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This column aims to explore the potential of personal information management (PIM) and reference management. It focuses on combining the use of PIM and reference management software with mind maps to stimulate the creative and innovative use of information collected

Following a brief review of the literature on the topic per se, awareness is raised of appropriate software and the potential of mind maps. The column is written against the background of research from information behaviour, PIM, mind maps, creativity, innovation and the reflective and evidence‐focused librarian.

There is growing emphasis on more than information literacy skills and the responsible use of information. Creative and innovative use of information is stressed. More intensive use and exploitation of information is necessary to justify the time and effort spent in using PIM and reference management software. Mind maps and collaboration might support creative and innovative use of information, and need to be further exploited. Although software is strong in supporting collaboration, there is very limited built‐in support for the combination of features for information and reference management with features for mind maps.

Although much has been published on developments in PIM and reference management, there is limited coverage of combining PIM and reference management with the use of mind maps and creativity, reflection and noting evidence.

Mind mapping can be a pedagogical tool that helps students brainstorm how to organize information in a way that incorporates creative and active learning, as well as critical thinking. In this article, we describe the application of using mind maps in an undergraduate course focused on teaching leadership theory as an effort to help students think more holistically about how theories intersect with their lives. The assignment description, rubric, and details of the application are provided. Examples of ways students have organized their maps to integrate theories into their lives (e.g., based on themselves, organizations, or metaphors) are also included. Through this practice, we found that mind mapping leadership concepts to areas of students’ lives develop their ability to describe how leadership theories operate holistically in their life, rather than limiting their understanding to one or two popular theories. We recommend leadership educators consider mind mapping as a pedagogical tool to teach theories and other content that require understanding in a broader context.

Developed by Tony Buzan in 1970, mind mapping is a revolutionary system for capturing ideas and insights horizontally on a sheet of paper. This paper illustrates the technique of mind mapping, and highlights its specific applications in a variety of contexts based on our work in executive education and in management development consulting. Positive outcomes of the approach are described as well as reactions of executive students to mind mapping. We conclude with a rationale of why we believe mind mapping works with executives.

The purpose of this paper is to exploit student preference and propose, discuss and experimentally validate a strategy that aims to reduce time necessary to introduce tutoring of mind mapping to engineering students.

A survey instrument was designed and used to collect student preferences about mind mapping. Preferences were linked to alternative scenarios of mind mapping deployment. Survey responses from a 100 second‐year students from the Department of Production Engineering and Management were analyzed using conjoint analysis.

Results indicate that an effective strategy to present mind mapping to engineering students is to explain in detail all the possible applications of mind mapping; present mind maps with different colours using both words and drawings and encourage students to use mind maps in team assignments.

The findings of this paper provide a well documented framework in addressing mind mapping technique to engineering students. The proposed framework tries to make the best use of the available time for creativity development programs, in engineering departments. This framework may also be applied to other creativity enhancing techniques, providing solutions for incorporating creativity in engineering curricula.

The purpose of this paper is to study the effectiveness of using mind mapping as a methodology to help students to plan effectively for a writing task under an assessment situation.

The methodology included a variety of qualitative data collection techniques such as interviews, mind map analysis, observation checklist and reflective journal.

Evidence and research outcomes suggested that mind mapping did help students to plan and organize their ideas for writing tasks under exam conditions.

A major limitation of the research was that the duration of the research was very short. The turnaround time between the introduction of mind mapping, the implementation of the author's teaching strategies and the final mock examination was just a matter of weeks. The results may be more significant if the same students were retested in six months and again in one year, and this would help the author's research to be more reliable.

This research has shown the effectiveness of using mind mapping as a planning tool and offers practical help for teachers who teach writing skills in upper English as a foreign language classrooms.

Explains the theory of mind mapping, how to construct a mind map and the situations in which it may be useful. Highlights the effectiveness of the technique in getting to the heart of a matter. Shows how it can be used to improve note‐taking and presentations, and to make meetings more effective. Concludes by examining the potential uses of mind mapping in life‐management.

