Evolution of documents - Information and Data objects

Abstract

The vast amount of data leading to the digital data explosion highlights the fact that the current data definition needs a change as the current systems are unable to track the evolution in a document over time without manual intervention. The concepts of Information and Data objects are introduced in this thesis to track the evolution information in a document. We developed the requirements for such a system in which the evolution information is automatically tracked by tracking the user copy and paste action and then using the data to create the evolution information about a specified document. A case study is discussed to further analyse the information and data flow in a collaboration. We have used this knowledge to design the system and then to implement the system so that the user copy and paste actions can be tracked to create the evolution information. The implementation is then presented to a group of experts to identify the problems and to get the feedback to improve the system.