Topic Maps as Indexing Tools in the Educational Sphere: Theoretical Foundations, Review of Empirical Research and Future Challenges

Topic Maps (International Organization of Standardization [ISO 13250], 1999; 2002) are a form of indexing that describe the relationships between concepts within a domain of knowledge and link these concepts to descriptive resources. Topic maps are malleable – the concept and relationship creation process is dynamic and user-driven. In addition, topic maps are scalable and can hence be conjoined and merged. Perhaps, most impressively, topic maps provide a distinct separation between resources and concepts, thereby facilitating migration of the data models therein (Garshol, 2004). Topic map technologies are extensively employed to navigate databases of information in the fields of medicine, military, and corporations. Many of these proprietary topic maps are machine-generated through the use of context-specific algorithms which read a corpus of text, and automatically produce a set of topics along with the relationships among them. However, there has been little, if any, research on how to use cognitive notions of mental models, knowledge representation and decision-making processes employed in problemsolving situations as a basis for the design of ontologies for topic maps. This chapter will first outline the theoretical foundations in educational psychology and cognitive information retrieval that should underlie the development of ontologies that describe topic maps. The conjectural analyses presented will reveal how various modes of online interaction between key stakeholders (e.g., instructors, learners, content and graphical user interfaces), as well as the classic information processing model, mental models and related research on problem representation must be integrated into our current understanding of how the design of topic maps can better reflect the relationships between concepts in any given domain. Next, the chapter outlines a selective review of empirical research conducted on the use of topic maps in educational contexts, with a focus on learner perceptions and cognitions. Finally, the chapter provides comments on what the future holds for researchers who are committed to the development, implementation, and evaluation of topic map indexes in educational contexts.

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