Abstract: A topic announcement routine is provided and is called by an announce flag included in a flag field of an author-selected topic title definition in a course material database. Each call of such a flagged topic causes the routine to display for a student an announcement that a new topic is about to begin, and to make available to the student an opportunity to select a command from a predetermined set of commands including at least one address-generic transfer command. Control flags, such as an announce flag or the presence of text in the title field of a topic definition, are employed for various purposes, such as marking the end of transfer under a transfer command for that topic, or disabling selected commands of the set.