A document is a vessel of information. From ANR's perspective, a document can be and is anything ranging from a hand-scrawled note or sketch all the way to the most sophisticated digital GIS map, air transport model or database application. It can be paper, microfilm, or in a computer.
Documents are often dynamic, complex, unstructured and unpredictable.
The document is reviewed - comments are added, changes are made The document may be made up of subdocuments that need to be assembled from a variety of sources. The document needs to be distributed electronically or on paper. Other definitions are similar - some including managing not only the documents but also the information within those documents. Still others include aspects of workflow, i.e., how the documents are shared among users. Document management differs from data management , which is tuned to manage information that is highly structured.