Hypertext and Hypermedia in the Law

• Autore: Rosa Maria Di Giorgi/Roberta Nannucci
• Pagine: 9-29

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@1. Why Use Hypertext in the Law

In recent years there has been increasing development in applications of hypertext technology to very different documentary environments, from the humanities to technical and scientific disciplines, also thanks to advances made in computer science over the last twenty years which have brought about an important evolution in the world of computer-based information retrieval systems: the progressive abandonment of retrieving information on demand to its gradual replacement with browsing in information systems.

Therefore, analysing the potentialities of this new way of organizing and communicating ideas, through electronic processing of both explicit and implicit association, overcoming the actual dynamics of the sequential organization of a text or, more generally, of documents within the legal domain seemed to be of interest, when considering the particular nature of legal documentation. Due to their features, legal texts are strongly linked together, Citations and references in the legal domain are a good example of this and are of such considerable importance that studying systems which have as their intrinsic characteristic that of managing logical links between documents appears to be very useful.

So, the idea arose of attempting an initial analysis of hypertext applications in such a complex world as that of legal documentation by asking computer scientists and legal informatics experts, in particular, to co-operate with us for the purpose of identifying - even through the description of early systems or prototypes - which elements distinguish hypertext systems compared to traditional automated documentation systems, which basic features enable legal information to be really enriched, where improvement in quality can be seen enabling information systems for the law to be designed that are more accessible to the citizen and, at the same time, also more useful for the lawyer who is called upon to give advice or solve specific cases.

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From this point of view, a survey of scientific contributions focusing on hypertext technology finds its place. Today, it is important to know both how far research and applications have gone in this domain and, through this survey, to catch the attention of those who are not yet aware of the significance of using hypertext and hypermedia for making further progress in the world of communications.

@2. Hypertext as a New Means of Communication

Even with their semantic aids that have already been well experimented and produced positive results - such as keywords, thesauri and classification tables - information retrieval systems are not adequate in providing exhaustive answers to richer, more refined and complex search needs nor natural and accessible to the user.

To introduce the concept of hypertext, it may be useful to make some comparisons with information retrieval techniques, in order to fix its boundaries, by focusing on the differences between the two. In the information base of an information retrieval system the documents, as well as the text, have a profile. A profile usually means a series of data describing the document (author/s, title, bibliographical references, keywords and classification code) which are the access keys to the document. Information is usually retrieved by making consecutive selections until the required specificity is reached, on the basis of progressively more restrictive conditions.

There are various search strategies, as they may be based on a more specifically semantic approach to the document or use data of a more external type, such as documentary type, year of publication, author, etc... Nevertheless, with the use of special logical operators and functions they let the user select sets of progressively more limited numbers of documents, in consecutive phases, until he reaches a subset which answers his query. The assumption behind this process is that the data bank user already knows, with a reasonable amount of precision, the type of information he wishes to retrieve. Changes in the selection phase occur, in fact, on the basis of the number of documents retrieved, and certainly not on the basis of their content, whereby there is no substantial enrichment in the search strategy.

The approach to information using hypertexts is different. The document and/or its parts become constituent elements of a network connected by associative links. The nodes of this network may be paragraphs, words, anPage 11 entire -document, a figure, some graphics or any significant part whatsoever of the document. The presence of graphs allows linking relevant parts of every document to other documents or particularly significant elements within the same document in a way that is completely transparent to the user.

So far, the linear form has been the most suitable vehicle for information: we have in mind a story, in which the temporal dimension dominates. But a close look at other contents, from the fields of natural or exact sciences to those of the humanities and social sciences, reveals that these fields of knowledge are not structured in a linear way. In the case of the exact sciences or the humanities, «something which is closer to a simultaneous multidimensional structure is available that connects the different pieces of information in an extremely complex manner» [Rizk et al. 1990]. Experts move within their own disciplines by activating links on an intuitive basis. Linear type models are certainly not suitable for effectively representing this kind of knowledge, On the contrary, hypertext destructures the text and restructures it according to different logics, enabling contexts to be created which are intrinsically new with respect to those at the start. In short, it means organizing new models of learning and knowledge as well as influencing the structure of the communications [Nielsen 1990]. In this sense, the hypertext approach seems very valuable. In fact, through links, it is able to deal with the complexity of references and implicit and explicit relations within specialized domains.

It should be noted that those dealing with hypertext systems generally emphasize the freedom of access and movement that these systems permit. It is important, instead, to understand what a step forward in quality the use of hypertext and hypermedia technology represents. Cross-referencing is a transgression compared to another order and reference structure, which organizes the text as such. On the contrary, it is precisely that transgressive structure that has to become the basic framework, over and above any linear organization [Antinucci-1993], Breaking away from the concept of the text as a one-dimensional structure implies that there is no longer a beginning and end to it which are unambiguous and pre-arranged and, therefore, the same for all users. Each user may move about as he pleases, in any direction, The process of approaching the text is more active, since users must decide where and how to go and, furthermore, select the level of knowledge they want to reach or, in other words, how thoroughly they will go into any given problem.

The concept of flexibility in learning comes apparent. Hypertext allows spontaneous adaptation to individual needs, In fact, the background, learningPage 12 experiences and personal attitudes of each user are absolutely unique and so the information available in the system may be too difficult for some or too simple for others. With this new technology, learning processes become more natural and self-directed compared to traditional ones, which are basically hetero-directed. In other words, users have numerous routes they may or may not wish to take.

Another interesting feature of hypertext is that the information is not only in the text of the document, but also in the network of links. The network, then, does not merely appear as a logical support structure (such as the set of access keys in an information retrieval system), but as something visible, a conceptual path that enhances the search and gives the information real added value. It is here that the concept of hyperdocument arises, a kind of variable entity that takes shape in relation to the person involved in the search. It is something that did not exist before the search as a node may be retrieved from very different points of the data base and may be a constituent element of a series of associative webs.

The difference between a traditional linear document and a hyperdocument lies in the nature of the links between the different parts of the text. Linear documents are intended by their authors to be read from beginning to end, even though they may contain references to sections of later text (cataphoresis) or to preceding sections (anaphoresis) or to other documents not included in the text (exaphoresis), Some of these references - will be explicit, as for example when the authors use phrases like «as we shall see later» and «as we have already mentioned» [Diaper Rada 1991], However, most of these reference links are implicit and must be formulated and remembered by the reader. A good author must be careful that his reader does not find consulting these references too tiring. Differently from linear documents, hyperdocuments attempt to make the links explicit, and the hypertext system user is actively stimulated to follow these links [Nielsen 1991]. The user creates a context within which his search will be made or, in other -words, creates a particular navigation that will let Mm gradually acquire knowledge. In fact, along the route between the nodes of the information base, connections become apparent that are presumably completely unknown to the user, This is a special feature of hypertext, but it is not necessarily an advantage, as activating new links in a direction that has not expressly been requested may cause disorientation, which ends up Interfering with the search itself.

Defining the types...