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KM Tools: [Tool Name here]
Evaluated by Hong Li on May 2, 2001
Tool Description
Concept Maps are tools developed by Joseph D. Novak. it is for organizing and representing knowledge. The concepts are depicted as labeled nodes, and relationships between concepts or propositions as labeled links. Propositions are statements about some object or event in the universe, either naturally occurring or constructed. Propositions contain tow or more concepts connected with other words to form a meaningful statement. Sometimes there are semantic units, or units of meaning.
Concept Maps use the idea of assimilation theory. Assimilation theory
suggests a
distinction between meaningful learning and rote learning. Rote learning is
often emphasized
in educational settings, and consists of simple memorization of information,
without concern
for relationships among concepts. In contrast, meaningful learning results from
linking new
information to relevant, preexisting concepts or propositions in the cognitive
structure of an
individual. Ausubel believes that the most important factor for learning is
what the learners
already know. Concept Maps are designed to tap into a personís cognitive
structure, and to
externalize concepts and propositions.
The tools are platform-independent and network-enabled, allowing the users
to build, and collaborate during the construction of Concept Maps with
colleagues anywhere on the network, and
share and navigate through others' models distributed on servers throughout
Internet.
Above example test1 project shows for organizing and representing the knowledge ---- plants.
The purpose of the Cmap is knowledge management tool for the students or teachers to organizing and representing and understanding the relationship for the concepts of the knowledge. Also it is earning tool but also as an evaluation tool. This visual tool can allow student to create the relationship diagram for the special concepts and hierarchical fashion of the objects. Concept Maps enable students to identify and explore the structure and nature of knowledge in a domain. By manipulating the relationship of the concepts, we can be easy to learn the new concepts of the knowledge. We anticipate that this will result in more meaningful learning.
Concept Maps can help teams who are collaborating on a domain of knowledge.
Concept Maps can aid in the communication process among team members, and allow
members to negotiate and explore the meaning of concepts. During concept map
construction, team members can view the
status of their project and monitor its progress. The process of collaborative
concept map
construction and negotiation enables team members to better capture and utilize
each team
member's understanding about the subject. Team members may have specific
expertise with
particular problem areas, and capturing their knowledge about problems that are
faced will
aid in the teamsí utilization of knowledge. In "Learning, Creating, and
Using Knowledge,"
Novak describes his experience working with different groups from both academic
and
corporate settings. He reports that by using concept mapping, the team members
had a
better understanding of their research, and hence the team became more
productive and
effective over time.
The main functions of the Cmap are following:
Autolayout, Graphically displays Concept Maps, Enables browsing of Concept Maps, Enables Graphical Editing of Concept, Have Resource View Factory, Shows shrinked views of Concept Maps for navigating purposes, palette for easily coloring maps, navigation tools for a multi-window browsing environment, Communicates with a discussion thread server, Loads all icons used in the application, Provides all network communication to Cmap Servers. Controls all editing of projects, Search resources and Processes all requests for the resources, and Provides Spell Checking on the Concept Maps.
Application areas for this Cmap are in various fields of Artificial Intelligence. For example, in NUCES (Nuclear Cardiology Expert System), a large-scaled system for the diagnosis of first pass cardiac functional imagoes, Concept Maps serve as the mediating knowledge representation which allows the expression of an expert's domain knowledge. And NASA Mars exploration and Mars Landing Sites.
Explanation and Collaboration through Concept Maps: The center for Mars Exploration at NASA Ames Research Center is using the software to organize a huge amount of information on Mars, The work in progress can be browsed at the above Mars 2001 link.
Representation of Expert's Knowledge: Funded by NIMA, the Storm-LK project captures and preserves local expertise in weather forecasting in the Gulf of Mexico region. Weather forecasters in the Navy that are assigned to the Gulf Coast region use the concept maps to learn about local forecasting even before they arrive, and continue to use them as a support tool afterwards
Distance learning: Many universities throughout the world are using the Concept Mapping Toolkit to create and organize contents for computer-mediated learning. This example shows material in use at the University of West Florida for a Managerial Decision Making course in the MBA program.
The interesting of the Cmap is some concept with somatic meaning, also this software can embed with another software for example combine with some software with knowledge retrieval.
