From bd3@cosmos.inria.fr Origine: bd3@cosmos.inria.fr Subject: CoopIS'95 Stefano.Spaccapietra@di.epfl.ch communique: Call for Papers Third International Conference on Cooperative Information Systems (CoopIS-95) May 9-12, 1995 Schloss Wilhelminen-Berg, Vienna, Austria In cooperation with IEEE CS, ACM SIGOIS, ACM SIGMOD (pending approval) An Evolving CIS Paradigm ------------------------ The paradigm for the next generation of information systems (ISs) will involve large numbers of ISs distributed over large, complex computer/communication networks. Such ISs will manage or have acces to large amounts of information and computing services. They will support individual or collaborative human work. The Conference --------------- The CoopIS-95 conference will provide a forum for the presentation and dissemination of research covering all aspects of CIS design, requirements, functionality, implementation, deployment, and evolution. The CoopIS-95 conference programme will include technical sessions, invited presentations, panels and tutorials that deal with CISs and the integration of relevant technologies. In addition, CoopIS-95 plans to host special sessions on the industrial applicability of CIS technology. Further information about the conference and its programme can be obtained from the CoopIS-95 General and Program Co-Chairs by email at coopis@dke.univie.ac.at. Information for Authors ----------------------- Authors must clearly relate the contribution of their work to the concept of CIS, rather than just describing aspects of a component technology (e.g., state assumptions or definitions as to the nature of CISs). Papers which illustrate their results in terms of an CIS application or address technology integration issues leading to CISs are particularly welcome. Submission must be identified as one of three different categories: vision, research, and experience. Vision papers should present stimulating challenges, ideas, or visoins that lead to exciting and valuable CIS research directions. Vison papers will be evaluated with respect to innovation, realizable applications and technologies, and technical challenges posed (e.g., that do not currently admit of solutions). Research papers should advance the state of the art of CIS and will be evaluated using conventional scientific criteria. Experience papers should describe the practical applications of CIS concepts or methods. They will be evaluated in terms of lessons learned, research issues raised, and solutions to realistic challenges, such as those of legacy information systems. Five copies of original and compelling unpublished papers up to 6000 words that are not under consideration for publication elsewhere during the reviewing period should be sent to the appropriate Programme Committee Co-Chair. Submissions must include contact information (contact name, postal and e-mail address, and phone number), a 100-word abstract, exact word count, and explicitly indicate the paper category (vision, research, or experience). Suggested themes for submitted papers include (not limited to): --------------------------------------------------------------- - CIS Principles - cooperation, intelligence, autonomy - CIS Architectures and communication protocols - novel open architectures, blackboard systems, multiagent planning frameworks, speech acts, advanced information services in support of interoperability - Business Process Management Systems: Architectures, Concepts, Technology (e.g. analysis, modeling, reengineering and evaluation of business processes) - Large-Scale Knowledge Bases for CIS - sharing and reuse of worldwide knowledge, knowledge of knowledge structures, trends and applications in this area - Core Technology for CIS - open distributed computing architectures, type systems, object models and advanced transaction models for interoperability, advanced query models and languages, active databases - CIS Implementation Techniques - novel programming languages for CISs, interoperability issues in distributed heterogeneous information bases, multi-database transaction scheduling and execution, rule bases - Integration Challenges - interoperability, multiple paradigms, forms of transparency, object and transaction model integration, global information (e.g., schemas, directories, repositories), semantic interoperability, negotiation, optimization (e.g., queries, indexing, ...) - Information Modeling and Reasoning techniques for CISs - multiple perspective representations, non-deductive forms of inference (inductive, analogical, case-based, ...), multiagent