a publish-subscribe pattern. We present how the MindXpres presentation platform has been extended with a communication module and discuss a number of activity plug-ins that have been realised. The presented unified communication platform in combination with the MindXpres presentation tool represents an ideal platform for the investigation and rapid prototyping of new forms of presentations that support enhanced forms of interaction between a presenter and their audience.