WIP: Concept Maps for Computer Organization: A Systematic Study

This research-to-practice WIP paper describes concept maps for computer organization. A concept map is a tool that can be used to describe the relationship between the topics (or concepts) in a specific field of study. Concept maps are used in a variety of applications to improve curricula and assessment, particularly in K12 and undergraduate STEM education. In this paper we use concept maps for modeling computer organization topics and assess their importance with respect to the depth and breadth levels required for computer science and engineering graduates. The proposed concept maps focus on two aspects: The first one is the idea of the centrality of the topics. Centrality is an important concept in graph theory. Each topic in the concept map is given a level of centrality or a centrality index. The second aspect is the relationship between the topics, particularly between the topics with high level of centrality. The objective of the modeling is to identify the most central topics and come up with a set of more standard learning outcomes for undergraduate level computer organization courses.