Access control in a cooperative editing system

Abstract

Access control in cooperative editing system is one of key techniques of cooperative work system. There are many access control models presently, but none of them are natively fit for cooperative editing. We analyze access control modes in cooperative editing system and then propose an access control mode for cooperative editing and relevant management and control. We define several role in the access control model in cooperative editing system, whose basic roles are distributed according to hierarchical structures. System administrator assigns user to be Chief editor of document who manages coeditors of document. Generally administrator doesn't manage concrete editing process of document directly although having authority. We make use of parameters as document access control thus guaranteeing stability and extensibility of system. Parameters for users can be divided into two kinds. One is control parameter of synchronous cooperation such as in real-time editing, identity of users, immediate updating and so on. The other is control parameter of asynchronous cooperation such as authority of independent operation of coeditor. Role objects of Co-Office can be represented by a triple tuple. Finally we also apply and implement the access control model to Co-Office, a real cooperative editing system, fulfilling multiuse and multitask access control in cooperative editing environment.