The goal of the Information Web (IWEB) project [Coyn94] was to develop an information modeling and management tool specifically designed to meet the needs of software engineers working in a group environment on large projects. Given that we found everyday intra- and inter-group communication to be a major bottleneck in the cases we studied [Coyn95], most of the core functionality of IWEB is targeted at improving information exchange and capture. IWEB has been developed on top of the n-dim information modeling environment. A more detailed examination of IWEB itself is available in Coyne et. al. [Coyn94]. On one hand, IWEB provides a gIBIS-like Issue Forest for structuring discussions and maintaining lists of outstanding (i.e., unresolved) issues. Issues are created within an Issue Forest, which contains a set of related issues. An issue forest can be viewed as a context for discussion (Figure - leftmost window). Users may create and reorganize issue forests as their communication needs evolve. On the other hand, IWEB provides a notification mechanism which allows users to send informal notices to a specific user or group of people. The IWEB notification mechanism is very similar to an e-mail system with the exception that notices may contain references to issue models and/or other n-dim models. Notices are posted in Notification Boxes, which represent a target audience (e.g., a person, a team, or the whole project). Notification boxes may also be easily created as the organizational structure of the project evolves (Figure - rightmost window).

Figure: IWEB Issue Forest and Notification boxes

By providing users with both structured and unstructured media for communication, together with means for creating and restructuring contexts in which discussions occur, we hope to increase the amount of information exchanged while decreasing the amount of information lost or misdirected.

Knowledge about the design and the design process is being captured by n-dim. The designer’s will be able to look back and see why particular decisions were made and their outcomes. By allowing designers to create and manipulate design information easily and capture the history of the process, n-dim supports the building and capturing of design knowledge.

[Coyn94] Coyne, R., A. Dutoit, J. Uzmack and K. O’Toole (1994). “IWEB (Information WEB): Information Management for Software.” Technical Report 05-87-94, Engineering Design Research Center, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA.

[Coyn95] Coyne, R., A. Dutoit, B. Bruegge and D. Rothenberger (1995). “Teaching More Comprehensive Model-Based Software Engineering: Experience With Objectory’s Use Case Approach,” In Proceedings of the Conference on Software Engineering Education, New Orleans, LA.