Chapter 3: Building an Information Management System

3.1 Introductory notes

3.1.1 Overview of information management system

Each step of the information management system has a unique structure. The interviews of deponents, for example, are based on a structured questionnaire which has a fixed list of open-ended and closed-ended questions. Although the list of questions is fixed before-hand, the questions that would be used in any given interview might vary depending on the particular circumstances of the case.

The controlled vocabulary has a set of categories (e.g., "Departments, communes, and sections of Haiti", or "kinds of human rights abuses"), and each category is filled out by predefined items (e.g., "Grande-Anse, Nord-Est, Artibonite, etc.", "arbitrary assasination, arbitrary detention, torture, etc.").

The database has a relational database design. Each step in the in-formation management process represents the information flowing into that step in a particular way. These representations are the theoretical basis for the organization's collective memory. The form that the representations are given determines the limits of what the organization will remember.