The BSCW system: a WWW-based application to support cooperation of distributed groups

The World-Wide Web (WWW) has gained broad acceptance in academic and commercial circles. Although originally conceived as a means for information dissemination, it can also be used for the development of collaborative applications to support dispersed working groups and organisations because of its platform, network and operating system transparency, its easy to use user interface, and its simple integration into existing organisational technical infrastructures. The authors describe the BSCW system developed at GMD which uses the WWW as the communication infrastructure and provides some basic functionality for group cooperation. The BSCW systems supports cooperation by means of 'shared workspaces' into which users can upload and download various types of objects. To increase the efficiency of cooperation, the system provides additional features such as information about activities of other members of the workspace. They report on user experiences with the system, problems, and extensions that are planned in the near future.