Study On Construction And Application Of Knowledge Maps

With the development of knowledge economy and formation of an information environment which is digital and networked, consequently, the speed of knowledge production and update within modern society is increasingly intensified, and the channels of knowledge spread are tending to be wider. However, the rapid expansion of knowledge system that we created cannot lead to higher efficiency of knowledge usage directly. No matter individuals or organizations, product operations or scientific research, identifying the part that we need within the vast ocean of knowledge is the first priority, and this task always consumes most of our time and effort. On one hand, massive available expertise is produced and stored continuously over the last few decades; on the other hand, our ability to acquire and to use knowledge is experiencing unprecedented severe test. In order to address these challenges and adapt to the change of information environment, knowledge map, as a kind of effective knowledge organizing and services tool, is recently implemented and drawn the attention of LIS discipline.The basic idea of this study is to proceed from dig the nature of knowledge maps and connotation of the concept, to reveal inherent mechanisms of knowledge maps. Based on these clues, this paper explores how knowledge maps are designed and constructed, analysis the purpose of map usage, and to guide the further practice of knowledge management and organizing whereas diffirent knowledge maps are implemented. The key components in this paper include:the basic concepts of knowledge map, the functions, the mode of constructions, and graphs drawing and application which is based on information visualization. This paper is about140,000words, consists of6parts, and48figures and9tables are attached. The main contents are as follows.Part1is the theoretical foundation of the study. A knowledge map is considered as continuation and extension of a modern map. According to modern cartograph theory of Cartographic Communication and Cartographic Visualization, knowledge maps are divided into2main categories:communication knowledge maps (CKM) and visualization knowledge maps (VKM). CKMs are designed and built to be the channels between knowledge senders and receivers, which communicate varies of knowledge resources from map makers to users, play a important role in any knowledge-oriented applications. VKMs are based on information visualization, which is available for personal use, not only can be used to express and communicate knowledge, but also can be highly interactive. VKMs inspire and support vision thinking, can be effective tools for individual learning and scientific research.Part2investigates how and where to use CKMs. CKMs are widely used in varies of domains, knowledge management and presentation of knowledge structure are the main applications among them all. In the practice of knowledge management, CKMs are implemented by firms to achieve certain goals:knowledge identifying, knowledge application, knowledge assessment, knowledge exchange, knowledge development, knowledge creation and knowledge marketing, which are also the function of CKMs. Additionally, the contents they contain, the application level, and graphic form will affect the usage of CKMs. Ontology is the most effective description method of knowledge structure, in order to express and communicate knowledge structure in a clear and intuitive way, CKMs are used to present ontologies. By the applications of multiple techniques, the components of ontology such as class, instance, classification, multiple inheritance, role relationships and attributes are all displayed in a CKM on a computer screen, thereby the purpose of knowledge structure presentation and communication can be achieved.Part3investigates the issues of how to construct CKMs. The methods for CKM construction can be classified into3different modes:"point", ontology engineering and ontology alignment."point" mode is the simplest way to construct a CKM, and to integrate the information resource, the CKM which is based on this model is a target-oriented and low-cost knowledge management tool. The application of ontology engineering can be considered as an advanced construction mode for CKMs, which can effectively overcome the defects that inherent in "point" mode. Base on ontology engineering, the process of the construction of a CKM is converted to a domain ontology development process, which is consisted of the following key steps: knowledge identifying and acquisition, to determine the relations among knowledge, the formal description of ontology, ontology knowledge base preservation and graphic display. Currently, the implementation of ontology alignment is the most advanced construction model for any CKMs, which is rise to solve the semantic heterogeneity issues which are caused by the increasing number of domain ontologies. During the process of construction, the mapping among multiple related domain ontologies is established, this can be achieved by varies of automatic system tools which are based on similarity algorithms. Surportted by Sophisticated visualization tools, CKMs are able to present independent ontologies and the relations among them.Part4investgates how and why to make and use VKMs. From the perspective of modern cognitive psychology, visualization is considered as a highly efficient cognitive system tool, which is based on the advantage of perception and cognition of human being, while a VKM is an important component of it. Interaction between people and VKMs is a key content. This interaction takes place at different levels, which is consisted of data selection cycel, navigation and exploration cycle and problem solving cycle. Data selection cycle refers to the basic skills of hand-eye coordination as a means, selecting and moving object of observation in the graph, these operations can be described by certain existing theorems and formulas. Navigation and exploration cycle refers to people search for a reasonable path within a large scale complex graphical interface, in order to understand the digital space. Navigation in a non-metaphor graphic user interface can play a greater efficiency, and application of multiple focus+context technique is the realization of this navigation. Problem solving cycle refers to people generate hypothesis that related to the data, and through a serie of strengthened visual operations to refine these hypothesis; also, this is the process of data analysis and knowledge discovering, which is the key component of visual thinking. Visual query based on VKMs can be the basic form and the basic means of any visual thinking, this paper reveals the process of visual query, and certain typical visual thinking methods such as pathfinding, reasoning, pattern comparison and correlation analysis.Part5is a case study for VKMs. The progress that Chinese scholars have made on the realm of knowledge organization (KO) is set to be a cognitive objective, and co-word network diagram is chosen to be the VKM solution. The keywords which are related to KO is collected and pre-processed from CNKI database. By drawing and using the co-word network, this paper discovered that "Knowledge management?information organization?ontology?knowledge organization system "is the main line of KO research for Chinese scholars, and knowledge organization system is the forefront of current research.The last part summarizes this dissertation, and points out the inadequacies in this research and makes a prospect of knowledge maps. Finally, the author proposes the basis and direction in the further study.