Metadata in BSCW is used to describe objects in more detail and to find objects again when searching. The metadata associated with an object are displayed on the object's info page.
BSCW objects have a set of metadata that are either set by the user (e.g. name and description) or set by the system (e.g. date of creation or name of creator). In addition, there are metadata attributes that are combined into a metadata profile for a particular object type. In addition to the predefined system profiles for the existing object types, the user can create his own metadata profiles, which are stored together with templates in template folders.
Another approach to describing and classifying objects is to tag them with freely definable keywords. Many types of objects in BSCW may be tagged including folders, documents and users. Tags may also be used for searching in BSCW.
On the info page of an object, all descriptive information about an object is presented in a bundle. This includes the metadata attributes and tags assigned by the user.