Database model, tools and methods for organizing information across external information objects

A system for organizing information across external information objects comprising:

• a results manager for importing and viewing detailed experimental results as one type of representation of external information objects;
• a collection manager for creating and manipulating collections of items representing external information objects;
• a story editor for providing a narrative structure for textually organizing information about interactions between items, collections or items and collections;
• and
• a diagram editor for incorporating items, collections or items and collections, as well as interactions between said items, collection, or items and collections, into a graphical representation of a story.

A system for organizing information across external information objects comprising:

• a results manager for importing and viewing detailed experimental results as one type of representation of external information objects;
• a collection manager for creating and manipulating collections of items representing external information objects;
• a story editor based on a narrative grammar for incorporating said items and collections into the narrative grammar to form a story;
• a diagram editor for incorporating items, collections and interactions into a graphical representation of a story;
• and
• an object editor for adding or manipulating annotations to information within the system.

A method of organizing information across external information objects comprising the steps of:

• importing information of diverse types from diverse sources;
• organizing the information into concepts and categories using a free-form database model;
• and
• formulating and documenting tentative explanations and hypotheses using the free-form database model.

A free-form database model, embodied in software components, comprising:

• items which represent external information objects;
• collections of items;
• textual stories describing said items, collections and interactions between said items, collections, and items and collections;
• and
• graphical stories describing said items, collections and interactions between said items, collections, and items and collections.

A method of verifying and validating experimental data, said method comprising the steps of:

• importing the experimental data into a results manager;
• overlaying items selected from the results manager onto a textual story provided in a story editor or onto a graphical story in a diagram editor;
• and
• comparing the overlaid items with the information in the textual story or graphical story.

A computer-readable medium carrying one or more sequences of instructions from a user of a computer system user for organizing information across external information objects, wherein the execution of the one or more sequences of instructions by one or more processors cause the one or more processors to perform the steps of:

• importing information of diverse types from diverse sources;
• organizing the information into concepts and categories using a free-form database model;
• and
• formulating and documenting tentative explanations and hypotheses using the free-form database model.

A computer-readable medium carrying one or more sequences of instructions from a user of a computer system user for organizing information across external information objects, wherein the execution of the one or more sequences of instructions by one or more processors cause the one or more processors to perform the steps of:

• generating a results manager for importing and viewing detailed experimental results as one type of representation of external information objects;
• generating a collection manager for creating and manipulating collections of items representing external information objects;
• generating a story editor based on a narrative grammar for incorporating said items and collections into the narrative grammar to form a story;
• generating a diagram editor for incorporating items, collections and interactions into a graphical representation of a story;
• and
• generating an object editor for adding or manipulating annotations to information within the system.