Basic Processes Knowledge Mapping I: Creating Family Nets with SemNet® Teacher's Guide
Time		2 hours 20 minutes; we normally allow an entire class period for getting familiar with the software and constructing family nets. To prepare for this lab, please download the SemNet software, 'SemNet® 1.1 B14c', and the Family Relations Net, '1.4d1 KM.CreatFamily.TG', by clicking on the button below. SemNet runs on any Macintosh with system 7 or higher. Unfortunately, there is currently no IBM version available. These files are self-extracting archives. After the download and decompression has finished, you can discard the files ending in ".sea.hqx' and '.sea". Click on the button to download: (253K) Load the software and files onto each computer to be used by students. You may also give copies of the SemNet software and related files to students who have their own Macintosh computers or clones. You may want to have a copy of the SemNet User Guide for reference. This is a draft guide in which the text is fairly current with all the latest changes in the software (although not yet proofed), while the screen images are from a previous version of the software. If you would like to download the SemNet User Guide, click below. This is a large file (about 612 K) and requires a fair amount of download time. Click here to download:
Background Information		Introduction Until now the knowledge mapping exercises have been done with paper and pencil. From here on, we will use a Macintosh-based tool, SemNet, to support our learning exercises. In this exercise, you will construct a family tree as a means of becoming acquainted with the software. Your family tree should contain at least 30 people if possible. There are numerous advantages to using the software for this purpose: the fact that the user can think about the ideas during net creation while the software takes care of the more tedious aspects, the ability to incorporate more ideas than one can include in a concept map, the opportunity to think about distinguishing features of a concept, the ability to edit easily, the ability to search for and find ideas, and more.
Powerful Idea		Relations A relation describes a connection between two concepts. In the figure below, the central concept John F. Kennedy, is connected to related concepts Joseph Kennedy and Rose Fitzgerald by the relation has parent. It is important to realize that every relation is bi-directional or asymmetric. That is, if John F. Kennedy has parent Rose Fitzgerald, then Rose Fitzgerald has offspring John F. Kennedy. Relations are the most challenging part of representing knowledge. This is partly because we pay much more attention to concepts (noun ideas) than we do to the verbs that connect them. In biology, we have a well-developed, specialized jargon of nouns, but very little consensus on the words we use to link ideas together. We use 'generic' relations such as 'has spouse' in the family net because things get very complicated if you begin using the more specific relations such as 'has husband' and 'has wife'. Generic relations a slightly less satisfying but much easier to use. Remember, each relation can be used many times.
Figure 1. John F. Kennedy SemNet Frame
		The first net you will create contains seven existing relations. Two relations are asymmetric, meaning that different words are used to describe the relation in each direction (Table 1). Five relations are symmetric, meaning the same name can be used to describe the link in both directions (Table 2). Each half of the relation in asymmetric relations (relation ray) and each symmetric relation points in a particular direction on the screen, indicated by a clock setting. For example, in the frame above, 'has parent' points up to 12 o'clock and 'has child' points down to 6 o'clock. The relation, 'has sibling', is set at 3:00 but appears higher because of the list of siblings below it (the actual position in this case is automatically adjusted by the software). Each relation can be used many times. Table 1. Asymmetric Relations   1st Relation Ray Direction 2nd Relation Ray Direction 1. has child 6 o'clock has parent 12 o'clock 2. has step-child 5 o'clock has step-parent 1 o'clock Table 2. Symmetric Relations 3. has spouse 9 o'clock 4. has significant other 8 o'clock 5. has former spouse 10 o'clock 6. has sibling 3 o'clock 7. has step-sibling 4 o'clock
Exercise 1		Getting Started
To Do		1.	Open the file named 'Family Relations' by double-clicking on the file
		2.	Select the 'Save As' command on the File menu.
		3.	Type the name of your net in the box. The name may have three parts. If you are part of a group, type your group number first. Then enter a space and type your last name. Then enter the word 'Family'. For example, 5 Smith Family  or   1 Jones Family Click on OK. Many students, especially those who are active 'meaning-makers', look at the SemNet software and immediately make sense of it. Others find it very opaque at first. They often perceive each screen to be an individual unit of material, not part of a larger network. They also have difficulty understanding why we limit family descriptions to nuclear families, moving through the network to find other relations. The reason for doing this is to introduce the idea of hierarchical structure, a very important feature of biology nets. It can be helpful to give your students an exercise with the Kennedy family net prior to their constructing their own family tree. To obtain this optional exercise (in Word 5.1) and the Kennedy Family Net (a SemNet file), click here. (65 K) It can be helpful to give your students an exercise with the kennedy family net prior to their constructing their own family tree. To obtain this optional exercise (in Word 5.1 for the Macintosh or Word 6 for Windows) and the Kennedy Family Net (a SemNet File) click below (65K).
