The Visual Understanding Environment (VUE) is a free,
open-source
Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use and view the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open source model is a decentrali ...
concept map
A concept map or conceptual diagram is a diagram that depicts suggested relationships between concepts. Concept maps may be used by instructional designers, engineers, technical writers, and others to organize and structure knowledge.
A conc ...
ping application written in
Java
Java is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea (a part of Pacific Ocean) to the north. With a population of 156.9 million people (including Madura) in mid 2024, proje ...
. The application is developed by the Academic Technology group at
Tufts University
Tufts University is a private research university in Medford and Somerville, Massachusetts, United States, with additional facilities in Boston and Grafton, as well as Talloires, France. Tufts also has several Doctor of Physical Therapy p ...
. VUE is licensed under the
Educational Community License
The Educational Community License (ECL) is a free and open source license based on the Apache license (version 2.0) and created with the specific needs of the academic community in mind.
Version 2.0 of the ECL came out of the Licensing and Policy ...
. VUE 3.0, the latest release, was funded under a grant from the
Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, commonly known as the Mellon Foundation, is a New York City-based private foundation with wealth accumulated by Andrew Mellon of the Mellon family of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It is the product of the 1969 merger ...
.
The VUE Project
The VUE project at Tufts UIT Academic Technology is focused on creating flexible tools for managing and integrating digital resources in support of teaching, learning and research. VUE provides a flexible visual environment for structuring, presenting, and sharing digital information. Using VUE's concept mapping interface, faculty and students design
semantic network
A semantic network, or frame network is a knowledge base that represents semantic relations between concepts in a network. This is often used as a form of knowledge representation. It is a directed or undirected graph consisting of vertices, ...
s of digital resources drawn from digital libraries, local and remote file systems.
Releases
Tufts University's VUE development team has coordinated releases of the VUE project. The project's most recent release, VUE 3, has added many new features which distinguish it from traditional
concept mapping
A concept map or conceptual diagram is a diagram that depicts suggested relationships between concepts. Concept maps may be used by instructional designers, engineers, technical writers, and others to organize and structure knowledge.
A conc ...
tools.
[http://vue.tufts.edu/forums/topic.cfm?cf_id=8&t_id=197 According to an announcement] made by the VUE team on their forums, new features include: tools for dynamic presentation of maps, map merge and analysis tools,
enhanced
keyword tagging and search capabilities, support for
semantic mapping using
ontologies
In information science, an ontology encompasses a representation, formal naming, and definitions of the categories, properties, and relations between the concepts, data, or entities that pertain to one, many, or all domains of discourse. More ...
, expanded search of online resources such as
Flickr
Flickr ( ) is an image hosting service, image and Online video platform, video hosting service, as well as an online community, founded in Canada and headquartered in the United States. It was created by Ludicorp in 2004 and was previously a co ...
,
Yahoo
Yahoo (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web portal that provides the search engine Yahoo Search and related services including My Yahoo, Yahoo Mail, Yahoo News, Yahoo Finance, Yahoo Sports, y!entertainment, yahoo!life, an ...
,
Twitter
Twitter, officially known as X since 2023, is an American microblogging and social networking service. It is one of the world's largest social media platforms and one of the most-visited websites. Users can share short text messages, image ...
, or
PubMed
PubMed is an openly accessible, free database which includes primarily the MEDLINE database of references and abstracts on life sciences and biomedical topics. The United States National Library of Medicine (NLM) at the National Institute ...
.
See also
*
List of concept- and mind-mapping software
Concept mapping and mind mapping software is used to create diagrams of relationships between concepts, ideas, or other pieces of information. It has been suggested that the mind mapping technique can improve learning and study efficiency up to 15 ...
References
External links
VUE's websiteVUE User ForumsVUE on SourceforgeVUE communityon
Ning
{{Mindmaps
Concept- and mind-mapping software programmed in Java
Free diagramming software
Free software programmed in Java (programming language)
Concept mapping software