Comet-Ko : a concept mapping environment for knowledge organization

This thesis presents Comet-KO, a software tool for knowledge construction and organization, which takes its basis from instructivist and constructivist learning theories. Comet-KO aids users to collect, create and represent information, visualize relationships between concepts, and collaborate during the knowledge construction process. The representation of knowledge in Comet-KO is based on semantic networking techniques, which proved to be more powerful than conventional text based note-taking methodologies. In addition to formal semantic networking language, grouping and hypergraph drawing is also supported by Comet-KO, which brings a new perspective on visualization of knowledge construction.