Info 202 Fall 2011

As many articles in first lecture’s reading described, people in various domains are using technology to manage and analyze their data to achieve better performance. Besides Japanese Farm and seed library, now the FBI also facilitate information technology to help them with their difficult tasks. The FBI has to deal with an overwhelming amount of documents in every case. In order to be more efficient, they use the Bureau Investigative Document Management and Analysis System (BIDMAS). The system enables the FBI to scan or import case documents and exchange with other partners such as the Department of Justice and U.S. Attorneys. It also allow agents to search, review, and tag documents.

Managing documents electronically is not a news, as I personally also organize and work with papers and e-books in my laptop rather than printing them out and read them in real papers. However, the BIDMAS offers two extra features that further help the agents. First, the ability to find redundant information, which saves time and reduces confusion. Second, the analytical tool allow users to see interrelationship and correspondence between individuals in relation to search terms. Searching is an important aspect of information retrieval. BIDMAS’s analytical tool somehow makes the search function more intelligent by retrieving information that wasn’t shown in individual documents, which is even more valuable. The reports showed that agents become more efficient and save up to two years of document review time when using BIDMAS in their investigations. 

To read more about the news, go to http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/itb/news-features/technology-is-reducing-mountains-of-paper-and-helping-organize-cases