The Portfolio application, denoted Application, stores entities of metadata about the working material and the content of the material, where a content is provided, Material Component. The application also stores the annotations that is associated with the material, Annotation Component. Components are provided by individual users, who manage the Component base by adding new Components, removing old Components and organizing Components hierarchly.

The Application can be queried by Users for Component of interest to them. Queries are defined with respect to the metadata schemas defined for each type of Component.

A Portfolio Component is associated with a User, denoted as the Owner. The Portfolio Component contains metadata about the Owner and a Folder Component. Collaboration is enabled when a Owner grants permissions for other User and Guests to read or write Component in the associated Portfolio Component