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Cmap Tools

CmapTools Overview
Setting Up CmapTools
How to Make a Concept Map With Cmap Tools
Adding Resources to Your CMap
Sample Cmaps

Cmap Tools Overview

CmapTools is a free program used by colleges around the world for creating concept maps: graphical tools for organizing and representing our knowledge about a particular issue or system. In CmapTools, concepts (boxes or nouns) are linked together by propositions (lines or verbs) to form a network that visually demonstrates connections between issue components. By creating a visual map of what we know, one can open up new ways of understanding how that system functions and how its components interrelate; this is what distinguishes CmapTools from more traditional (e.g., verbal) modes of thinking and communication.

What's really cool about CmapTools is that you can readily share your Cmaps with anyone online via a Cmap Tools server (we have one at Lewis & Clark). What's more, you can add resource links to your Cmaps so others can access related online material. We'll show you how to do all this below.

CmapTools applies directly to how we learn environmental studies at Lewis & Clark College. Most people think of "environment" as basically the same as nature, but the original meaning of environment is about connection, and we learn that environmental issues cannot be understood and solved without attending to the web of political, biophysical, cultural, economic, and other connections that define these issues. Yet it's too easy just to say "everything is connected to everything else" without explicitly stating how things are connected! CmapTools forces us to be more explicit about how things are connected.

CmapTools is also a good antidote for simplistic treatments of environmental problems and solutions. A lot of environmental issues seem pretty simple on the surface: for example, it is commonly accepted that increased carbon emissions have contributed to global climate change. But in actuality the issue of global climate change is much more complex: it involves a combination of historical precedents, individual needs, cultural values, government regulations, and many other factors. Creating a concept map of the different elements of a particular environmental problem and solution more easily allows us to understand its complexities.

In environmental studies we focus on two methods for organizing Cmaps: ANT and DPSIR. Each method provides a unique way to examine environmental issues and is well suited for visual representation via concept maps. ANT stands for actor-network theory, and helps us understand how environmental issues arise as a result of the relations that define principal human and nonhuman actors at multiple scales. DPSIR is an acronym for a method of environmental analysis adopted by the European Environment Agency and others; each letter stands for a step in the process chain, consisting of (d)rivers, (p)ressures, (s)tates, (i)mpacts, and (r)esponses. DPSIR analysis helps us situate environmental issues in a larger context and appreciate the connections between environmental problems and solutions. Example Cmaps of both are given below.

Setting Up CmapTools

CmapTools can be downloaded in Mac or PC format for free. It is also pre-installed on the Dubach Lab computers, but we strongly recommend installing it on your own computer, as you will need to login and find the Lewis & Clark server each time you use it on a lab computer. When you use it on your own computer you only have to do these things once.

Ready to run CmapTools? Good! But first you need to learn a simple rule: don't save your Cmaps on your computer! Save them on our Lewis & Clark CmapTools server, so you and your teammates can access them from anywhere, and so you can readily share them online. So the first step in creating a CMap is to create a place to save it:

  1. Open CMapTools. If prompted to login, use your LC username and password.
  2. In the Views - CMapTools window click Shared Cmaps in Places. You may want to select Tree View at bottom if the icon view is too big.
  3. If Lewis & Clark is not featured, click Add Place, then select Lewis & Clark on the list. (If you can't find it, you can select Add a Place that is Not on the List, then for Internet Host Name enter enviro.lclark.edu, for Port Number keep it at 4447, and for Web Server Port number use 8002.)
  4. Click on the triangle next to Lewis & Clark College (USA) to expand the folder, then click on the specific course folder to make sure it's highlighted.
  5. Important: now choose File > New Folder to define a new folder. You will save your concept maps and associated resources inside this folder in order to minimize clutter.

How to Make a Concept Map With Cmap Tools

Let's make a concept map! Choose File > New Cmap. A new blank file will appear. First, save this new concept map on the server in the folder you named above:

  1. Choose File > Save Cmap. Important: click the Places icon (the little globe) at upper right to locate the Lewis & Clark Cmap server.
  2. Now save your concept map inside the folder you defined above. Make sure your folder is named next to Location: at top before you save it! In addition to a filename, make sure to add a focus question so others will know what general question your concept map is attempting to answer; the keywords field is optional.

After you've saved your Cmap on the server, you can start building it. Double-click anywhere in the screen to create a box or "concept," and type inside it to name your concept. Click and drag the arrow button that is attached to the concept to create a link or "proposition" to another concept. Keep going! You can easily format your Cmap using the Style palette, and add a legend by creating an unlinked concept.

When you are ready to share your Cmap, simply copy the URL you see to the right of View as Web Page at bottom. As long as you are saving your concept map on the Lewis & Clark server, it is automatically viewable as a web page via this URL.

There are lots of ways to make Cmaps, but we generally require that you follow ANT, DPSIR, or both (see above for an overview). You'll learn the details about ANT and DPSIR in class, but the Cmap procedure is pretty simple.

