Adaptive Web-based Textbooks (panel) Paul De Bra Department of Computing Science Eindhoven University of Technology (TUE) PO Box 513, Eindhoven, The Netherlands debra@win.tue.nl Peter Brusilovsky School of Information Sciences University of Pittsburgh 135 North Bellefield Avenue Pittsburgh, PA 15260 peterb@sis.pitt.edu Tom Murray School of Cognitive Science Hampshire College Amherst, MA 01002 TMurray@hampshire.edu Marcus Specht GMD, Schloss Birlinghoven 53754 St. Augustin, Germany Marcus.Specht@gmd.de Discussion Topic Hypermedia systems have enabled authors to break free from the linear presentation structure enforced by the world of physical (paper) books. The Web has further enabled authors to bring hypermedia documents on-line, so that they can reach a much wider audience. As a consequence, documents also reach an audience with widely varying interests, background, (hypermedia) experience, etc. In order to provide the most appropriate information to all users, and present it in the most suitable way, documents must be adapted to target user groups or even individual users. Adaptive hypermedia provides the methods and techniques to perform this adaptation automatically (instead of purely based on a questionnaire to be completed by every user). Adaptive hypermedia has been applied in many application areas, but a large majority of all adaptive hypermedia applications is used in education. While it is not often named as such, most learning material that is available on- line can be viewed as an extension of the concept of a textbook. (Extensions may include search facilities, automatic evaluation of exercises or assignments, progress feedback, etc.) The panelists have all been involved in the creation and use of adaptive on-line textbooks. The panel discussion focuses on the experience with different adaptive methods and techniques used in these applications. Experience with a single specific adaptive application cannot lead to conclusions that are guaranteed to carry over to a different application area or the use by a different type of audience. Therefore the aim of this panel discussion is to find common experiences that suggest a more generally applicable pattern (that should be verified through future research) as well as contradicting experiences that suggest that the perceived influence of adaptation might actually be something that was specific to the application area, the audience, or the course topic. Although the four panelists together will present different angles of adaptive textbook creation and application, active participation of the panel attendees is needed to collect and discuss more different experiences with adaptive educational course material. Because the WebNet conference proceedings are produced in advance, the outcome of the panel discussion, including the expected participation of the audience, cannot be included here.