If instructional materials are to promote flexibility, learners must first have knowledge that is effectively grounded -- they must understand, for example, that not all principles are created equal, and that concepts and principles are often related in subtle ways. In the absence of thoughtful instructional design, efforts to promote flexibility may only lead to disorganized thinking among students. This is one of the problems often cited concerning the web as a learning environment -- that it has so little intrinsic structure that the freedom it provides actually undermines learning in favor of a shallow browsing of material.

In response to problems related to hypertext navigation and users who become “lost in hyperspace,” researchers and web-content developers have created a variety of powerful tools, many of them based on visualization techniques. Site maps are now commonly provided and there is evidence that users find them helpful for navigating and establishing a clearer idea of the site's organizational structure (Chen & Rada, 1996; Utting & Yankelovich, 1989). In larger networks where complete site maps are impractical, “fish-eye views” (Bartram, Ho, Dill, & Henigman, 1995; Furnas, 1986; Sarker & Brown, 1994), clustering techniques that organize nodes into meaningful groups (Gloor, 1991; Mukherjea, Foley, & Hudson, 1995, online document), and a variety of other filtering and mapping techniques has been developed to assist in both creation and use of large-scale hypertext networks (e.g., Husemann, Petersen, Kanty, Kochs, & Hase, 1997; Kahn, 1999, online document; Neves, 1997). On an even broader scale, web directories (increasingly referred to as “portals”) have become important navigational landmarks on the web specifically because they provide structure.

But all these tools provide assistance only in the same sense that any map does, and users still have to figure out a great deal on their own. My purpose in this article is to argue, both by exposition and by example, that maps are not enough on the web. If we are serious about using this environment to support learning, we need to provide learners with substantially more guidance and help than is afforded by even the most ambitious site maps and web directories. We need to begin thinking about the web as a content literacy resource that requires the same attention to process as we recommend for traditional print materials.