Nexus
What is NeXus?
NeXus is a simple concept-mapping program.
What are concept maps?
The short answer: Concept maps are diagrams that represent the relationships between various concepts. Concepts are often represented as text boxes and relationships by links, which may include arrows in one or both directions as well as labels that describe the nature of the relationship.
The long answer: see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concept_map.
When should I use Nexus?
Nexus has been specifically designed to support Medical students' problem based learning (PBL) activities. As part of the PBL process, students frequently create 'mechanism' diagrams (concept maps) on the whiteboard. These diagrams are usually transcribed to paper by one member of the tutorial group, then at some later time reconstructed in a MS Word document (or similar) and distributed to the other members of the group. Nexus is intended to replace or supplement the transcription and reconstruction steps of this process – the Nexus design team believe Nexus is much better suited to creating these types of diagrams than Word processors or most of the other software tools PBL students currently use. Note that Nexus is not intended to replace the whiteboard as the primary means for creating mechanism diagrams or scoping the problem at hand.
Example concept map created with Nexus
Of course, you are free to use Nexus in any other context and for any purpose that you find useful.
How much does NeXus cost?
Nexus is free to all University of Melbourne students and staff.
What are NeXus' system requirements?
Nexus will run on any Windows computer running Windows 2000 or later or any Macintosh running OS 10.3 or later. A minimum screen resolution of 800 x 600 is recommended.
Where do I get NeXus?
Right here! Click one of the links below to download Nexus (you may need to unzip the archive if your browser isn't configured to do this automatically).
Download Nexus for Windows: Nexus 1.0 (Win).zip (1.12 MB)
Download Nexus for MacOSX: Nexus 1.0 (Mac).zip (1.88 MB)
How do I get started with NeXus?
The Nexus zip archive includes a sample concept map (sample map.nxm). You can open this file by double-clicking it directly or by launching Nexus and opening it from there. The sample map illustrates and lets you try out many of Nexus' features. Nexus also includes a help window that provides more detailed instructions on all of its major features.
Is support available for NeXus?
Limited support is available to all University of Melbourne users of Nexus. Email your query, bug report or feature request to nexus-support@unimelb.edu.au.
Who created NeXus?
Nexus was created by the following team:
Design: Dr Terry Judd, Dr Michael Lew & Dr Gregor Kennedy
Programming: Dr Terry Judd & Dr Michael Lew
Evaluation: Dr Gregor Kennedy
Icon design: William Lee
Testing: Wai Chan
The development of Nexus was supported by the Biomedical Multimedia Unit, through its EOI program.