Prior learning assessment (PLA) students enter academia with different types of concepts--some of them have been formally accepted and labeled by academia and others are informally formulated by students via independent and/or experiential learning. The critical goal of PLA practices is to assess an intricate combination of prior learning conceptualizations and structural organizations of these conceptualizations. In this article, the authors offer a tool that has been used in traditional education practices and has a great potential to be adopted and adapted to PLA practices: concept mapping (Canas et al., 2004; Novak & Gowin, 1984). Concept mapping is a visual (and can be used as interactive) representation of a student's cognitive structures. Concept mapping prompts learners to structure, organize, and demonstrate individual understanding of relational connections between various elements of learning. The authors will further present a brief overview of concept mapping applications in higher education, demonstrate concept mapping features and their implications for assessment purposes, and conclude with a summary of their work on developing concept mapping applications unique to PLA practices. (Contains 3 figures and 2 footnotes.)