IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology

João Monteiro is Associate Professor of Computer Engineering in the Department of Industrial Electronics at the University of Minho in Guimaräes, Portugal.

Paula Swatman is Professor of eBusiness and Director of the Institute for Management at the University of Koblenz-Landau in Germany, as well as Professor of Information Systems within the School of I. S. at Deakin University in Australia.

Luis Valadares Tavares is Professor of Operational Research and Systems Engineering at IST - Technical University of Lisbon, Portugal, as well as President of IST's Center for Urban and Regional Systems and of the Portuguese eBusiness Society.

In the foreword to this volume of conference proceedings for IFIP Working Group 8.4, it is appropriate to review the wider organization to which the Working Group belongs. The International Federation of Information Processing (IFIP) is a non-governmental, non-profit umbrella organization for national societies working in the field of information processing that was established in 1960 under the auspices of UNESCO. IFIP's mission is to be the leading, truly international, apolitical organization which encourages and assists in the development, exploitation and application of Information Technology for the benefit of all people. At the heart of IFIP lie its Technical Committees that, between them, count on the active participation of some two thousand people world-wide. These Groups work in a variety of ways to share experience and to develop their specialised knowledge. Technical Committees include: TC 1. Foundations of Computer Science; TC 2: Software: Theory and Practice; TC 3: Education; TC 6: Communication Systems; TC 7: System Modelling and Optimization; TC 9: Relationship between Computers and Society; TC 11: Security and Protection in Information Processing Systems; TC 12: Artificial Intelligence and TC 13: Human-Computer Interaction. The IFIP website www.ifip.org) has further details. Technical Committee 8 (TC8) is concerned with Information Systems in organisations. Within TC8 there are different Working Groups focusing on particular aspects of Information Systems.