Patent ID: 7130844

Claim:
A computer implemented method for evaluating a plurality of document collections to identify and selectively reference those document collections representing current activity, those having lasting value, and those no longer relevant thus identifying trends in knowledge over time, identifying the social networks that form from users' interaction around a shared document collection, identifying those visualizations that allow inferences about how successfully an information resource system is adopted and utilized by users, and identifying those visualizations which could help or encourage a higher level of adoption of information resources, comprising: collecting into computer storage a plurality of document collections, each document collection comprising a sub-grouping of documents in a document database having non-unique values on a shared textual attribute; time stamping date of creation on said documents; calculating, and at least temporarily fixing in said computer storage, age of each said document collection as a measure of time since creation of said documents comprising said sub-grouping, said age being determined for a given document collection from meta-data stored in a record that defines the document collection, said calculating comprising evaluation of the relationship Aa=Dnow−Ca, where Aa is said age of said document collection, Dnow is the current date, and Ca is the date of creation of said document collection from said meta-data; visualizing said age for a plurality of said document collections; and responsive to said visualizing, identifying and examining selected document collections to identify and selectively reference those document collections representing current activity, those having lasting value, and those no longer relevant, thus to reveal and magnify hidden knowledge dynamics within an organization and encourage said higher level of adoption of said information resources.