What's a SOCME?

A SOCME, or System-Oriented Concept Map Extension, is a way to visualize the components and interactions of a system using a concept map. A “system” can be thought of as any collection of components that interact with each other. These could be anything from atoms to oceans to food security. (In fact, it can be very important to include such a wide range of concepts in a SOCME!) The interactions and relationships between components are shown by labelled arrows. SOCMEs also group concepts into subsystems (that’s the “extension”), which help to define the system and its boundaries. By describing the system in terms of subsystems and components, and by explicitly labeling the relationships and interactions between components, SOCMEs are designed to promote systems thinking.

SOCME diagrams were first introduced in 2019, in an article in the journal Nature Sustainability (Mahaffy, P. G., Matlin, S. A., Holme, T. A., MacKellar. J. (2019) Systems thinking for educating about the molecular basis of sustainability. Nature Sustainability, 2, 362-370. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-019-0285-3)