[topicmapmail] Topic maps vs concept maps

[Danny Ayers]

>> Can anyone explain to me and help me see more clearly the
>difference between
>> concept maps and topic maps, especially from the view point of Web-based
>> educational systems.

I can't top Jack's analogy, leading to "topic maps are concept maps that got
finished", but a relevant factor relating to your question is that Topic
Maps fit in very nicely within the web environment - they are grounded on
web ideas like URIs and so on. Scratch the surface of any current Concept
Map work and more than likely you'll find TMs (or RDF).


(btw, RDF is as expressive as Topic Maps, and is designed so that deep
reasoning capabilities can be layered on top - making it a perfect candidate
for Semantic Web applications!)

Cheers,
Danny.