Information systems have become the backbone of all kinds of organizations - day. In almost every sector - manufacturing, education, health care, government and businesses large and small - information systems are relied upon for - eryday work, communication, information gathering and decision-making. Yet, the in?exibilities in current technologies and methods have also resulted in poor performance, incompatibilities and obstacles to change. As many organizations are reinventing themselves to meet the challenges of global competition and e-commerce, there is increasing pressure to develop and...

This is the eighth year that the Agent-Oriented Information Systems (AOIS) workshops have been held. Papers submitted to AOIS show an increase in quality and maturity as agent technology is being increasingly seen as a viable alternative for software and systems development. In AOIS, we focus on the application of agent technology in information systems development and explore the potential for facilitating the increased usage of agent technology in the creation of information systems in the widest sense. This year's workshops were held in conjunction with two major, international computing...

Review: This book offers a comprehensive body of knowledge related to the Method Engineering discipline. It provides a summary and synthesis of all past efforts in this domain and clarifies the domain terminology. I suggest it to every researcher interested in the art of method design, not only in software engineering but also in other fields. Marko Bajec, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia I am confident this text will prove an invaluable resource for those interested in improving the standard of software development and the resulting software applications. from the foreword by Mary O'Kane,...