planning and problem solving - Advanced CIS Programming - workflows, transactions, information requests, policy/rule-driven systems, mega-programming, multiple programming paradigms - Information Engineering for CIS - information acquisition, classification and retrieval techniques and tools, information sharing and management - Re-Engineering - concepts, tools, and methodologies; re-engineer legacy and new information systems into CISs - CIS Evolution - concepts, tools, and techniques for CIS design, development, and maintenance - Information Agents - novel models and organizations, application of information agent technology in virtual laboratories, concurrent engineering and other groupware frameworks. - CIS Applications - current and future. General Chair ------------- Dimitris Karagiannis Dept. Knowledge Engineering University of Vienna Bruenner Str. 72 A-1210 Vienna, Austria email: dk@dke.univie.ac.at Program Co-Chairs ----------------- America (North & South) Steven C. Laufmann (USA) U S WEST Technologies 4001 Discovery Drive Boulder, CO, 80303, USA laufmann@advtech.uswest.com Europe & Middle East Stefano Spaccapietra (CH) EPFL-DI-LBD CH-1015 Lausanne Switzerland spaccapietra@di.epfl.ch Far East, Africa & Australia Toshio Yokoi (Japan) Japan Electronic Dictionary Research Institue Ltd. Mita-Kokusai 1-4-28 Mita, Minato-ku Tokyo 108, Japan yokoi@edr.co.jp Steering Committee ------------------ Michael L. Brodie, GTE-Laboratories, USA Michael N. Huhns, MCC, USA Matthias Jarke, RWTH Aachen, Germany John Mylopoulos, University of Toronto, Canada Mike Papazoglou, Queensland Uni. Technology, Australia Gunter Schlageter, FU Hagen, Germany Program Committee ----------------- Alexander Borgida (USA) Michael L. Brodie (USA) Panos Constantopoulos (Greece) Umeshwar Dayal (USA) Misbah Deen (UK) Lois M. Delcambre (USA) Asuman Dogac (Turkey) Ahmed K. Elmagarmid (USA) Les Gasser (USA) J. L. Hainaut (Belgium) Yoshinori Hara (Japan) Igor Hawryszkiewycz (Australia) Michael N. Huhns (USA) Aranza Illaramendi (Spain) Toru Ishida (Japan) V. Jaganathan (USA) Matthias Jarke (Germany) Nick Jennings (UK) Leonid Kalinichenko (Russia) Yahiko Kambayashi (Japan) Hannu Kangassalo (Finland) Roger King (USA) Carig Knoblock (USA) Jacques Kouloumdjian (France) Eiji Kuwana (Japan) Maurizio Lenzerini (Italy) Michel Leonard (Switzerland) Victor Lesser (USA) Fred Lochovsky (Hong-Kong) Vincent Lum (Hong-Kong) Louis Marinos (Germany) Patrick Martin (Canada) Dennis McLeod (USA) Robert Meersman (Holland) Noria Morrie (ETHZ) Juzar Motiwalla (Singapore) John Mylopoulos (Canada) Erich Neuhold (Germany) Anne Ngu (Australia) Tamer Ozsu (Canada) Maurizio Panti (Italy) Mike Papazoglou (Australia) Charles Petrie (USA) Don Potter (USA) Andreas Reuter (Germany) Daniel Ries (USA) Marek Rusinkiewicz (USA) Felix Saltor (Spain) Gunter Schlageter (Germany) Sandip Sen (USA) Evangelos Simoudis (USA) Katsumi Tanaka (Japan) A Min Tjoa (Austria) Patrick Valduriez (France) Carson Woo (Canada) Important dates --------------- December 15,1994 paper, panel, and tutorial submissions due February 1,1995 notification of acceptance March 1,1995 camera-ready version due ----------------------------******-------------------------------- Return-Path: Serge.Abiteboul@inria.fr Received: from concorde.inria.fr (concorde.inria.fr [192.93.2.39]) by lirmm.lirmm.fr (8.6.10/8.6.4) with ESMTP id PAA05541; Thu, 23 Mar 1995 15:01:03 +0100 Received: from cosmos.inria.fr (cosmos.inria.fr [128.93.11.30]) by concorde.inria.fr (8.6.10/8.6.9) with ESMTP id PAA15534; Thu, 23 Mar 1995 15:00:34 +0100 Received: from calvados.inria.fr (calvados.inria.fr [128.93.11.59]) by cosmos.inria.fr (8.6.10/8.6.6) with ESMTP id OAA10279; Thu, 23 Mar 1995 14:59:00 +0100 From: Serge Abiteboul Received: (abitebou@localhost) by calvados.inria.fr (8.6.10/8.6.6) id OAA03123; Thu, 23 Mar 1995 14:59:00 +0100 Date: Thu, 23 Mar 1995 14:59:00 +0100 Message-Id: <199503231359.OAA03123@calvados.inria.fr> To: bd3@cosmos.inria.fr Subject: CoopIS-95 Reply-to: Stefano.Spaccapietra@di.epfl.ch ---------------------------------------------------------------------- La Gazette de Bases de Donnees est (a) un service de email: bd3@cosmos.inria.fr (b) un service WEB: http://www-rocq.inria.fr:80/verso/ pour rejoindre ces listes ou vous en retirer, ecrire a bd3@cosmos.inria.fr ou Serge.Abiteboul@inria.fr ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ############################################################ Third International Conference on Cooperative Information Systems (CoopIS-95) Call for Participation ############################################################ May 9-12, 1995 Schloss Wilhelminenburg Hotel Vienna, Austria ----------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------ An Evolving CIS Paradigm ------------------------ The paradigm for the next generation of information systems (ISs) will involve large numbers of ISs distributed over large, complex computer/communication networks. Such ISs will manage or have access to large amounts of information and computing services. They will support individual or collaborative human work. -------------- The Conference -------------- The CoopIS-95 conference will provide a forum for the presentation and dissemination of research and practical experience covering all aspects of CIS design, requirements, functionality, implementation, deployment, and evolution. The conference will be held in a retreat-like setting, providing a collegial atmosphere fostering discussion and interaction. The CoopIS-95 conference programme includes technical sessions, invited presentations, panels, and tutorials that deal with CISs and the integration of relevant technologies. In addition, CoopIS-95 is hosting two special pre-conference seminars. Further information about the conference and its program can be obtained from the CoopIS-95 General and Program Co-Chairs by email at coopis@cs.toronto.edu. ------------- General Chair ------------- Dimitris Karagiannis Dept. Knowledge Engineering University of Vienna Bruenner Str. 72 A-1210 Vienna, Austria email: dk@dke.univie.ac.at ----------------- Program Co-Chairs ----------------- America (North & South): Steven C. Laufmann (USA) U S WEST Technologies 4001 Discovery Drive Boulder, CO, 80303, USA laufmann@advtech.uswest.com Europe & Middle East: Stefano Spaccapietra (CH) EPFL-DI-LBD CH-1015 Lausanne Switzerland spaccapietra@di.epfl.ch Far East, Africa, & Australia: Toshio Yokoi (Japan) Japan Electronic Dictionary Research Institue Ltd. Mita-Kokusai 1-4-28 Mita, Minato-ku Tokyo 108, Japan yokoi@edr.co.jp ------------------ Steering Committee ------------------ Michael L. Brodie, GTE-Laboratories, USA Michael N. Huhns, MCC, USA Matthias Jarke, RWTH Aachen, Germany John Mylopoulos, University of Toronto, Canada Mike Papazoglou, Queensland Uni. Technology, Australia Gunter Schlageter, FU Hagen, Germany ----------------- Program Committee ----------------- Alexander Borgida (USA) Michael L. Brodie (USA) Umeshwar Dayal (USA) Misbah Deen (UK) Lois M. Delcambre (USA) Asuman Dogac (Turkey) Ahmed K. Elmagarmid (USA) Les Gasser (USA) J. L. Hainaut (Belgium) Yoshinori Hara (Japan) Igor Hawryszkiewycz (Australia) Michael N. Huhns (USA) Aranza Illaramendi (Spain) Toru Ishida (Japan) V. Jaganathan (USA) Matthias Jarke (Germany) Nick Jennings (UK) Leonid Kalinichenko (Russia) Yahiko Kambayashi (Japan) Hannu Kangassalo (Finland) Roger King (USA) Craig Knoblock (USA) Jacques Kouloumdjian (France) Eiji Kuwana (Japan) Maurizio Lenzerini (Italy) Michel Leonard (Switzerland) Victor Lesser (USA) Fred Lochovsky (Hong-Kong) Vincent Lum (Hong-Kong) Louis Marinos (Germany) Patrick Martin (Canada) Dennis McLeod (USA) Robert Meersman (Holland) Moira Norrie (ETHZ) Juzar Motiwalla (Singapore) John Mylopoulos (Canada) Erich Neuhold (Germany) Anne Ngu (Australia) Tamer Ozsu (Canada) Maurizio Panti (Italy) Mike Papazoglou (Australia) Charles Petrie (USA) Don Potter (USA) Andreas Reuter (Germany) Daniel Ries (USA) Marek Rusinkiewicz (USA) Felix Saltor (Spain) Gunter Schlageter (Germany) Sandip Sen (USA) Evangelos Simoudis (USA) Katsumi Tanaka (Japan) A Min Tjoa (Austria) Patrick Valduriez (France) Carson Woo (Canada) -------------------------------------------------------- Third International Conference on Cooperative Information Systems (CoopIS-95) Preliminary Program -------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------- Tuesday, May 9th, 1995 ---------------------- 8:00 - 9:00 registration 9:00 - 10:30 Seminar 1 "Computer Support Systems for Business Processes" - Giorgio De Michelis (University of Milan and RSO, Italy) [detailed information on this seminar is provided at the end of this posting.] 10:30 - 11:00 break 11:00 - 12:30 Seminar 1 (continued) 12:30 - 2:00 lunch 2:00 - 3:30 Seminar 2 "On The Design and Development of Large-Scale Cooperative Information Systems" - Michael Brodie (GTE Laboratories, USA) [detailed information on this seminar is provided at the end of this posting.] 