Distributed authoring on the Web with the BSCW shared workspace system

Reviewer: Vasant B. Kaujalgi

Most Web pages are static. They become outdated fairly quickly by failing to keep up with changes to the information they contain. The authors of this paper attempt to make Web pages dynamic. They describe the BSCW shared workspace s ystem, which sits on a Web browser and allows authorized users to update documents and upload the revisions to the server. It also helps with version control of Web pages, in that it supports archiving, keeping a history of the collaborative process, and synchronization. The authors describe two approaches, namely, RFC 1867, an experimental protocol for form-based file upload in HTML, and HTTP “put” document publishing. The paper should be useful to researchers concerned with the Internet in general and with Web management using dynamic pages in particular. Graduate students may use it as a hint about possible research directions in Web management. The authors should have explained the many acronyms used in the paper (only CSCW is explained). Out of the six references provided, three are associated with the authors. The paper would be more useful if references to the work of other authors had been included.