Academic assignment meets health information organizer (The freshly-minted MBA)

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The freshly-minted MBA

Bryan is a senior manager who recently qualified as an MBA. During the course, he was given a very tough assignment - to analyze the business opportunities and related ethical considerations arising from cancer in society.

Using 3D Topicscape, he researched and planned this major paper for submission to the professor supervising the Marketing segment. This shows the Topicscape at a late stage.

His first step was to think the subject through -- using 3D Topicscape he built a concept map in 3D (similar to a mind map) of the topics related to the needs of cancer sufferers and their families. After organizing his ideas, he conducted the research that he felt was needed, grouping all the findings (web pages, notes and document references) in the same Topicscape, while modifying it extensively as new information came to light. When most of the research was complete, he prepared an outline structure for the paper in the same Topicscape. Then while writing the paper he would have the Topicscape on the screen with the topic "Paper: Structure" as the current topic. This structure is carried through to the document itself.

The paper is almost complete when he came across a new article on Hospice and Palliative Care. Moving his mouse so that the cursor is near the Research area, he calls up the Enlarger. Dragging it around, he can see that there is nothing about hospices, though "Cancer support and care" would be an appropriate parent topic - in other words, the topic that would include a sub-topic: 'Hospice care'.

He makes that topic current by selecting the first item
from the menu (though he could just click on the topic).

The landscape is redrawn around "Cancer support and care".

Then, to see what, if anything, he has about hospices he types Hospice* (in 3D Topicscape there is no need to invoke a special search function) and sees that the only mention is under insurance cover. So with that web page in his browser he drags the icon (sometimes called the 'favicon') to the Topicscape landscape and it offers to make a new topic for him. He names this "Hospice care" and drags this to be a child of "Cancer Support and care background". He goes on to do a click-and-drag from that to the insurance item and selects from the menu of options that pops up that it will be a child. The new structure looks like this:

Hospice Care appears under "Cancer Support and care background", and "Hospice benefit" is under "Hospice Care" with "Potential insurance benefits" automatically appearing as a second parent.
Opening the topic, he double-clicks on the new item. After reading the article, Bryan decides that this is a significant area that he has not covered sufficiently and that it will need to appear in the references. He copies the occurrence from "Hospice care" and pastes it to 10. References. This is what he sees if he enters the topic cone - the files and notes collected as references. He has chosen colors to indicate relevance and use.

There are now two occurrences with the same name and content, but they point to only one file. Bryan then sets to work, augmenting his paper.

Bryan used 3D Topicscape as his central tool in planning and gathering materials for his tough assignment, and deciding how he would write it up and present it. Having well-organized reference materials helped enormously in preparing the reference citations. Topicscape is particularly helpful in recording when an occurrence is made, so the academic convention that web references should record not only the source but the date of access. You need to use 3D Topicscape yourself to truly understand how it can become the core of your work to prepare an assignment.

Download Topicscape now, and have that experience yourself. Want more information first? You can go to our overview of 3D Topicscape.

Or to the Topicscape Pro User Guide to dig down for more detail.