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The metadata attributes, which may be specified for an object, are summarized in a metadata profile – with the exception of name, description and tags. Metadata attributes have a name and a data type (such as line of text or date) and can be structured into groups within a profile.

For most of the existing object types in BSCW there are predefined system profiles. Examples are the following metadata profiles.

o Documents have the general attributes priority and category and the attributes of the

Dublin Core Metadata Element Set (such as title, author, language etc.).

o Contacts essentially consist of metadata attributes concerning name, address, phone

numbers, affiliation etc.

o Tasks have by default the attributes customer, contact, location, URL, priority and

category.

The system profiles of certain object types may be empty, e.g. the system profiles of folders and URLs. Number and type of system profiles depend on the configuration of your BSCW server. You may create your own metadata profiles on the basis of the given system profiles and store these profiles for further use in your personal folder ‘Personal Templates of your-

user-name’. It is also possible to define metadata profiles for a certain workspace and to store

them in a template folder of that workspace. Thus, the profiles are available for all members of this workspace.

3.9.1.1 Using metadata attributes

When creating an object you may assign values to the metadata attributes of the object. The ‘Attributes’ section of the action form provides the respective fields where you may insert values for the metadata attributes of the object. If there is no ‘Attributes’ section, the type of the object created has an empty metadata profile or none at all.

You can assign values to the metadata attributes of an object or change existing values also after the object has been created.

• Select Change Properties in the action menu of the object concerned and go to the

‘Attributes’ section of the action form. There you may insert, change or delete meta- data. An eventual grouping of attributes is indicated by enclosing the group in a sepa- rate box with an optional group name.

• Some attributes allow specifying multiple values by clicking next to the input field. You may delete values by clicking next to the value field.

• By clicking on [Reset properties] you may delete all values shown in the ‘Attributes’ section.

All attributes with values are shown below the description of an object in the folder listing. If the view options are set so that no descriptions are shown or are only shown in compact form, attributes will appear as tooltips of either the icon or the one-line description, respectively. Also, all attributes are shown on the info page of an object.

The info page of an object shows the attributes that have a value, also indicating the name of the underlying metadata profile and, where appropriate, the names of attribute groups (e.g. “Dublin Core”).

When copying objects, eventual metadata attributes are also copied.

When searching for objects in BSCW you may use all metadata attributes (see 3.7.1 “The search form” on page 59). The search form offers to make use of metadata attributes in search criteria.

In website folders you can display the metadata attributes of single objects as well as object tables with selected metadata attributes. You can also filter content listings of website folders making use of the values of certain metadata attributes (see 8.6.5 “Using text elements” on

page 161 and 8.6.4 “Using BSCW elements” on page 149). For these operations you need to know the so-called key of a metadata attribute, which is not given on the info page of a meta- data profile. An example is the key bscw:keywords denoting the metadata attribute ‘Tags’.

You can obtain a complete list of the metadata keys of a metadata profile including the user- defined attributes by

• selecting Specification in the action menu of a metadata profile. This will list all

keys of the attributes in the profile as a text file, one key per line.

3.9.1.2 Defining new metadata profiles

You may extend the set of predefined system profiles and define your own metadata profiles to suit your needs. A user-defined metadata profile is always associated to a certain BSCW object type (e.g. folder, document, contact). When defining a metadata profile you start from the system profile of the respective object type and then add your own attributes or entire groups of attributes or cancel existing attributes in any possible way.

If you create your own metadata profile of a container object (folder, contact list or similar), you can not only define the attributes of the container object, but also set the metadata profiles of objects contained. For example, you can define a metadata profile “Club” that is based on the contact list and has additional attributes such as address and club number, and specify that the contacts contained should have the metadata profile “Club member”, in which you delete certain unnecessary contact attributes and define additional attributes that concern member- ship such as member number or membership fee.

You can create a new metadata profile in two ways. You create a new metadata profile ex- plicitly

• by selecting File New Metadata Profile in the top menu of your personal templates or

any other template folder and determining the object type desired from the sub menu, e.g. Document Profile .

Metadata profiles from your personal templates are available to you everywhere, metadata profiles from a templates folder in a workspace are available to you (and the other members of the workspace) only in this particular workspace.

You create a new metadata profile ad hoc while assigning a metadata profile to an object, when you find that the available profiles are not sufficient for your purpose.

• Select Change Metadata Profile in the action menu of an object. If the profiles

offered for selection in the action form ‘Metadata Profile’ are not sufficient, click on [Add metadata profile] to create a new metadata profile for the object type of the current object.

The metadata profiles created in this ad hoc fashion are stored in your personal templates and are available for assignment afterwards.

The subsequent interaction for specifying the new metadata profile is identical in both cases.

• The action form ‘Add Metadata Profile’ shows the system profile of the object type chosen or of the object type of the current object, respectively, which you now may edit as described in the following. Note that a system profile like that of a folder may be empty.

• First, enter a name for the new metadata profile and possibly a description that ex- plains the purpose of the new profile.

• In the section “Attributes and groups” of the action form, you add single metadata attributes or entire groups of attributes to your metadata profile using the dropdown menu [Add]. Here you can choose from attributes and attribute groups coming from existing metadata profiles.

Groups of attributes that have been added may subsequently be edited. You may also add an empty group to your profile (select ‘Emtpy Group’ from the [Add] menu) that is to be filled with attributes of your choice. Don’t forget to give a name to your new attribute group. Groups are to structure a profile and may also be nested.

