Topic Maps
From Collaboratory
Topic Maps provide a method for categorizing content. They consist of topics, occurrences, and associations. Topics are exactly what they sound like. Occurrences are places where topics are mentioned. For example, an occurrence of the topic Eugene Eric Kim would be Eugene's home page. Associations describe the relationships between topics. For example, Eugene Eric Kim isA Person, where "isA" is an association.
The various TopicMaps specifications (such as XTM) include mechanisms for defining scope and merging different maps.
TopicMaps are graphs. Wikis, coincidentally, are also graphs. Wikis can be used to generate TopicMaps, or at least TopicMap-like structures. This is very much how this Wiki is used. See WikisAsTopicMaps for a more extensive discussion of this.
References
A good introduction to Topic Maps, with references, is at:
TM4J is an open source Java Topic Map engine. Its web site is a good example of how Topic Maps can provide an alternative way to navigate a web site.
Also see:
Peter Jones posted a good explanation to the tools-yak mailing list called The Abridged "Understanding Topic Maps", Part I.
