The aim of the ISN is to develop new concepts and services for the management of information in science and elearning, and to advance it according to international standards. The institute designs and programs online-document- and workflow-systems, retrieval and entry point strategies for scientific societies, institutions and libraries, particularly for those with distributed locations.

On behalf of learned societies and other scientific institutions the ISN develops and operates Internet portals for science such as the worldwide PhysNet and MareNet. The ISN also developed and runs the eLearning platform physik-multimedial for physics for eight Universities, and offers supporting services for the learning management system Campus Virtuell. ISN plays an active role in national, international and interdisciplinary boards and initiatives concerning standardization and information services for sciences. Researchers of ISN are members of several W3C working groups on Semantic Web development and of the Dublin Core Advisory Board. ISN has sent representatives into advisory boards of several national and international projects and institutions. ISN is experienced in technical and conceptual evaluation of projects, using advanced techniques of e.g. questionnaires.