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What are some challenges in information management and systems?

Modern information management faces many challenges. Examples of policy issues include invasions of personal privacy, civil liberties, free speech, access to undesirable materials by minors, the digital divide, taxation, multiple jurisdictions, and the impact of encryption on law- breaking and national security.

As most information systems thrive in a market economy, many real-world outcomes are driven in no small part by economic forces and the marketplace. The most substantial and beneficial impacts thus require consideration of these economic forces.

The computer- and network-mediated access of information acts as an intermediary between the people and their information assets. Enabled by modern software technology, this intermediary can have many capabilities and complex behaviors. Our challenge is to organize the functionality and interfaces of this intermediary in a way that is most natural, pleasant, and effective for its social context.

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