Process support for cooperative work on the World Wide Web

The World Wide Web is becoming a dominating factor in Information Technology. Consequently, Computer-Supported Cooperative Work on the Web has recently drawn a lot of attention. “Process Support for Cooperative Work” (PSCW) is a Web-based system supporting both structured and unstructured forms of cooperation. It is a combination of the “Basic Support for Cooperative Work” (BSCW) shared workspace system and the Merlin Process Support Environment. The current PSCW prototype offers a loose connection, in effect extending BSCW with a gateway to Merlin. With this prototype we have successfully addressed the technical issues involved; further integration of functionality should not pose any real problems. We focus on the technical side of the PSCW system, which gives a good insight into the issues that have to be addressed generally in the construction of Web-based Groupware.