Introduction to IMBOK
Introduction | Acknowledgements | History

Introduction

Professional people from different disciplines have come to understand the importance of information in their work.  Lawyers, teachers, journalists, logisticians: all these and others are dependent on information for their professional success.  But the breadth of issues associated with information management practice is vast, extending from an understanding of the base technologies that are used, right through to questions of business strategy and how it can incorporate the potential benefits of information technology.  This broad terrain is a problem:  turning an investment in information technology into improved business performance proves to be difficult, and many initiatives of different kinds have failed to ensure success.  This is true at many levels, from mega-corporations spending millions on new technology and systems, right down to individuals trying to start a new business and wondering whether it is worth buying themselves a new personal computer. 

The IMBOK provides an easily understood framework that relates business needs to new information technology opportunities in a relatively simple, staged way.  It allows us to position and isolate problems, and to grasp opportunities.  It allows ideas to move more easily from one domain to another - from consideration of raw technologies right through to issues of business practice and business strategy. 

The IMBOK provides a reference framework for those who are concerned to bridge actual (or perceived) divides between information technology "specialists" and business "generalists".  So, it should be useful for:

• Managers who wish to choose appropriate management tools to deal with the many opportunities and problems presented by information technology.
• Researchers who are anxious to position their IT-related work in a context of some kind.
• Students who are looking for a simple contextual framework within which to organise their ideas.
• Individuals in non-business environments who are faced with decisions about what technology to buy, and why.

You may download a PDF copy of the main IMBOK text, you can track the evolution of the ideas, and you can find out more about the research that underpins it.  If you wish, you may even request participation in a wide ranging survey of Information Management competencies.  We hope you find the web useful and that you will help us to improve it.  

Tell us what you think. 

The IMBOK was a major deliverable from the "HictE" (ICT in Higher Education) project HictE was a research partnership between UWC and CPUT funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York