The purpose of this investigation is to define the architecture of computer informing systems. The methodology is based on an interdisciplinary, big-picture view of the cognition units which provide the foundation for informing systems. Among the findings are the following: informing systems should be designed for rigor and relevance with respect to the cognitive units (information), integrating its purpose and goal to achieve its expected utility; informing systems should also be designed for reasoning richness, informing modes, informing quality, and predicting informing biases and filters. Practical implications: A well-designed informing system should provide as an output a message and resonant change by reflecting information that triggers the client’s behavior. Social implication: The quest for the development of informing systems is not supported by Academia in practice; it is only supported by a close circle of early leaders of such systemic applications who sought to enhance the existing information systems which very often process data but do not inform as they should. Originality: This investigation, by providing an interdisciplinary and graphic modeling of informing channels and systems, indicates the vitality of these systems and their potential to create better decision-making in order to solve problems and sustain organizations and civilization.

Tensions are a ubiquitous feature of social life and are manifested in a number of particular forms: contradictory logics, competing demands, clashes of ideas, contradictions, dialectics, irony, paradoxes, and/or dilemmas. This essay aims to explore in detail tensions surrounding seven common findings of the information seeking literature relating to: interpersonal communication, accessibility, level of skill, individual preferences, psychological limits, inertia, and costs. Our incomplete understanding of these tensions can lead us to suggest resolutions that do not recognize their underlying dualities. Human information behavior stands at the intersection of many important theoretical and policy issues (e.g., personalized medicine). Policy makers need to be more attuned to these basic tensions of information seeking recognizing the real human limits they represent to informing the public. So, even if you build a great information system, people will not necessarily use it because of the force of these underlying tensions. While rationality rules systems, irrationality rules people. The proliferation of navigator roles over the last several years is actually a hopeful sign: recognition that people need a human interface to inform them about our ever more complex health care systems.

The purpose of this investigation is to define the central contents and issues of the impact of informing systems on the rise and development of Virtual Civilization. The methodology is based on an interdisciplinary big-picture view of the Virtual Civilization’s elements of development and their interdependency. Among the findings are: Virtual Civilization has infrastructural characteristics, a world-wide unlimited, socially constructed work and leisure space in cyberspace, and it can last centuries/millennia - as long as informing systems are operational. Practical implications: The mission of Virtual Civilization is to control the public policy of real civilizations in order to secure the common good in real societies. Social implication: The quest for the common good by virtual society may limit or even replace representative democracy by direct democracy which, while positively solving some problems, may eventually trigger permanent political chaos in real civilizations. Originality: This investigation, by providing an interdisciplinary and civilizational approach at the big-picture level defined the ethics question of the role of informing systems in the development of Virtual Civilization.

The paper introduces a novel Personal Knowledge Management (PKM) concept and prototype system. The system’s objective is to aid life-long-learning, resourcefulness, creativity, and teamwork of individuals throughout their academic and professional life and as contributors and beneficiaries of organizational and societal performance. Such a scope offers appealing and viable opportunities for stakeholders in the educational, professional, and developmental context. To further validate the underlying PKM application design, the systems thinking techniques of the transdiscipline of Informing Science (IS) are employed. By applying Cohen’s IS-Framework, Leavitt’s Diamond Model, the IS-Meta Approach, and Gill’s and Murphy’s Three Dimensions of Design Task Complexity, the more specific KM models and methodologies central to the PKMS concept are aligned, introduced, and visualized. The extent of this introduction offers an essential overview, which can be deepened and broadened by using the cited URL and DOI links pointing to the available resources of the author’s prior publications. The paper emphasizes the differences of the proposed meme-based PKM System compared to its traditional organizational document-centric counterparts as well as its inherent complementing synergies. As a result, it shows how the system is closing in on Vannevar Bush’s still unfulfilled vison of the ‘Memex’, an as-close-as-it-gets imaginary ancestor celebrating its 70th anniversary as an inspiring idea never realized. It also addresses the scenario recently put forward by Levy which foresees a decentralizing revolution of knowledge management that gives more power and autonomy to individuals and self-organized groups. Accordingly, it also touches on the PKM potential in terms of Kuhn’s Scientific Revolutions and Disruptive Innovations.

The Joint Interagency Field Experimentation (JIFX) event, organized by the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS), is conducted 3-4 times a year at various locations. The four day event can be characterized as an informing system specifically designed to facilitate structured and unstructured communications between a variety of parties—e.g., software developers, inventors, military and civilian users of various technologies, academics, and agencies responsible for identifying and procuring technology solutions—that frequently are constrained in their informing activities in more restrictive venues. Over the course of the event, participants may observe technology demonstrations, obtain feedback from potential users, acquire new ideas about their technologies might be employed and, perhaps most significantly, engage in ad hoc collaborations with other participants. The present paper describes an exploratory case research study that was conducted over a one year period and involved both direct observation of the event and follow-up interviews with 49 past participants in the event. The goal of the research was to assess the nature of participant-impact resulting from attending JIFX and to consider the consistency of the findings with the predictions of various theoretical frameworks used in informing science. The results suggest that participants perceived that the event provided significant value from three principal sources: discovery, interaction with potential clients (users) of the technologies involved, and networking with other participants. These findings were largely consistent with what could be expected from informing under conditions of high complexity; because value generally derives from combinations of attributes rather than from the sum of individual attributes, we would expect that overall value from informing activities will be perceived even though estimates of the incremental value of that informing cannot be made.

This paper discusses applications of the measures of the risk of misinforming and the role of the warranty of misinforming in the context of the informing component of Customer Related Management (CRM) issues. This study consists of two parts. Firstly, we propose an approach for customers’ grouping based on their attitude toward assessing product's properties and their expertise on the terminology/domain of the seller’s message describing the product. Also we discuss what the most appropriate personal/group warranty is for each of these group/clusters. 

The impact that Facebook and Twitter usage has on the creation and maintenance of university student’s cognitive social capital was investigated on students in the Western Cape province of South Africa. Facebook and Twitter were selected as part of the research context because both are popular online social network systems (SNSs), and few studies were found that investigated the impact that both Facebook and Twitter have on the cognitive social capital of South African university students. Data was collected from a survey questionnaire, which was successfully completed by over 100 students from all 5 universities within the Western Cape. The questionnaire was obtained from a previous study, allowing comparisons to be made. Analysis of the results however, did not show a strong relationship between the intensity of Facebook and Twitter usage, and the various forms of social capital. Facebook usage was found to correlate with student’s satisfaction with university life; which suggests that increasing the intensity of Facebook usage for students experiencing low satisfaction with university life might be beneficial.