Metadata and info page

The metadata in BSCW serve to closer describe objects and to retrieve objects using the BSCW search. The metadata associated with an object are displayed on its info page.

BSCW objects have a set of metadata attributes that is either set by the user (e.g. name and description) or by the system (e.g. creation date or name of creator). Further there are metadata attributes, which for a particular type of object are grouped together in a metadata profile. In addition to the predefined system profiles for the existing BSCW object types, users can create their own metadata profiles that are stored along with templates in template folders.

Another approach to describing and classifying objects is tagging. Here, users describe objects by freely chosen keywords, the so-called tags. A lot of object types in BSCW may be tagged, including folders, documents and users.

Both named attributes and tags may be used in BSCW searches.

The info page of an object brings together all the descriptive information that BSCW maintains about the object. This includes named attributes as well as tags.