The BSCW shared workspace server provides an environment for distributed work.
(BSCW = Basic Support for Cooperative Work).
BSCW was developed by the Fraunhofer Institut Angewandte Informationstechnik (FIT) and provided by the OrbiTeam Software GmbH.
If you want to share the documents of the workspace with other members, you must
press the button "add member" at the workspace-homepage
There are three cases:
Either the new member is already in your address book (that means you share already another workspace with this person)
Or it is a person known to our BSCW server because s/he is member of another workspace (typically, employees of the Software Systems Group are already members somewhere)
Or it is a member not known to the BSCW server.
In the first and second case, just follow the instruction on the "add member"-page. Be aware that the new member does not receive an invitation mail to the new workspace, unless you have formulated it and explicitly send it through the "add member"-action!
In the third case, you must send a mail to wilhelm.springer@informatik.uni-heidelberg.de with the full name, affiliation and email address of the new user. In reaction to this mail Admin will send you the login name of the new user. After having received this login name, send an email to this person to tell him/her the right login name. Then you can add the member as in the first case.
It is beneficial to remind the new members of two things in the invitation mail.
There is an event notification by which one can keep informed about any accesses to the BSCW (section 4.2.5. of the help)
Each member should fill in personal info (section 2.4 of the help).
In reaction to the invitation a new member will receive an automatically produced email with the URL where s/he can register at the BSCW server. After registration the new member will get an automatically produced email which acknowledges the registration.
There are quite detailed possibilities for setting access rights for (individual) objects and operations in the workspace (section 4.7 of the help). In general it is important that only YOU can invite members to the workspace. The reason is that the default setting of the BSCW server is that any member can invite new members. In particular, any new member can open new workspaces and invite other members. Since the Admin cannot know who should be a member, it is the responsibility of the workspace owner to control the addition of new members. The easiest way to do this is described in section 4.7.4. of the help
Open info page for the workspace
Choose button "access"
Update access rights for members so that they cannot invite/delete members. A picture which shows the typical access rights for project members is available here
If you want to remove a member of the workspace you must
Send an email to wilhelm.springer@informatik.uni-heidelberg.de so that Admin can check whether this member has any other workspace left. If not, Admin will take appropriate action to exclude the member from the BSCW-server
Open the membership page
Mark the member and then choose the "remove"-button
Be aware that the member does not receive any notice about the deletion unless you send an email!
If you want to finish the collaboration in the workspace (e.g. at the planned expiration date), you must
Send an email to wilhelm.springer@informatik.uni-heidelberg.de so that Admin can keep its list of workspaces up to date. If you want to preserve the data, the workspace can be saved to a CD.
Open your bscw-home-page
Mark the workspace
Choose the "delete"-button
Be aware that with this action all documents in the workspace are deleted without any further warning!