Exploratory learning is regarded as an important ability for developing knowledge from open environments. During the exploration, learners not only need to acquire new information based on their current interests, but also they need to form new perspectives by incorporating new knowledge into their previous knowledge. This paper seeks to address these issues.

To this end, this paper proposes an approach that includes a concept association bank to recommend related concepts in a domain based on the goal of an exploration. By doing so, learners' knowledge can be expanded beyond their current understanding. An experiment was conducted to investigate how the proposed approach facilitated the learners' exploration.

The results indicated that the concept association bank is a useful mechanism to help learners gain new understanding, including providing exploration directions, reducing complexity and cognitive load, facilitating data‐ and goal‐driven exploration strategies, and commenting on new understanding. The implications of these results are discussed.

Current recommendation systems emphasise a data‐driven strategy, which seeks isolated pieces of information, instead of suggesting directions related to their exploration goal. The problem with such an approach is that learners' exploration will be limited by their existing knowledge. Thus, this paper presents an approach to support both data‐ and goal‐driven strategies.

The purpose of this study is to explore the use of iMindMap software as an interactive tool in the teaching and learning method and also to be able to consider iMindMap as an alternative instrument in achieving the ultimate learning outcome.

Out of 268 students of the management accounting at the University of Technology MARA (Terengganu), 97 students have participated in this survey to evaluate the effectiveness of iMindMap in teaching and learning.

Results indicate that the majority of the students acknowledged that iMindMap is more attractive than conventional teaching methods and found that iMindMap shows clearly how the points are all associated and linked together. Students could find that learning is an exciting experience and were able to visualize the whole course content remarkably via iMindMap.

This study presents an alternative instrument, which is innovative and interactive in teaching and learning, especially for accounting students where the students’ technology acceptance could also be viewed.

The aim of this paper is to research the difference in reading and learning from print versus electronic media in a professional and educational setting. To what extent does the materiality of the medium influence the efficiency and effectively of the reader? What is needed to create “digital born” information rich texts? In part 2 changing presentations of educational texts on paper, LCD screen and through a mind map are addressed.

In depth comparative tests with a great number of subjects between print-on-paper, e-ink screens and LCD screens. In part 2 the results of learning from differently structured texts from paper, screen and mind maps respectively are reported. The subjects had to read the texts and subsequently had to answer knowledge questions about the content. Group discussions have been carried out thorough the test.

All tests show that print-on-paper is still a superior medium for learning and digesting complicated and elaborate texts, while electronic screens are appreciated for quick information gathering, communication and navigation. Electronic representations of information and knowledge demands that the structure of the writing has to change.

Given the rapid development in electronic displays, many issues – in particular ergonomical – become a “moving target”. An important limitation – which is one of the quests of this research – is the lack of sufficient genuine digital born texts.

The need is to start and review the writing process; the appearance but also the structure of information and knowledge rich texts. A second issue is the need to develop easy capabilities to make electronic texts as easy a “tool” as the print text with underlining, comments and notes.

This is deep qualitative research in comparison with quantitative tests and a comparison between professional information acquisition and learning

The paper aims to highlight how the global head of learning at Thomson Reuters uses mind maps to keep track of the different threads and aspects of training throughout the worldwide, 50,000‐employee company.

The paper explains how mind maps work and describes how computer software can improve their efficiency.

The paper details the way in which software can help in searching for the most relevant or up‐to‐date file, since all relevant documents, presentations, pictures and so on can be attached to the map. It shows that the maps themselves can be exported to programs such as Microsoft Office, PowerPoint or Project, and that the manager, or an individual team member, can break down the big picture by selecting filters – for example, to look at just one person's tasks and deadlines or to pick up on the next set of priorities.

The paper describes how Thomson Reuters is creating a one‐stop shop for all the rules and structures used for buying and selling financial instruments in different countries, where people can check the rules, find what rules might apply to new products by reference to similar products or cross‐reference the rules in different jurisdictions.

The paper provides an example of training and development in a very topical sector.