This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Object-Oriented Information Systems, OOIS 2002, held in Montpellier, France, in September 2002.The 34 revised full papers and 17 short papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 116 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on developing web services, object databases, XML and web, component and ontology, UML modeling, object modeling and information systems adaptation, e-business models and workflow, performance and method evaluation, programming and tests, software engineering metries, web-based information systems, architecture and Corba, and roles and evolvable objects.

New object-oriented technologies have been conceived and implemented over the past decade in order to manage complexity inherent in information systems development. Research has spanned from information systems modelling languages (UML and OML) to databases (ODMG), from programming languages (Java) to middleware technology (CORBA). A more widespread use of the Internet has led to the emergence and integration of various other technologies, such as XML and database connectivity tools, allowing businesses to access and exchange information over the Internet. The main theme of OOIS 2000 was "Object-Technology and New Business Opportunities" and focused on research conducted in the area of effective information systems development for the promotion of e-commerce. Papers were invited from academics and practitioners. The thirty-nine papers accepted for oms 2000 are included in these proceedings. It is nice to see this year that the shift from centralised to distributed systems and the widespread access and use of the Internet has allowed the advent of new opportunities for businesses to exploit, in the form of e-commerce.

This proceedings contains some of the papers presented at the Business Object and Implementation Workshops held at OOPSLA'96, OOPSLA'97 and OOPSLA'98. The main theme of the workshops is to document the evolution of business objects, from ~any perspectives, including modelling, implementation, standards and applications. The 1996 workshop intended to clarify the specification, design, and implementation of interoperable, plug and play, distributed business object components and their suitability for delivery of enterprise applications; and to assess the impact of the WWW and, more specifically, the Intranet on the design and implementation of business object components. The main focus of the workshop was: What design patterns will allow implementation of business objects as plug and play components? How can these components be assembled into domain specific frameworks? What are the appropriate architectures/mechanisms as distributed object systems? What for implementing these frameworks organisational and development process issues need to be addressed to successfully deliver these systems? Is this approach an effective means for deploying enterprise application solutions? The third annual workshop (OOPSLA'97) was jointly sponsored by the Accredited Standards Committee X3H7 Object Information Management Technical Committee and the Object Management Group (OMG) Business Object Domain Task Force (BODTF) for the purpose of soliciting technical position papers relevant to the design and implementation of Business Object Systems.

Over the past 10 years, object technology has gained widespread acceptance within the software industry. Within a wider context, however, it has made little impact on the core applications which support businesses in carrying out their tasks. This volume contains a collection of papers establishing the need for Business Objects, with particular reference to work undertaken by the Object Management Group (OMG). The emphasis is on defining an agenda for establishing Business Object standards and architectures, for developing software technology to support Business Objects applications and managing object oriented development projects. The wide variety of papers presented, and their authors' expertise, make this book a significant contribution to the development of Business Objects and their management.

This volume contains the papers presented at the Intemational Conference on Object Oriented Information Systems 00lS'94, held at South Bank University, London, December 19 - 21, 1994. In response to our call for papers, a total 85 papers from 24 different countries were submitted. Each paper was evaluated by at least two Program Committee members and an additional reviewer. Together, we selected 41 papers for presentation at the conference and inclusion in the Proceedings. Also included are the keynote addresses by Peter Gray and Michael Jackson. The other submissions were recommended for presentation in the poster sessions. Peter Gray, our invited speaker, evaluates the problems of object-oriented systems and data independence by looking at how object oriented database applications are failing to perceive its benefits, and instead rely too much on encapsulation. He suggests alternative kinds of object storage to preserve data independence. The second invited speaker, Michael Jackson describes a way of solving problems, by focusing directly on the problems themselves, their components and structures and on the relationships between the problem and the solution method. He discusses a particular view of the role of object-orientation in software development.