3:30 - 4:00 break 4:00 - 5:30 Seminar 2 (continued) 6:00 - 8:00 Conference Reception ------------------------- Wednesday, May 10th, 1995 ------------------------- 8:00 - 9:00 registration 9:00 - 10:30 Keynote Speaker "Next Generation Workflow: Promises and Problems" - Clarence "Skip" Ellis (University of Colorado, USA) 10:30 - 11:00 break 11:00 - 12:30 Paper Session 1 -- Integration "Using Object Matching and Materialization to Integrate Heterogeneous Databases" - G. Zhou, R. Hull, R. King, and J. Franchitti "A Semantic-Discriminated Approach to Integration of Federated Databases" - M. Garcia-Solaco, M. Castellanos, and F. Saltor "Process-Oriented Integration of Tools in Distributed Modeling Environments" - M. Jarke, R. Domges, H. W. Nissen, and K. Pohl 12:30 - 2:00 lunch 2:00 - 3:00 Paper Session 2 "Partitioning information bases with contexts" - J. Mylopoulos and Renate Motschnig-Pitrik "Correctness of Asynchronous Distributed Cooperation" - J. R. Getta, L. A. Maciaszek, I. T. Hawryszkiewycz 3:00 - 3:30 break 3:30 - 5:30 Tutorial 1 "Agent Technologies" - Steven C. Laufmann (U S WEST Advanced Technologies, USA) and Michael Huhns (MCC, USA) Agents provide an intuitive abstraction for cooperating information systems, and have substantial potential in future software and network markets as new agent-based products become available. With suitable knowledge and assessment skills, individuals and organizations will be better prepared to assess the advantages and disadvantages of various agent-related technologies for specific applications. This tutorial describes the current state of research in agent technologies, and presents a framework by which current and future technologies may be evaluated. 6:00 - 9:00 IFCIS Business Meeting - International Foundation for Cooperative Information Systems ------------------------ Thursday, May 11th, 1995 ------------------------ 8:00 - 9:00 registration 9:00 - 10:30 Panel Session -- "Multiple Perspectives on Semantic Issues" - chair: Robert Meersman (Free University of Brussels, Belgium) Semantics capture the intentions of system designers. As such, they present some of the most difficult problems faced in the emerging field of cooperative information systems. This panel will discuss these issues from a number of diverse perspectives, seeking a better understanding of the complexities and possible solutions to the problems of semantic interoperability. Panelists will include industry and university leaders from Europe, America, and Asia/Pacific. 10:30 - 11:00 break 11:00 - 12:30 Paper Session 3 -- Workflow "Enforcing inter-task dependencies in transactional workflows" - J. Tang and J. Veijalainen "The workflow activity model WAMO" - J. Eder and W. Liebhart "Exotica/FMDC: Handling Disconnected Clients in a Workflow Management System" - G. Alonso, R. Gunthor, M. Kamath, D. Agrawal, A. El Abbadi, C. Mohan 12:30 - 2:00 lunch 2:00 - 3:00 Paper Session 4 -- Applications "Managing Concurrent Activities in Collaborative Environments" - D. Agrawal, J. L. Bruno, A. El Abbadi, V. Krishnaswamy "IRO-DB, a solution for computer integrated manufacturing applications" - A. Ramfos, J. Fessy, B. Finance, and V. Smahi 3:00 - 3:30 break 3:30 - 5:30 Tutorial 2 "Cooperative Information Systems: An Overview" - Mike Papazoglou (Queensland Univ. of Technology, Australia) Cooperative Information Systems (CIS) are an emerging interdisciplinary field. A CIS consists of many existing systems distributed widely over computer/communication networks. Such systems support individual or collaborative human work, and manage access to a large number of information and computing services. Computation is done concurrently over the network by cooperative database systems, expert systems, multi-agent planning systems, and other software application systems ranging from the conventional to the advanced. This tutorial looks at technological advances in a variety of fields - which all contribute to the CIS field - and presents a framework supporting the co-existence of these technologies. 6:00 - 8:00 Conference Banquet ---------------------- Friday, May 12th, 1995 ---------------------- 8:00 - 9:00 registration 9:00 - 10:30 Keynote Speaker "The Conceptual Technology for Mediation" - Gio Wiederhold (Stanford University, USA) 10:30 - 11:00 break 11:00 - 12:30 Paper Session 5 -- Queries "Using Heterogeneous Equivalences for Query Rewriting in Multidatabase Systems" - D. Florescu, L. Rachid, and P. Valduriez "Distributed semantic query processing in a cooperative information system" - J. Cardiff, T. Catarci, and G. Santucci "Universal Contextual Queries in Database Networks" - M.C. Norrie and D. Kerr 12:30 - 2:00 lunch 2:00 - 3:00 Paper Session 6 -- Modeling "From Organization Models to System Requirements: