BSCW sets Standard for Open Internet Cooperation
by Konrad Klöckner
Even today, the platform-independent cooperation in geographically
distributed projects is often a difficult problem. So far the
Internet has provided support for this problem only to a limited
extent. With the BSCW (Basic Support for Cooperative Work) system,
GMD in Sankt Augustin has developed a World Wide Web-based platform
for cooperation support which extends the possibilities of the
World Wide Web considerably.
The basic idea of the BSCW system is the autonomously managed
Shared Workspace which the members of a working group install
and use for the organization and coordination of their tasks.
The members of the working group can upload documents from their
local computer to the workspace as well as access documents in
the workspace, eg for processing them.
In addition to the comfortable document management, there are
a notification service providing information about current activities
and a great number of functions and object types for more extensive
support of cooperation. The user of the system only requires one
of the usual browsers such as Netscape Navigator or Microsoft
Internet Explorer.
BSCW is installed on some 300 servers both in the education area
and in business around the world. For several years now, GMD has
been operating a public server on which meanwhile more than 17,000
users have registered and manage common projects.
The version 3.3 of the system which has just been released is
another step in the direction of open Internet cooperation. This
version provides an object browser written in Java which enables
a simple processing of files and documents in a similar way as
the Windows file browser. For the support of information management,
documents and World Wide Web links can now be annotated and rated
individually, a median is calculated from the individual ratings
and presented to the users.
The previous version was improved and extended in many respects,
eg through improved e-mail integration, new locking mechanisms
for distributed document processing, easier creation of large
document archives and easier access rights management. Version
3.3 of the BSCW system thus fulfils a great number of requirements
and requests from the large user group in the form of new and
extended functionality. For further information visit our Web
site at http://bscw.gmd.de/
Please contact:
Konrad Klöckner - GMD
Tel: +49 2241 14 2055
E-mail: konrad.kloeckner@gmd.de
