Information Workspaces

Information workspaces are the interfaces we use to access and manage information resources. Information workspaces currently used for managing digital information include the file system and email system. There is very little systematic research investigating how people use these workspaces, what limitations they have and what factors affect their effectiveness or efficiency. This short paper presents a conceptual framework outlining some of the major aspects of personal information management. These include the demographics and information behaviour of the knowledge worker, the format and type of the information, and the organisational paradigm and features and capabilities of the information workspace. The framework is used to highlight areas where there are gaps in the current research, and a methodology is outlined to address some of those gaps.