Addition of Knowledge
The users can create and add concepts with different type. Concept Maps provide a framework for capturing experts internal knowledge and making it explicit in visual, graphical form that can be easily examined and shared. Different content and structure are contained in Concept Maps depending on the contexts for which they are generated. The Concept Maps can vary form one context to another and can be highly idiosyncratic. The strength of Concept Maps lies in their ability to express a particular person's knowledge about a given topic in a specific context and domain.
Organization of Knowledge
Start with the broadest, most inclusive concept at the top of the map, and
work your way down. Connect two concepts with the linking lines and label the
links with
action words that define the relationship between the concepts. Improve the
concept map
by grouping closely together related concepts. It reduce the number of links
that extend from one section of the map to another. Rework the structure of the
map by adding, deleting, or renaming subordinate concepts, and by choosing
better, more
descriptive linking words. Many revisions are often necessary before the map
reaches a
satisfactory form. Maps may change drastically as the work, and should be
considered
dynamic rather than static, and they will represent my changing insight and
knowledge of
the knowledge domain. The Concept Maps are graphical displays in which the more
general, inclusive concepts are found at the highest levels, with progressively
more specific, less inclusive concepts arranged below them.
Visualization of Knowledge
Concept Maps provide a new method for organizing and browsing through
information. Because of their graphical nature, Concept Maps may make desired
information more accessible. A concept map is a hierarchically organized,
two-dimensional
representation of a set of concepts and the labeled relationships among them
with the most super-ordinate concept being placed at the top of the hierarchy.
Concept Maps can also contain cross-links, which represent relationships among
sub branches in the hierarchy.
you can put any picture, movie, music and video to the Concept Maps. For example,
as above figure, the icon underneath the plants concept in the above concept
map has been selected, and the
names of a related Concept Maps are displayed, indicating that there is a
concept map about concept (within the same context of plants) available. The
icon was displayed as a result of selecting the concept map under the
Plants concept. The Flowers concept has icons for images
and (a blooming rose is displayed ). a web page about
photosynthesis and images of leaves and flowers, all linked to the Plants
concept map.
With modules such as Cmap Viewer Module, Editor Module, Color Palette, Image Loader and Brower Module, such more features can make Plants Concept Maps get visual display of the concept of the knowledge.
Knowledge Retrieval
[For the end user, the most important aspect of knowledge management is the identification of and access to knowledge relevant for a task. Currently the most frequently used technique relies on keywords, and thus works at the syntactic level. Ideally, knowledge should be retrievable at the semantic level via concepts instead of keywords, or at the pragmatic level by including context and usage information. You should discuss the methods and techniques your tool uses for knowledge retrieval, and how they make the retrieval task as easy and fast as possible.]
Usage of Knowledge
Because it is semantic level of the Concept Maps for the knowledge management, it is very easy and faster to access and retrieve by giving the context in the special domain.
This tool support knowledge access through map browsing but not automatic retrieval of relevant maps from map archives or support for adaptation of retrieved Cmap.
In this Concept Maps, the functionality of the Resource Discovery Agent Module, Resource Viewer Factory, Default Resource Viewer Advertise and Resource Link Validation Module help the end user to search for resources, processes all request for user to show the multimedia resource and validates resource links in Concept Maps.
Knowledge and Collaboration
This tool is attributed by Institute or
Human and Machine Cognition
The University of West Florida.
This institute
to support the user requirement and update the new feature.
This tool is free to download, the tools allow the user to install only the
functionality required, adding more modules as needed, or as new modules with
additional functionality are developed.
This tool give the chance to build new knowledge and understand the relationship between the items. especially, it allow user to build the image or hyperlink underneath the concept. it is very interesting.
Knowledge and Organizational Memory
In this tool, it provide in the local area storage for the individual, it also support to public storage area for every one who want to share his/her design. Company can create their own folder for their employees.
Other Issues
If this tool can combine with case reasoning function, it is very competitive.
In the public-Cmaps folders, there is Cmap Tools. It explain the future job
to make this tool more effective for the KM. 
Last modified: Thu May 3 09:49:15 PDT 2001