Concept map

Concept mapping was developed by the professor of education Joseph D. Novak and his research team at Cornell University in the 1970s as a means of representing the emerging science knowledge of students.

[7] It has subsequently been used as a way to increase meaningful learning in the sciences and other subjects as well as to represent the expert knowledge of individuals and teams in education, government and business.

"[8] Novak taught students as young as six years old to make concept maps to represent their response to focus questions such as "What is water?"

[9] McAleese suggested that the process of making knowledge explicit, using nodes and relationships, allows the individual to become aware of what they know and as a result to be able to modify what they know.

Formalized concept maps are used in software design, where a common usage is Unified Modeling Language diagramming amongst similar conventions and development methodologies.