Cognitive learning for distance education: a concept maps perspective

Cognitive informatics is perceived as a new frontier that explores the internal information processing mechanisms of the brain. In this context, concept maps constitute one of the cognitive tools mostly used in learning management due to the possibility that they offer to contextualize learning and share knowledge. In this paper, effectiveness of concept mapping is evaluated on an educational framework. Work is focused on studying individually produced concept maps versus those produced by group in order to measure fundamental cognitive metrics like degree of subsumption, progressive differentiation and integration of knowledge respectively. Experimental results exhibit interesting insights to test how more portable and powerful knowledge is stated. As a result, this work outlines initial model of a novelty learning author tool based on a semantic knowledge manager in which the attributes proposed by computer to the student constitute hierarchical relations among conceptual units.