Several roles are already predefined on each BSCW system. Usually the following roles are available:

• Manager
• Owner
• Member
• Restricted member
• Registered user

A BSCW system administrator may add further predefined roles which are then available to all users. In addition, a user (usually the manager of a folder) may define further roles which are then, however, only available for members of the folder.

The following sections describe the predefined roles as they are defined when the BSCW system is installed without modifications of the BSCW configuration files by the BSCW system administrator. It should be noted that a BSCW system administrator may carry out such modifications so a particular BSCW system may behave differently.

When an object is created, the creator receives the role of a manager which gives him or her access to all actions that are provided by the BSCW system. Furthermore, the creator becomes the owner.

An owner may transfer the owner property to another member via the  File    Share    Change owner   . If the object is a document, transfer of ownership has the consequence that the disk space used by the document is assigned to the new (primary) owner. (An object may have more than one owner but one of them is the primary owner.) This may be of importance if the BSCW Quota Package has been installed which controls the disk space which is available to each user.

If a user is invited as a member, that user usually has the same access rights as the manager, with the exception that a member is not allowed to add new roles.

If a user is invited as a restricted member, that user usually has only read access to the objects.

Users who have a user name and a password for a BSCW server are registered users who always have some of the access rights independently of any access rights specifications.