IntroStat: a hypertext-based design for an electronic textbook to introduce biomedical statistics

A hypertext-based system called IntroStat has been developed to introduce fundamental methods of biomedical statistics. The system has been developed on a Macintosh II using HyperCard. It is written mainly in Hypertalk, a scripting language of HyperCard. Being an electronic textbook of probability and statistics, the system features computational capabilities. At the end of the sections describing basic methods of statistics, pages are provided where a user may enter data and try the methods right there. Some means for branching are provided for easy access to a page of interest, including branching by contents, by index, and by keyword reference. The system design is proposed as a model of an electronic textbook for biomedical statistics.