A 'Cooperating Agents' Approach" - E. Yu, P. Du Bois, E. Dubois, and J. Mylopoulos "CapBasED-AMS -- A Framework for Capability-Based and Event- Driven Activity Management System" - K. Karlapalem, H. P. Yeung, P. C. K. Hung 3:00 - 3:30 break 3:30 - 5:00 Panel Session "Interoperability in Multidatabase Systems" - chair: Felix Saltor (Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya, Spain) Interoperability in Multidatabase Systems (IMS) has been an important area of research for a number of years, and is reaching a degree of maturity. This panel will discuss: (1) Lessons learned from these years of research and development: - where it yielded tangible results, where it failed - the status of products - the nature of real life applications (2) Significant problems still open and the most promising lines of research in IMS for the next few years. Panelists will include industry and university leaders from Europe, America, and Asia/Pacific. -------------------------------------------------------- Third International Conference on Cooperative Information Systems (CoopIS-95) Registration Information -------------------------------------------------------- Pre-Conference Seminars: May 9, 1995 Conference: May 10-12, 1995 ------------------------ Registration Information ------------------------ General and student registration privileges include participation in tutorials as well as the technical program, copies of the conference proceedings, and tutorials notes for all tutorials. Seminar registration includes participation in one of the offered seminars and the seminar notes. One-day registration includes participation privileges for one day and a copy of the conference program or the tutorial notes. Please make check or bank draft payable to: University of Vienna, CoopIS-95, and mail to the following address: CoopIS-95 Registration Institut of Knowledge Engineering Bruenner Strasse 72 A-1210 Vienna Austria Mail your registration to the address above, Fax to (++43-1-291 28 264), or E-mail to coopis@dke.univie.ac.at Acknowledgment will be sent by E-mail to the address listed upon receipt of registration form and check/bank draft. Written requests for refunds must be sent to Gabriela Kaiser no later than April 15. Refunds are subject to a $50 processing fee. All no-show registrations will be billed in full. Students are required to show current picture ID cards at the registration desk. ----------------- Hotel Information ----------------- The Schloss Wilhelminenburg Hotel has reserved rooms for the conference until April 15. After this date, the rooms will be released and reservations will be on a first come, first serve basis. Book early. Please refer to the conference (CoopIS-95) when making your reservation. Schloss Wilhelminenburg Hotel, A-1160 Wien, Savoyenstrasse 2, Tel.: ++43-1-458 503. Fax: ++43-1- 454 876. Rate is 800 ATS/night ($80 US) for single-bed room and 1200 ATS/night ($120 US) for double-bed. And the rate for Herberge (belonging to the same hotel) 370 ATS ($37 US) for double-bed rooms. These prices include breakfast. --------------------------- CoopIS-95 Registration Form --------------------------- Last Name: __________________________________________ First Name: _________________________________________ Name for Badge: _____________________________________ Organization: _______________________________________ Address: ____________________________________________ City: _______________________________________________ Prov/State: _________________________________________ Zip Code: ___________________________________________ Tel: ________________________________________________ Fax: ________________________________________________ E-mail: _____________________________________________ REGISTRATION Advance Late (before April 21st) (after April 21st) -------------------------------------------------------------------- CONFERENCE -- MAY 10-12 ------------------------ Full Conference General ___ $340 US ___ $375 US ___ 3400 ATS ___ 3750 ATS Student* ___ $150 US ___ $190 US ___ 1500 ATS ___ 1900 ATS Conference - Single day ___ $150 US ___ $190 US ___ 1500 ATS ___ 1900 ATS -------------------------------------------------------------------- PRECONFERENCE SEMINARS -- MAY 9 ------------------------------- - Both Seminars - Pre-Conference Seminars ___ $225 US ___ $285 US ___ 2250 ATS ___ 2850 ATS - Single Seminar - Seminar 1 (morning) ___ $150 US ___ $190 US ___ 1500 ATS ___ 1900 ATS Seminar 2 (afternoon) ___ $150 US ___ $190 US ___ 1500 ATS ___ 1900 ATS -------------------------------------------------------------------- Total