Basic ANT Procedure (online example)

  1. Create a concept (box) for each major actor in your environmental issue, remembering that each actor is part of a network mixing "natural" and "cultural," "local" and "global."  Possible actors may include:
    • Individuals and communities of humans or nonhumans
    • Organizations and corporations
    • Biophysical processes and forces
    • Social institutions, laws, and policies
    • Governmental relations and political-economic arrangements
    • Technologies and machines
    • Ideas, values, facts, assumptions, emotions
    • Or anything else that intends or achieves action
  2. Create propositions (lines) to specify the relations that connect these actors. (Remember that these relations are rarely stable; perhaps your propositions may specify various possibilities, or you may create multiple Cmaps!)  Major actors will emerge as a function of this network of relations; lessor actors will be specified by different sorts of relations.
  3. Format the color, line style, etc. of your resultant actor-network of concepts and propositions to communicate important information (e.g., more and less powerful actors), then create a legend to convey this formatting to the viewer.

Basic DPSIR Procedure (online example)

  1. Enter major DPSIR elements as concepts (boxes):
    1. Identify one State (a measurable biophysical condition) connected to your environmental issue. (There can be multiple states connected to an environmental issue, but to keep things simple we generally start with just one state.)
    2. List the major Pressures (direct causes) responsible for this State.
    3. List the major Drivers (root causes) responsible for the Pressures.
    4. List the major Impacts (positive or negative) of the State.
    5. List all the Responses (policy or other) to any of the above.
  2. Now connect these concepts where applicable using lines (propositions), making sure to verbally clarify how they connect.
  3. Arrange the elements in a top-down or left-right DPSI flow. Responses may be located next to the related element they directly address, but should also ideally connected to the Impacts that motivate them.
  4. Now format concepts and propositions to communicate important information. Generally, we use red-orange-green-blue-yellow to denote the DPSIR sequence, bold lines to denote important connections, and dashed lines to denote connections where we may be lacking complete knowledge. Create a legend to convey this formatting to the viewer.

Adding Resources to Your Cmap

Is there an organizational website, an online publication, or other online resource you can use to provide further information on the concepts and propositions in your Cmap? It's easy to add them: all you need to do it drag the URL from your browser (just click on the little icon to the left of the URL and drag it!) onto your Cmap element of choice. When prompted, make the Resource Name a short descriptive phrase; it will show up when you click on the resource in your Cmap. The other fields are optional. Important: If the resource is a scholarly publication, link to its Watzek WorldCat reference just as you'd do with a Delicious resource.

Sample Cmaps

The ENVS Program stores sample Cmaps in its Student Scholarship wiki. Click here to see a selection of featured Cmaps.

Below are two Cmaps demonstrating how to apply ANT and DPSIR. Click on either for a larger image, or if you'd like to see the online version complete with functional links, click to access the ANT and DPSIR versions. Both consider the case of Columbia Slough floodplain management from these two differing approaches. Flood control on the Slough is vital for industry given its proximity to the mighty Columbia River, but its effects on nonhuman species is variable, with some benefiting and others losing their seasonally wet habitat. ANT and DPSIR may help us understand the interplay of floodplain and species management on the Columbia Slough.

The first example applies ANT analysis. As you can see here and online, the more powerful actors are defined by the more significant relations that connect them, which tends to support the basic premise of actor-network theory. In this simplified example, the Columbia Slough Watershed Council does its best to work with existing business interests and the Multnomah County Drainage District in protecting or restoring habitat for nonhuman species, but given the powerful connections between the Columbia River, Columbia Slough businesses, the MCDD, and water control structures like dikes and pump stations the status of nonhuman species is less significant, and probably will continue to be unless these or other actors construct stronger connections with them. This brief take on these actors and their interrelations is readily depicted in the formatting of this Cmap.


The second example applies DPSIR analysis. As you see below and online, the whole issue arises from the interplay of Oregon's desire for economic development set against the Columbia River's potential to flood. These come together via the industrial sanctuary designation of the Slough, which then leads to flood control structures and operations designed to maintain this DPSIR's state, Columbia Slough water level, to an acceptably low value so that industrial structures remain dry. The impacts are (at least) twofold: industrial land is protected, but certain native species may have historically been threatened as well. Though ecological restoration efforts are underway and making some gains, there may be two reasons why these native species aren't being fully recovered, as noted in the DPSIR. First, the feedback loop connecting industry and flood control is a more significant one than that connecting loss and restoration of native species. Second, the latter subsystem includes connections that are less well substantiated: precisely which species inhabited the Slough prior to flood control in the early 20th century? are recovery and restoration efforts significantly boosting numbers of the most impacted species, or are they just restoring those species that can survive the transformed floodplain? The DPSIR Cmap is formatted to suggest these basic considerations.



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