9354641 Skolnick The problem addressed by this work is the development of a hypertext/hypermedia "textbook" for use in the teaching of introductory computer science to undergraduates. There are two factors that are unique to the milieu in which this course is being taught: 1. it is a required course for all undergraduates and 2. the course uses a network of over five hundred workstation computers (in lecture halls, labs and dorms). Thus, the course is aimed at a wide range of students who need to learn the basics of programming and the fundamental concepts in computer science and to understand how computational issues appear in their chosen disciplines. These admittedly ambitious goals are being addressed by orienting the hypertext around a carefully chosen set of case studies out of which there are links to material on the larger course objectives. For example, there exist case studies involving curve fitting and image processing, with direct tiebacks to science and engineering disciplines. Further, because of the large numbers of available workstations, our objectives is to develop a hypertext/hypermedia textbook that can be used by students to learn in individual and group setting and by professors to instruct in lectures, labs and interactive classrooms. Since the course is oriented around case studies, material from the hypertext is gradually integrated into the existing curriculum, i.e., as an addendum to currently used texts. As further case studies develop into hypertext the course shifts away from the use of hardcopy texts. Evaluation of our efforts is made by tracking the performance of students on material learned in a traditional format versus hypertext; in addition, mechanisms can be added to the hypertext which monitor (for non-grading uses) the patterns of usage. Dissemination of case studies is via the XMosaic Internet viewing program, which permits viewing of documents by anyone connected to the Internet. The significance of this wo rk is that it goes beyond the focus of current introductory computer science courses (which are oriented towards majors) and moves towards the teaching of computer literacy as we believe it eventually must be taught. Further, the exploitation of hypermedia seems to be an ideal way to deal with variations both in the prior background of students and in what they find interesting and relevant to their future computational needs. ***