Amount: ______ ATS ______ US ******************************************* *** Payment may be made in either *** *** US dollars or *** *** Austrian schillings. *** ******************************************* * Proof of status is required. Photocopy of picture card and student ID number must accompany payment. -------------------------------------------------------- Third International Conference on Cooperative Information Systems (CoopIS-95) Seminars -------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------- Computer Support Systems for Business Processes Giorgio De Michelis University of Milan and RSO, Italy ----------------------------------------------- Motivations Business process reengineering is a popular topic today. Its fans seem convinced that it is the panacea for most of the problems organizations encounter today, while its opponents suspect that it is only a new way to justify reductions in the number of persons employed to perform a particular task. The latter ones claim that it is well known that business process reengineering frequently does not reach its goals; while the former ones recall the successful case histories that have been made popular in the managerial literature. The controversy reappears in similar terms if the issue of support systems for business processes is raised: workflow management systems, groupware systems, workgroup computing systems are in fact at the center of sharp discussions between those who think they are only new ways to automatize office work and those who are convinced they are the engines of a new industrial revolution. I don't want to enter into either of these controversies: my opinion is, in fact, that business process reengineering, moving the attention from the organizational structures where people work to the processual nature of what they do, offers an interesting occasion to rethink socio-technical systems analysis and design methods, deepening our understanding of organizational structures, professional roles, and computer-based technologies. This seminar proposes the conceptual framework to understand work processes and socio-technical systems that I have developed during my research activity at the University of Milan and my professional activity at RSO. My aim is to show how the understanding of the social complexity of organized work can be the basis for developing new insights into controversial organizational, managerial and technological issues. The seminar is oriented to both active researchers in the areas of organizational sciences, managerial disciplines, information system theories, and CSCW and professionals and managers dealing with business process performances within organizations. No magic solution will be provided! Outline Each section of the tutorial proposes some conceptual categories and applies them to the intepretation of real case histories. Most of the examples are dedicated to enterprises. They are chosen in such a way that they can easily be generalized to other types of organizations, such as public administrations. Introduction - What is Business Process Reengineering - Business Process Reengineering and Development - Why does Business Process Reengineering Fail? - Technologies for Business Process Reengineering Work Processes, Organizational Structures, Persons - Work Processes as Business Processes: a Relational Approach - Work Processes and Communities of Practices: Cooperation Forms - Work Processes and Communities of Practices: Responsibility and Professional Skill - The Complexity of a Work Process and its Cost - The Threshold of Sustainable Complexity - The Relation between Organizational Structures and Work Processes Supporting Work Processes - Workgroup Computing Systems as Enabling Artifacts - Workflow Management Systems and Cooperative Information Systems - Rationale for Work Process Support Systems - Towards a Support System for Work Processes: the Milano System Conclusion - A Research Agenda for Computer Support Systems for Business Processes Biography Giorgio De Michelis teaches Theoretical Computer Science at the University of Milano, where he has been working since 1972. He is carrying out research on models of concurrent systems (Petri Nets) and on Computer Supported Cooperative Work, where he is developing prototypes of support systems for cooperative processes (CHAOS, UTUCS, MILANO). He is responsible for the Cooperation Technologies Laboratory at the Dipartimento di Scienze dell'Informazione of the University of Milano; he is member of the PMC of the ESPRIT BRA Project, 