By choosing ‘New Attribute’ you specify your own attribute along with name and data type; check whether the attribute may have multiple values.

• You delete an attribute or attribute group by clicking on the icon on the right side of the attribute or group box.

• You may reorder attributes and groups by dragging the attribute or group to the po- sition desired using the icon. This way you can also move an attribute or group in- side another group, or from inside a group to the top level.

• If you specify a new metadata profile for a container object type (folder, contact list or similar), the action form has an additional section “Default profile of new objects”, where you can specify metadata profiles for objects that will be created in the con- tainer, if those profiles are to differ from the predefined system profiles.

• Select an object type from the [Add] menu for which you plan to specify a user- defined metadata profile.

• In the appearing assignment line of the action form you may now choose a meta- data profile for this object type. This profile will be assigned to all objects of the object type that will be created within the container.

These profile assignments may be deleted or reordered exactly as in the section “Attri- butes and groups” using the same icons. You may also specify these assignments of object contained to metadata profiles later on when you change the metadata profile itself (see below).

• Click [OK] to store the new metadata profile in your personal templates or in a template folder.

• If you have defined the new metadata profile ad hoc, you return to the action form

‘Metadata Profile’ and the name of the new metadata profile will appear as choice in

the dropdown menu [Choose]. Click [OK] to assign this profile to the current object.

3.9.1.3 Assigning metadata profiles

An object may be assigned an existing user-defined metadata profile

• by choosing Change Metadata Profile in the action menu of this object. Choose the

metadata profile from the [Choose] dropdown menu and click [OK]. Apart from the predefined system profile, all user-defined profiles for the object type of the current object will be offered, that are contained in your personal templates or in a template folder of the current workspace. If no other profile than the system profile is offered, then there no other metadata profiles available for the current object type.

• If the current object contains other objects, you have three options to also specify the metadata profiles of the objects contained. You can determine that these metadata pro- files remain unchanged, that they are adjusted according to the assignment of metadata

profiles to newly created objects in the container, or that they are all set to the approp- riate system profiles.

When you assign a new metadata profile to an object that already has attributes with values of the old metadata profile, these attributes will be listed along with their values at the end of the new profile.

You may also include metadata profiles when you create templates: Assign a suitable user- defined metadata profile to a newly created template. This way you may e.g. define the metadata profile of a contact list template such that the contacts contained in this list all have a certain contact metadata profile.

3.9.1.4 Changing and sharing metadata profiles

You may change the metadata profiles that you have created. Changing metadata profiles that have been defined by other users is, however, possible only for the manager of the template folder containing the metadata profile in question.

You can change a metadata profile in your personal templates or some template folder ex- plicitly

• by choosing Change Properties in the action menu of this metadata profile,

and you can change a metadata profile of an object ad hoc

• by choosing Change Metadata Profile in the action menu of this object and clicking

on [Change metadata profile]. If this button is not offered, you do not have the access rights to change the profile of the current object.

The interaction for changing a metadata profile in the ‘Change Metadata Profile’ action form is exactly the same as for defining a new metadata profile, which essentially consists of changing a system profile.

• Click [OK] to store the changed metadata profile, which is now valid for all objects with this profile.

If you delete an attribute when changing a metadata profile and this attribute has already a value for some objects, this attribute appears along with its value at the end of the profile after the other attributes of the profile. If deleted attributes have no value anymore, they disappear completely.

If you delete a metadata profile, it is still maintained as long as there are objects with this metadata profile.

You may invite other users to a metadata profile in order to promote sharing profiles across the borders of shared workspaces. Such a profile appears at top level in the personal templates of the users invited and may be used by these users when assigning metadata profiles.

3.9.1.5 Exporting metadata attributes

You may store and export the metadata attributes of documents, notes, contacts, tasks and flow folders contained in a folder in form of a comma-separated .csv file. Subfolders will also be searched recursively. Apart from the metadata, access path and BSCW object id will be stored for each object in the file.

• Choose File Send to Metadata in the top menu of the folder.

• The action form ‘Export Metadata’ lets you select the attributes to export: check a complete metadata profiles or unfold a profile and select single attributes for export. With user-defined metadata profiles, only the new attributes are offered for export.

• You may further choose to directly download the metadata file or have it stored in your clipboard or the folder itself.

This way, you may process metadata, e.g., with a spreadsheet program. You may invoke the action also via Send to Metadata in the action menu of a folder.

3.9.2 Tags

Tags are freely chosen keywords that are used to describe and classify most BSCW objects including folders, documents, URLs, notes, RSS feeds, communities and even users. Tags are used for finding objects and detecting relationships.

Tags may be assigned to new objects during creation by filling in the ‘Tags’ field of the action form. Objects may have any number of tags. Just enter your tags as words separated by blanks. Note that with tags there is no distinction between upper and lower case.

You can assign new tags to existing objects, add more tags or change existing tags by

• selecting Change Properties from the action menu of the object and change the

tags in the ‘General’ section’.

Tags – like named attributes – are shown below the description of an object; they appear as tooltips when viewing options are set that no descriptions or only compact descriptions are shown.

Tags shown in a folder listing may be clicked on to initiate a search for objects with the same tag in your entire BSCW system.

Apart from this possibility of initiating a tag search, tags may also be used in regular BSCW searches.

Tags play an even more prominent role within blogs: the tags used for the blog entries are shown according to relative frequency. Display of blog entries may be restricted to blog entries labeled with a certain tag (for details see 6.2 “Blogs” on page 108).