Basic Support for Cooperative Work

BSCW ( Basic Support for Cooperative Work; German: " basic support for cooperation " ) is a groupware that allows cooperation among multiple users in the Internet or Intranet and support. The individual employees no special platform or software is required, but it need is a normal web browser and a normal internet connection.

Working groups ( similar to a folder) Create workspaces for documents. The documents in the work areas can then be edited and replaced together. In addition, extensive rights to the files can be configured. Documents can further be versioned ( older versions can always be accessed ).

BSCW supports the communication, scheduling, task scheduling, electronic mail, the establishment of conference calls via software or telephone, etc. Documents can be transferred to a " file folder " on the local computer and then edit it.

BSCW was developed by the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Information Technology (FIT ) and further developed by the company OrbiTeam. For schools and universities, it can be licensed for free. The Fraunhofer Institute FIT also operates a public BSCW server that can be accessed over the Internet and is available for testing, but also to support small projects. In early 2007 there were more than 100,000 registered users.