The web provides a lot of fluid information but this information changes, moves, and even disappears over time. Bookmark lists, portals, and paths are collections where the building blocks are web pages, which are susceptible to these changes. A lot of research, both in industry and in academia, focuses on organizing this vast amount of data. In this thesis, I present context-based algorithms for measuring changes to a document. The methods proposed use other documents in a collection as the context for evaluating changes in the web pages. These metrics will be used in maintaining paths as the individual pages in paths change. This approach will enhance the evaluations of change made by the currently existing Path Manager, in the Walden's Paths project that is being developed in the Center for the Study of Digital Libraries at Texas A&M University.

The web provides a lot of fluid information but this information changes, moves, and even disappears over time. Bookmark lists, portals, and paths are collections where the building blocks are web pages, which are susceptible to these changes. A lot of research, both in industry and in academia, focuses on organizing this vast amount of data. In this thesis, I present context-based algorithms for measuring changes to a document. The methods proposed use other documents in a collection as the context for evaluating changes in the web pages. These metrics will be used in maintaining paths as the individual pages in paths change. This approach will enhance the evaluations of change made by the currently existing Path Manager, in the Walden's Paths project that is being developed in the Center for the Study of Digital Libraries at Texas A&M University.

With the extent of the web expanding at an increasing rate, the problems caused by broken links are reaching epidemic proportions. Studies have indicated that a substantial number of links on the Internet are broken. User surveys indicate broken links are considered the third biggest problem faced on the Internet. Currently Walden's Paths Path Manager tool is capable of detecting the degree and type of change within a page in a path. Although it also has the ability to highlight missing pages or broken links, it has no method of correcting them thus leaving the broken link problem unsolved. This thesis proposes a solution to this problem in Walden's Paths. The solution centers on the idea that "significant" keyphrases extracted from the original page can be used to accurately locate the document using a search engine. This thesis proposes an algorithm to extract representative keyphrases to locate exact copies of the original page. In the absence of an exact copy, a similar but separate algorithm is used to extract keyphrases that will help locating similar pages that can be substituted in place of the missing page. Both sets of keyphrases are stored as additions to the page signature in the Path Manager tool and can be used when the original page is removed from its current location on the Web.

Walden's Paths, created by the Center for the Study of Digital Libraries, provides a mechanism for leveraging student learning with the incredible amount of educational material on the web by organizing selected web pages into a structured learning activity. Applying specialized templates to the creation of Walden's Paths can aid a path author in creating pedagogically sound, Web-based activities, by assisting in the collection of information and organization of the activity. Authoring templates may be based on established educational frameworks, learning theories or specific activity type. This research project investigates how using pedagogically based templates affects the authoring process for paths created using Walden's Paths. A template based on the educational framework Inquiry-Based Learning was created and tested by a group of users to determine what effects the template has on creating paths as compared to creating similar paths using the existing Walden's Paths interface.

The World Wide Web contains rich collections of digital materials that can be used in education and learning settings. The collaborative authoring prototype of Walden's Paths targets two groups of users: educators and learners. From the perspective of educators, the authoring tool allows educators to collaboratively build a Walden's Path by filtering and organizing web pages into an ordered linear structure for the common information needs, which can be extended, tailored and modified into a derivative path from its parent version to meet dynamic and evolving educational requirements. From the students' perspective, Walden's Paths provide a shared knowledge space that facilitates collaborative learning. Specifically, collaborative learners can annotate locally and globally on pages and share among group members, where each annotation fosters the initiation of a thread of discussion. Therefore, knowledge transfer can be achieved in the process of social interaction associated with shared annotations.