An Intelligent Information Management Tool for Complex Distributed Human Collaboration

Managing information collaboratively in an open and unbounded environment without an information management application influenced and challenged the users actions and cognitive abilities, hence collaborative information management behaviour (CIMB). This issue motivated us to investigate distributed synchronous CIMB to deduce criteria for the design of an intelligent information management application that supports interconnectivity and human collaboration in such an environment. We developed a model to understand CIMB based on qualitative and quantitative findings, which emerged from four video recordings. These findings revealed that CIMB manifests itself in five behavioural stages: Initiation, Identification, Formulation, Structuring and Decision Making. Thus, an application for open information management should support human-to-computer and human-to-human interaction, should facilitate the behavioural stages users went during an information selection task and should sustain cognitive abilities. This chapter proposes the design for such an application, which supports users actions and cognitive abilities required to manage information collaboratively in an open and unbounded environment