Basic support for cooperative work. Version 3.3. Manual

BSCW - Basic Support for Cooperative Work is a groupware system developed at GMD's Institute for Applied Information Technology (FIT). Using the World-Wide Web as its infrastructure, BSCW supports synchronous and asynchronous cooperation in workgroups. Groups may be established ad hoc, with members distributed geographically, coming from different organizations and using different types of computer systems. Based on the concept of Shared Workspaces, BSCW provides core functionality for (1) jointly creating, managing and sharing documents within a group, (2) real time or deferred awareness, (3) preparing and initiating synchronous cooperation, e. g via teleconferencing. Groups can use GMD's public BSCW server (http://bscw.gmd.de) or set up their own BSCW server as an extension of a suitable Web server on Unix and Windows NT / Windows 2000 platforms. This manual contains a brief introduction to BSCW, provides guidance for registering as a BSCW user and gives a detailed description of BSCW functionality from a user's point of view. A comprehensive Table of Contents and an Index assist in locating the sections that contain information on the problem at hand. Section 6.3 provides a complete list and brief explanations of the actions a user may perform in BSCW.