gIBIS: a hypertext tool for exploratory policy discussion

TLDR

Issue Based Information Systems (IBIS) was developed for large, complex design problems. This paper describes an application‑specific hypertext system to capture early design deliberations. gIBIS uses color and a high‑speed relational database to build and browse typed IBIS networks, enabling collaborative construction across a local area network. Early experiments show that while the IBIS method remains incomplete, the tool aligns well with the method in this experimental version. Further information is available.

Abstract

This paper describes an application specific hypertext system designed to facilitate the capture of early design deliberations. It implements a specific method, called Issue Based Information Systems (IBIS), which has been developed for use on large, complex design problems. The hypertext system described here, gIBIS (for graphical IBIS), makes use of color and a high speed relational database server to facilitate building and browsing typed IBIS networks. Further. gIBIS is designed to support the collaborative construction of these networks by any number of cooperating team members spread across a local area network. Early experiments suggest that the IBIS method is still incomplete, but there is a good match between the tool and method even in this experimental version.