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Institute for human and machine cognition
Mapping Knowledge
 Ceryph founder Bryan Clark [Photo: Paul Brou] |
So-called "concept maps" were pioneered in the 1970s by a number of researchers, several of whom now work at the institute. Concept maps provide a way to create pictures of ideas -- diagram-type drawings that link the collective information that constitutes "knowledge" of a given topic. The topic "ozone," for example, can be content-mapped to tie everything from its basic chemical composition to the sections of the atmosphere it pollutes and the month in which the "ozone hole" expands.
Schools use Cmaps to help students move beyond memorizing facts to see connections among data, enabling creative thinking and problem-solving. Some businesses -- and the military -- use Cmaps to enable key workers to better pass along all their acquired knowledge of a certain job.
The institute provides CmapTools free to education and government users. It had been giving it to businesses but now has licensed Ceryph to sell it to commercial users under the name Insight.
The institute owns 26% of Ceryph stock. The Ceryph deal is the first commercial license for an IHMC product, but Ford says another commercial agreement, for licensing of the institute's Oz cockpit display technology, could come soon. Also in the works: An institute branch in Ocala.
