An Introduction to Concept Mapping and Concept Maps

Knowledge is information gained through observation. It is the awareness and understanding of facts, truth, or information gained in the form of experience or learning. Various techniques that are used to represent information relationships and mental processes are sequencing, identifying attributes, cause and effect reasoning, analogical reasoning, and classifying information.

It does not discuss other forms of maps such as Thinking Maps, Mind Maps, Web Maps, or System Maps.

What is Concept Mapping?

Concept mapping is a visual learning technique developed by Prof. Joseph D. Novack of Cornell University. This technique deals with representing the structure of information. It shows how concepts within a domain are interrelated.

What are Concept Maps?

Concept maps are visual representations of knowledge. They graphically illustrate relationships between information. Concept maps are graphs made up of nodes with connecting arcs, representing relationships between nodes. The nodes are labeled with meaningful texts that represent the concept, and the arcs are labeled with a relationship type.

Concept maps are used in semantic networks in Artificial Intelligence, graphs in Mathematics, and CPM (Critical Path Method) and PERT (Project Evaluation and Review Technique) charts in Operation Research. Concept maps are also used in education, management, and linguistics.

A concept map can be constructed using a noun and verb structure. For example, the following concept map represents the sentence “Technical Writing is a Profession.” 

In this sentence, the “is-a” relationship is illustrated between the nouns, “technical writing” and “profession.” The arrow, or the link, represents the “is-a” relationship. The direction of the link helps you retain the meaning of the sentence.

In the example, if we reverse the direction of the link, then the meaning of the sentence will be “Profession is a Technical Writing.” Therefore, the direction of the link is important.

Concept maps can be considered as "thinking-process maps" because, in addition to representing the content-relationship in a domain, concept maps also represent the thinking process or reasoning behind the map.

Why use Concept Maps?

You can use concept maps to:

• clarify thinking and reinforce understanding.
• stimulate creative thinking.
• process, organize, and prioritize new knowledge.
• integrate new knowledge.
• identify misconceptions.
• share knowledge and generated information.
• solve complex problems.
• design processes or structures, such as Web sites, curriculums, documents, and multimedia.

Where to implement Concept Maps?

Different forms of concept maps have been applied in education, management, linguistics, artificial intelligence, and philosophy.

A few common applications of concept maps are as follows:

• Education and Training: Design curriculums or instructions on a specific topic to help students understand the connections between topics, subtopics, or ideas.
• Brainstorming: Generate ideas. Construct meaningful workgroup knowledge structure from known concepts and relationships suggested by individuals.
• Information Navigation: Use concept maps as hypermedia organizers. In this case, use concept maps to encapsulate information on different levels of abstraction for easy comprehension, and then allow expansion to reveal details when required.
• Presentation Planning: Prepare outline of presentation in a non-linear manner to quickly interpret the related information and their relationship with the subject of the presentation.
• Programming Languages: Visualize features found in a particular programming language such as Java.

How to construct Concept Maps?

A procedure to construct a simple concept map is as follows:

1. Identify the key concept around which you want to construct the map.
2. List the most important nouns in the paragraph or idea. Initially, this list can be incomplete.
3. Arrange the most important concepts. Place the most important concept on the top of the page. Add the lesser important concepts on a layer below the top concept.
4. Connect the concepts with arrows or links.
5. Add verbs to the links.
6. Add more links and concepts, if required, to complete the map.

Notes: Remember, brevity is power; less is more. When the topic becomes complex, then non-linear representation is too verbose. In such a case, avoid concept maps and use linear representation such as text.

Concept Map: An Example

Let us construct a concept map for the following sentence:
“Visual learning technique organizes new information, reveals interrelationships and interdependencies, and simulates creative thinking. Concept mapping is a visual learning technique. It uses concept maps. Concept maps are visual representations of knowledge. They are made up of nodes and arcs.”

What are the challenges?

A few challenges faced while constructing concept maps are as follows:

• Identifying the key concepts around which the maps are to be built
• Establishing relationships between the key concepts
• Selecting a common representational media
• Adhering to a common concept maps construction guideline
• Planning revisions or extensions to concept maps
• Representing complex concept maps
• Maintaining the order of sentences when reconstructing sentences from the concept map

Using concept mapping, you can examine, modify, and share knowledge. You can also capture and reuse expert domain experiences, and manage and maintain an important component of organizational knowledge assets. Though concept maps are useful tools to represent knowledge, they might require extensive time to interpret and might still remain ambiguous.

References

• Concept Mapping as a Prewriting Activity - http://www-personal.umich.edu/~jmargeru/conceptmap/index.htm
• Inspiration Software - http://www.inspiration.com/
• Semantic Networks by John F. Sowa - http://www.jfsowa.com/pubs/semnet.htm
• Languages & Structures - http://www.aaai.org/AITopics/html/struc.html
• The Java Programming Language – http://java.sun.com
• A Parallel Computing Approach to Creating Engineering Concept Spaces for Semantic Retrieval: The Illinois Digital Library Initiative Project - http://ai.bpa.arizona.edu/papers/pami96/pami96.html
• Collaboration through Concept Maps by Brian R Gaines and Mildred L G Shaw- http://ksi.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/articles/CSCL95CM/
• Cognitive Approaches to Instructional Design by Brent Wilson, David Jonassen, and Peggy Cole - http://carbon.cudenver.edu/~bwilson/training.html
• Technocrats Resource Center, Kinds of Concept Maps -
  http://www.technocrats-me.org/HTML/techme_resources/
  technocrats_resource_center.htm#resources_for_technical_writers/
  content_management/concept_mapping/concept_mapping.htm

Asha B. A is an IP Developer with Lucent Technologies.

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