The present invention provides a computer implemented collaboration system and method for accessing multiple domain data sources and allowing data from those sources to be analyzed and manipulated within a multi-user distributed environment where all visualization, processing, and agent applications work collaboratively. In one embodiment, the collaboration system (10) is organized into an N-tier infrastructure including a data management tier (50), an information access tier (52), a services tier (54), and a user interface tier (56). The infrastructure of the collaboration system (10) rides upon a CORBA communications framework. The data management tier (50) includes data sources (112) and provides data management capabilities normally supplied by database management systems. The repository tier (52) is comprised of repository servers (12) and provides adaptive services to make the data maintained within the data sources (112) available to services in the services tier (54) and the client tools in the user interface tier (56). The services tier (54) is comprised of data channel servers (14), a library server (16), a participant server (24), a context server (26), and a document server (28). The services tier (54) maintains the majority of the business logic as applied to a specific domain problem. The user interface tier (56) is comprised of thin client tools (18) that allow the user to interact with the data in the data sources (112).