Collaborative environments: BSCW

Given recent difficulties in downloading documents from the Blackboard site established for the Ljubljana seminar, I decided to reopen my account with the collaborative environment BSCW: Basic Support Cooperative Work. BSCW has been around for almost as long as the Internet and I've been using it off and on for the last decade. I've used it to store manuscripts for the two journals I have edited during that period, making the documents available to other editors and editorial assistants, to provide a virtual filing cabinet for students in various courses I have taught, to provide access to manuscripts for book and journal theme issue projects. In total, I have some 30 project folders on my BSCW site in Nijmegen, most of which are now (out)dated archives.

Some universities, like Tilburg University, have a standard policy of providing all students and staff with space on the BSCW server maintained by that institution.

This revitalization of BSCW is happening with mixed feelings. First, I know Blackboard works well within a relatively narrow range of collaborative functions (e.g., students cannot upload documents themselves, but must channel them through an instructor). Second, I know not everyone is entirely pleased with BSCW and some users find the working environment particularly unfriendly. As with most software, it is a matter of becoming accustomed to the various screens, symbols and procedures. Personally, I consider BSCW a snap to operate in comparison to other packages most academics take for granted, like Microsoft Office.

Although it may not be considered cool to actually read anything about a software product before using it, I recommend browsing the BSCW manual before diving in.

Anyway, I've invited the students in the Ljubljana seminar as members in a section of my BSCW working space in Nijmegen and will begin uploading materials from previous meetings to that space (e.g., readings, assignments, presentation slides). I welcome hearing how all of you react to the virtual work environment. In a later meeting I hope we will be able to discuss BSCW and other alternatives for online collaboration, which in this case essentially amounts to file sharing.