OAsIS: Online Activities Information Systems Supporting Information-Oriented Security Management

Abstract

Companies engaging in e-business activities, especially B2C, rely on their customers being online savvy. This means not only that customers are able to connect with their business partners but also that customers may witness misinformation distributed online, potentially damaging the reputation of the business partner. In this paper we discuss the functional requirements of an online activities information system (OAsIS) helping enable corporate awareness. Corporate awareness is an instrument to be used in strategic management and can be considered a core process in information-oriented security management. We discuss to what extent off-the-shelf groupware products, such as Lotus Notes or LiveNet, meet the requirements identified in this paper. Drawing from experiences made in related research communities such as computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW) we also point out some of the difficulties as the performance of the corporate awareness approach crucially depends on successful collaboration among employees.