Exercise 2		Creating A Family Net
		1.	An empty oval should appear in the center of your screen.
To Do		2.	Select 'Create' on the Instance menu.
		3.	A dialog box will appear. A cursor should be blinking in the first of three boxes. Type your first and last name (for example: Jane Smith). If you are married, include your maiden name as well, as in Jane Smith Moro. Backspace and correct if you make an error. There is a 31-character limit. It is possible to create a new concept, and or a new relation, in the process of creating an instance. In creating family nets, students will be creating many new concepts (which appear initially as related concepts.)
Figure 2. Dialog Box for Creating an Instance
To Do		4.	Next, click and hold on the down arrow at the end of the second box. Move your cursor along the pop-up menu of relation rays and select 'has parent'. It will appear in the second or middle box.
		5.	Press the tab key on your keyboard once and the cursor will move to the lower box. Type in your father's full name.
		6.	Check to see if all spelling is correct. If it is not, tab to the appropriate box and make necessary corrections. Then click on 'OK'.
Background		7.	The computer may give you a message asking if it should strip blanks from one of the names you entered. If this occurs, click on the 'Strip' button. (People sometimes inadvertently type blank spaces before or after a name -- since these can be very confusing, the computer removes them).
Results		8.	You have now entered your first instance, which will appear graphically with your name as the central concept and your father's name as the related concept above it.
To Do		9.	Double click on your father's name to see 'the other half' of this instance. That is, your father's name will appear in the center of the screen, and your name will appear below linked by the relation, 'has child'. 'Has child' is the other half of the relation, 'has parent'. These two phrases describe the relation between you and your father from your two different perspectives.
		10.	Double click on your name, making it the central concept again, and continue.
		11.	Go to the Instance menu and select 'Create'. Your name and the relation 'has parent' should appear in the first two boxes. (If they don't, enter them as before). Watch the screen and allow the automatic 'Name Completion' to enter your name after you have typed in the first letter. Tab to the lower box and enter your mother's full name, with her first name, maiden name, and last name if space permits (up to 31 characters). If the lower box has a name in it (such as yours) that is highlighted, you can either type your mother's name over the highlighted selection, or you can press the delete key and then enter your data.
To Do		12.	Now create instances linking your name to your siblings, step-siblings, step-parents, spouse(s), children and any other members of your immediate family or significant other. Allow Name Completion and the pop-up menu of relations to help you as much as possible. Be sure to use the relations shown below exactly as they appear on this list. Do not add new relations. Note that this does not permit you to connect grandparents and cousins directly to you. You must go through the net -- for example, move to your mother to see your maternal grandparents, and to your father to see you paternal grandparents.
Figure 3. Jane smith's Nuclear Family.
To Do		13.	When you have finished connecting the members of your nuclear family to your name, systematically move to each family member, by double clicking on their name to make it the central concept, and complete their nuclear families.
To Do		14.	Continue, creating as complete a family tree as possible in the time allotted. You should have at least 30 concepts (people) if possible.
		15.	Before continuing, read the general rules below.
Background Information		General Rules
		1.	You may NOT use a given concept name (person's name) to designate more than one person. You cannot have two different concepts (people) with identical names. Use middle initials, nicknames, or other devices to distinguish between members of your family who have the same name.
To Do		2.	You can use a relation many times. Always be sure to enter the relation exactly as it appears above, using the pop-up menu.
		3.	Do NOT delete a relation or delete a concept without being very sure this is what you want to do. You may delete an instance readily, as an instance is simply a single connection between two concepts. Stated another way, deleting a concept or relation can result in changes throughout your network, whereas deleting an instance affects only a single frame.
To Do		4.	When entering a concept or relation that has already been created, take care to be precise, typing it EXACTLY as it was originally entered (computers need precision). Allow Name Completion to help you with the typing as much as possible.
