In his article on "node-link mapping principles for visualizing knowledge and information", Donald Dansereau describes the Texas Christian University Node-Link Mapping (TCU-NLM) system, and traces its empirical and applied history from 1972 to the present. The TCU approach is an extension of the traditional concept mapping approach aimed at visualizing knowledge. Concept maps are used to represent a person’s (a user’s/learner’s, or an expert’s) structure of ideas, thoughts, concepts, and content knowledge about a domain in a visual-spatial format.

This chapter describes the Texas Christian University Node-Link Mapping (TCU-NLM) system, and traces its empirical and applied history from 1972 to the present. TCU-NLM, which consists of information, guide, and freestyle maps, has been explored in the areas of education, counseling, and business. Principles derived from experiences with this system are presented in four categories: goal specification, node-link infrastructure, spatial organization, and map processing. Implications of these principles for both knowledge and information visualization are discussed.