Open hypermedia management for e-learning in the humanities

Knowledge-based hypermedia systems are used in scholarly communication since more than 2000 years, e.g. the Babylonian Talmud. Many different computer-based hypermedia systems have been successfully created for the humanities, too. But, cross-university or even university-wide use of these systems for e-learning purposes in the humanities is seldom if ever. In this paper, we argue, that only a deep analysis of hypermedia usage in scholarly communication and teaching can disclose non-trivial technical and community-aware requirements for open e-learning systems in the humanities. With these requirements we analyze some of the existing solutions and provide a case study for a cross-university hypermedia e-learning system called MECCA.