Learning & Performance Tools SIG SITE

I’m sure most readers of this blog will be familiar with the brainstorming tool known as concept maps — graphic diagrams used to reveal components of ideas (or other domains) and their interrelationships. Of course, you are undoubtedly familiar with Microsoft® PowerPoint. The Visual Understanding Environment (VUE), a free Open Source application developed by Tufts University, could be thought of as a marriage of these tools, but it has significant functional advantages over both. In addition, it could be used as a flexible visual environment for integrating and managing digital resources.

The VUE concept map
A VUE concept map is built out of colored boxes that display content, called “nodes,” and linear arrow “links” between nodes. Links can be labeled.

Nodes can display text, linked pictures, and links to web pages or local documents. In addition, “node info icons” provide access to hidden notes or other information. Different colors of nodes can be used to differentiate classes of content (in the example above, nodes concerned with art “themes” are blue, while those about “styles” are green).

Once the user is acclimated to VUE, it’s as quick as pen and paper concept mapping, but it’s much easier to revise and it integrates far richer content. The display is scalable, so it’s possible to refine down to the smallest sub-structure, while a comprehensive overview is just a click away. The ability to merge maps allows further integration and collaborative work.

Presentation capabilities
Any node can be displayed as a full-screen slide. Linear sequences of slides (which can be shown like a conventional PowerPoint deck) can be defined by drawing “pathways” through the “nodes” on the map. But unlike PowerPoint, any number of different sequences through the content can be created. Each of these pathways can be named, annotated, color-coded, and organized in a palette.

Beginning a presentation by showing a concept map of the entire domain to be covered could be a powerful advance organizer for viewers. Moreover, the ability to create and access multiple pathways through the material is a great advantage over PowerPoint’s singular linearity.

Integrating and managing digital resources
Because VUE’s nodes display easy-to-see text and pictures and can link to any digital resource – including the web, local file systems, digital repositories and FTP servers — the VUE map could be used as a context-rich visual interface to integrate and organize all these forms of digital content in a very accessible way.

For power users
I must admit that I haven’t yet attempted to understand VUE’s tools to “import statistical packages and apply semantic meaning to maps by way of ontologies and metadata schemas.”

Caveats
This is not yet a mature application. Some of the tools are clunky and sometimes behave a bit erratically. The layout and type tools are crude, even by PowerPoint’s low standard. Forget about any animation tricks or sound effects (they’re mostly distracting anyway).

Conclusion: A cool tool
The good folks at Tufts deserve major props for creating and continuing to refine VUE — and just giving it away. (I wonder if someday we’ll look back longingly to this time when so many people shared such valuable tools and content gratis.) For information, demos, and a free download of VUE, go to: http://vue.tufts.edu/