Learn Mapping in 30 Minutes

The start-from-zero problem

You look at your curriculum. All the content is there — and there is so much of it — but you have absolutely no idea how to map it.

This is the most common experience new users have, and it has nothing to do with the tool. It's a thinking problem, not a software problem. The tool works fine — your brain just hasn't shifted into “mapping mode” yet.

That's it. Honestly, that's the whole secret. The rest of this tutorial is just showing you how to do that for your specific situation.

Step 1: Find your “things”

These become nodes

A node is just a dot on the map. Each dot represents one “thing.” In curriculum work, things are usually:

• —Learning outcomes (e.g. "Students will be able to apply the chain rule")
• —Courses (e.g. "Calculus I", "Introduction to Ethics")
• —Modules or units within a course
• —Accreditation standards (e.g. "ABET Criterion 3a")
• —Assessments, assignments, and other learning resources

Step 2: Find your connections

These become edges

An edge is a line between two nodes. It means “these two things are related.” The label on the line tells you how they're related.

Edges come in two flavors:

In curriculum work, common relationships are:

Wording matters

For directed edges, the way you phrase the label determines which node the arrow points from and which it points to. The same real-world relationship can be expressed two different ways — and each gives you a different arrow:

Both diagrams below describe the same fact — Calc I must come before Calc II — but the label wording flips the direction of the arrow entirely.

Neither phrasing is wrong. But you should pick one convention and stick to it throughout your map. Most curriculum maps use the subject-as-source style: “X requires Y” means X is the thing that has the requirement, so the arrow starts at X.

Step 3: Organize into groups

These become clusters on your map

Most curricula have natural containers — departments hold courses, courses hold modules, modules hold learning outcomes. In Outcomap, these containers are called groups.

Groups aren't drawn as lines. Instead, they visually pull related nodes together so that the map doesn't look like a random tangle. Think of them as the “zip codes” of your map — they tell you which neighborhood a node lives in.

Groups can be nested. A Department can contain Courses, which contain Modules, which contain Learning Outcomes. Outcomap handles up to three levels of nesting.

Step 4: Putting it together

Let's take a real-looking example and see how it transforms from a spreadsheet into a map.

Imagine you have a spreadsheet with columns: Course, Learning Outcome, Prerequisite(s). It works fine for storage — but it's nearly impossible to see the shape of your curriculum. Where does the knowledge start? Where does it lead? Which outcomes are prerequisites for many others?

The map on the right contains exactly the same data. But now you can instantly see the flow from foundational concepts to advanced ones — and spot where cross-course dependencies exist (the dashed grey line).

In this map, the things are the learning outcomes (circles). The connections are the prerequisite arrows. The groups are the courses (dashed boxes).

Step 5: Use AI to build it in Outcomap

Now that you know what your nodes, edges, and groups are, it's time to hand your content to Outcomap's AI. Paste in a syllabus, course description, accreditation document, or even a rough set of notes. The AI reads it and generates the nodes, edges, and groups for you — giving you a working first draft in seconds that you can then refine.

Once you have a map…

Next steps

You now have everything you need to build your first map. Here's where to go from here: