Peer Review

Open Knowledge Maps: A Visual [Open Access Search Engine] Interface to the World's Scientific Knowledge

Material Detail page

Reviewed:: Mar 23, 2018 by Teacher Education

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Ratings

Overall Rating:

Content Quality:

Effectiveness:

Ease of Use:

Overview:

Open Knowledge Maps provides you with an outstanding open access search engine /schematic map interface covering all academic/scientific disciplines by searching your research topic either in the PubMed Central or Bielefield Academic Search Engine (BASE) open access repositories. Note: BASE contains open access documents/journal articles in English, Chinese, French, German, Greek, Polish, Russian and Spanish, so search engine results for map visualizations using BASE will also list any open access documents/journal articles found in these languages relevant to your research topic.

Type of Material:

Learning Object Repository

Recommended Uses:

The site is searchable but also contains visual maps to the material. Moving the cursor over the graphics allows users to see more information about the searched article. The site is useful for research papers, self-paced assignments and collaborative team projects.

Technical Requirements:

No specific browser or plug-in seems to be required. Computer should be able to display graphics.

The website notes the following: "Unless otherwise noted, all content on openknowledgemaps.org is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Our software is open source and hosted on Github."

Identify Major Learning Goals:

The designers' goal for Open Knowledge Maps is to revolutionize scientific knowledge. The visual interface dramatically increases the visibility of research findings and aids users in exploring and discovering scientific knowledge.

According to the authors, getting an overview of a research field and being able to identify a set of relevant findings pertaining to one's information need are prerequisites for research, evidence-based practice and self-directed learning alike. With traditional, list-based search engines, users have to examine articles and their relationships by hand, which is a tedious and time-consuming process. Open Knowledge Maps attempts to solve these challenges by providing an open exploration and discovery system that leverages the emerging digital open science ecosystem. Knowledge maps provide an instant overview of a field by showing the main areas of the field at a glance, as well as papers related to each area.

Target Student Population:

High School, College General Ed, College Lower Division, College Upper Division, Graduate School, Professional

Prerequisite Knowledge or Skills:

PubMed is for biomedical research. Base is an open access repository of all subjects. Familiarity with search engines/boolean searches is helpful.

Content Quality

Rating:
Strengths:: Open Knowledge Maps provides a large-scale, web-based system of open, interactive and interlinked knowledge maps for every research topic, every field and every discipline. Searches return the 100 most relevant results for a topic, creating a visual map of the records. Users not only can see an overview of a field and identify relevant concepts, but also discover trends, recognize important researchers, and understand connections between fields. Open Knowledge Maps also highlights open content, including data, video, and images.
Concerns:: None.

Potential Effectiveness as a Teaching Tool

Rating:
Strengths:: Open Knowledge Maps is ideally suited for the beginning of the lesson cycle (research, study) or for students beginning a research assignment. This website provides an invaluable resource especially for science teachers and professors; the sources included would be easily integrated into curriculum as well as learning assignments. The search engine works quickly and presents the findings in a way that makes it easy for the user to decide which article to explore.
Concerns:: None.

Ease of Use for Both Students and Faculty

Rating:

Strengths:

After the user searches for a desired topic, the resulted information is presented visually as a giant Venn diagram, with subtopics listed in each circle. Applicable papers for each subtopic are included in each circle. By clicking on the papers, users see either the paper in its entirety or the abstract.

Very easy and fast to use; search results were returned in under 30 seconds

Concerns:

Not all articles are open access; articles which are open access are clearly marked, however, which is quite helpful to the user.

Other Issues and Comments:: The site has extensive support from advisers from the United States and many European countries.
Creative Commons: