A BSCW server may or may not allow self-registration by prospective users. If a server has not been configured for self-registration, then only the BSCW administrator can register new users. The following description of the registration process assumes that your BSCW server does allow for self-registration.
The key to your registration is your personal email address. A BSCW server will typically get it
• from you when you open the home page of your BSCW server and click [Register] in order to register with your email address and eventually some more personal information required (name, organization, telephone number), or
• from an already registered user who invites you to cooperate with her or him in a shared workspace.
After the registration procedure has been initiated by the provision of your email address, BSCW sends an email message to this address. This message contains a special URL which you have to open in your Web browser.
Opening this URL brings up a form where you fill in your user name and password. This form may be used only once.
Your user name serves as your public identity for the BSCW server. We recommend that you use your last name, possibly combined with your first name, as your user name.
Note: By default, BSCW does not distinguish between upper and lower case letters in user names.
The BSCW server requires user names to be unique. If your user name is already used by someone else on the server, BSCW will report an error in the registration procedure. In this case, you have to modify your user name, e.g., by adding your first name or a number.
Note: For security reasons you cannot change your user name.
In order to protect your information stored on the BSCW server, choose a sufficiently secure password and change it regularly. For security reasons concerning your local computer system, you should not use the same password for BSCW as for your local computer.
After submission of the registration form, BSCW is ready for your first login using the user name and password chosen.