		5.	If you should inadvertently enter a given person in two different ways, such as Dave Smith and David Smith, you can merge the two representations. To do so, select 'Jump' from the Move menu and enter the name you want to use less frequently, such as Dave Smith. Then select 'Merge' on the Concept menu. In this dialog, enter the name that data is to be merged from (in this example, Dave Smith) in the first box and the name that the data is to be merged into (David Smith) and click OK. All of the instances (linked concepts) connected to Dave Smith will now be attached to David Smith, and Dave Smith will appear as a synonym for David Smith. To see the synonym, click on the squiggle to the bottom left of David Smith.
Exercise 3		Reviewing Net Content
To Do		1.	Review your family net by going to the Move menu and selecting 'Traverse'. Make no changes to the default settings except to check the Ask About Each One box.
		2.	As you review each family member, make a written note about any additions or changes that are needed. Click on the 'OK' button when you have finished reviewing each family member. Click on 'Done' if you want to interrupt the review and 'Back' if you want to see a previous screen.
To Do		3.	When you have completed your review, make any corrections that are needed as indicated below.
Exercise 4		Editing Your Net
To Do		1.	To change the spelling of a name 1a. Go to the Move menu and select 'Jump'. Type in the name you wish to correct as it currently appears in the net. This will move you to that name in the network. 1b. Click once on the name to select it. 1c. Select 'Edit Concept' from the Concept menu. 1d. Correct the name and click on OK.
		2.	To change an Instance (If you have connected two people with an incorrect relation), jump to the name of one person (concept ) in the instance so that person becomes the central concept and then select the other person (related concept ) by clicking once on the name to highlight it and ... 2a. If the instance is backward (with the relation pointing in the wrong direction), choose 'Flip' from the Instance menu. 2b. If the instance is incorrect, select 'Delete [that instance]' from the Instance menu.
		3.	The general rule is that, if you want to change an instance, you must first select that instance by making one of its concepts the central concept and selecting the other related concept.
Exercise 5		Overview of Your Net Parameters
Figure 4. "About Net" from Display Menu.
To Do		1.	Select 'About Net' from the Display menu. The example above comes from a family tree describing former President Kennedy's family. The About Net dialog provides a valuable first step in assessing a semantic network. Quality of student nets is highly (but not universally) correlated with size. Thus, the relative size of the net (xk) and the total number of concepts in the net is informative. A robust net will have many more instances than concepts; for college students in introductory biology, the ratio of instances to concepts may typically range from 1.3 to 2.0. If the ratio is 1.0 or less, there is a problem with the net. The center section of this dialog organizes concepts by the number of instances in which they participate. Concepts with zero connections are not included with the network and should be reviewed. We pay particular attention to the proportion of concepts with 3 or more connections, because this seems to be the minimum number of connections for achieving a minimal description. While 83% of the concepts in the Kennedy net meet this criterion, you will rarely encounter as many as 50% in a biology net. The higher this proportion in a student net, the greater the net quality, usually. The last section "Maximums" gives the most developed concept (having the greatest number of links to other concepts), the most embedded concept (having the largest number of paths to two nodes away), and the most used relation. When you begin looking at biology nets, these elements.
Question		2.	In this net there are 65 concepts, 4 relations, and 231 instances (concept-relation-concept links), as indicated in the first section labeled 'Net Elements'. How many of each element are in your net? # Concepts __________ # Relations __________ # Instances __________
Data Collection		3.	Of the 65 concepts in the Kennedy family, there is one with zero instances connected to it (undesirable! - this concept is not connected to anything else in the net), 10 concepts with 1-2 connections, 54 concepts with 3 or more connections, 29 concepts with 6 or more connections, 23 concepts with 10 or more connections, and 1 concept with 20 or more connections. How connected are the concepts in your net? Table 2. "About Net" Data for Your Family Net. # Instances # Concepts % of Total Concepts 0     1-2     3 or more     6 or more     10 or more     20 or more
Question		4.	In the Kennedy net, the most developed concept (that is, the one with the greatest number of instances) is Robert Kennedy with 22 instances. Can you count them in the image below? The same concept is also the most embedded, with 283 different paths to two nodes (two concepts) away. The most used relation is has sibling/has sibling, which was used 121 times.
Figure 5. Robert Kennedy Nuclear Family.
Data Collection		5.	What are the maximums in your net? Most developed concept: ____________ with ____________ Instances Most embedded concept: ____________ with ____________ paths Most used relation: ____________ used ____________ times