Information evaluation empirical investigations in engineering organizations

Abstract

The management of information in engineering organizations is facing a particular challenge due to the ever-increasing volume of information. It has been recognized that an effective methodology is required to evaluate information in order to avoid information overload and to retain the right information for reuse. By whatever approaches, information evaluation judgments are made in the engineering organizations in order to support the businesses decisions. Investigating those practical methodologies would benefit the overall information evaluation research. This paper addresses this practical information evaluation issue firstly by briefly reviewing the idea of information evaluation in related research work on the evaluation of information in various areas. Then a series of industrial empirical investigation activities based on interviews in engineering organizations are introduced. The evaluation approaches in those organizations are analyzed and compared according to the nature of some of the organizations. Finally the current practices are summarized and the outlooks of best practices are proposed.