This book presents current research and development work in the fields of knowledge visualization and information visualization. In addition to revised reviewed papers presented at an international workshop on Visual Artefacts for the Organization of Information and Knowledge held in Tübingen, Germany in May 2004, invited papers from leading experts are included to round off coverage of relevant aspects.
The 19 chapters presented together with an introductory overview are organized in topical sections on background, knowledge visualization, information visualization, visualizing knowledge and information for fostering learning and instruction, and knowledge-oriented organization of information for fostering information use.
Our present-day society is witnessing an explosion of information and knowledge and an increasing complexity of subject matter in many domains. Influenced by the changes in the amount and complexity of knowledge and information, as well as changes in requirements for coping effectively with increasingly complex tasks, a change in the culture of learning and working is taking place (e.g. Schnurer, Stark & Mandl, 2003). Traditional strategies of learning for comprehension and retention are no longer the central goals in learning and instruction. Learning content is often complex, ill-structured, represented in different information repositories, not pre-selected and pre-designed, and sometimes has to be searched for by the learners themselves (Rakes, 1996; http://stauffer.queensu.ca/inforef/tutorials/rbl/).