Displaying a Framework in a Concept Map Using Network Graph Techniques

Concepts maps are a useful method for visualizing how concepts are associated within a domain. Automated tools can extract the key concepts from a corpus and display their relationships in a two-dimensional representation. However, it may be difficult to quickly perceive the overall structure of a concept map. The aim of this research is to provide a framework on a concept map to identify primary concepts and nearby, related concepts providing context for them using network graph techniques. Automated concept maps are usually very highly connected, and full connectivity shows none of the detail or fine structure. Minimum spanning trees based on the strength of the co-occurrence frequency between concepts and their relative distances on the two-dimensional concept map show hierarchical structure, with key concepts acting as hubs within the network structure. The links within the minimum spanning tree can be used to associate concepts that are not directly connected.