Geoscience after IT: Part K. Coping with changing ideas. Defining the user requirement for a future information system

The information system must deal with the diversity of ideas in geoscience and their changes through time. To communicate information, ideas must be aligned and molded to fit a shared view of the world. Change can be traumatic and may be deferred until obvious benefits force old ideas to give way to new, and even then individuals only partly reconcile their ideas. The mechanical records of IT must reflect the flexibility, overlap, ambiguity, inconsistency, conflict and evolution of human interpretation. These, and other needs considered in earlier parts of Geoscience after IT, are brought together as a statement of what we want from the system, set out as a user requirement.