6225, COMIC; he is chairman of the Management Committee of the COST 14 Action, CO-TECH. Giorgio De Michelis has repeatedly served as program committee member for both the CSCW and the ECSCW conferences. He has served as program committee chairman of the ECSCW'93 in Milano. He is author of more than sixty papers on the areas of his interest. Giorgio De Michelis is senior partner of RSO, an Italian consultancy firm specializing in change management with particular attention to professional exploitation systems, business process reengineering, and socio-technical systems design. In business process engineering, Giorgio De Michelis has guided various projects in the banking (Banca Popolare di Sondrio, Credito Emiliano) as well as in the industrial sector (various companies of the Fiat Group, Merloni). Moreover, he has authored some papers (both in Italian and English) on the use of workgroup computing systems within business process reengineering projects and he is member of the Program Committee of the ACM 1995 Conference on Organizational Computing Systems - Business Processes. Recent publications include - G. De Michelis, From the analysis of cooperation within work-processes to the design of CSCW Systems, in: Proceedings of the 15th Interdisciplinary Workshop on Informatics and Psychology: Interdisciplinary approaches to system analysis and design, Schaerding, Austria May 24 - 26, 1994. - G. De Michelis, M. A. Grasso, Situating conversations within the language/action perspective: the Milan Conversation Model. In Proceedings of the 5th Conference on CSCW. ACM, New York, 1994. - G. De Michelis, Computer Support for Cooperative Work: Computers between Users and Social Complexity, in S. Bagnara, S. Stucky, C. Zucchermaglio (editors), Organizational Learning and Technological Change, Springer Berlin 1995 (to appear). - A. Agostini, G. De Michelis, M. A. Grasso, S. Patriarca, Reengineering a business process with an innovative Workflow Management System: a Case Study, 'Collaborative Computing', 1995 (to appear). -------------------------------------------------------- On The Design and Development of Large-Scale Cooperative Information Systems Michael L. Brodie Senior Staff Scientist GTE Laboratories Incorporated, U.S.A. -------------------------------------------------------- Abstract Several factors dominate the design, development, and deployment of information systems (IS). The larger the IS, the greater the impact of these factors, which include: * business (vs. technology) orientation and business driven solutions * business requirements (e.g., cost reduction, customer focus, reduced time to market) * current revolutions in business (e.g., re-engineer, downsizing) * advances in technology (e.g., distributed computing, client/server, transaction processors, object-oriented technology) * legacy ISs that are the backbone of most organizations With these factors and a lack of successful experience in these areas, it is increasingly challenging to develop new information systems. Indeed, it is rare that a new information system can be built from scratch. Following the premise of interoperability between most ISs in an organization, most future ISs will be built as an extension of existing computing resources. This leads to the notion of the ISs of an organization forming a large-scale cooperative IS and then to the need for a vision or model of such an environment as well as concepts, tools, and methodologies to realize them. Distributed object computing (DOC) visions, such as underlies ISO's Open Distributed Processing (ODP) and OMG's Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA ), are being realized as a basis for enterprise wide cooperative information systems. Yet, fundamental challenges are arising in these approaches. These challenges concern not just the core technology but the lack of a corresponding vision of the cooperative applications that they will support. For example, CORBA lacks a reference model that encompasses the infrastructure, for which it has a model, and the applications, for which it does not. That is, there is no application architecture or model of cooperative information systems. These DOC technologies may provide an infrastructure but they do not provide a basis for application interoperation, a key requirement of cooperative information systems. We may be on a new, wonderful DOC environment but we are being left with the age old problems, such as semantic interoperability, that will inhibit the realization of cooperative information systems. These challenges may be contributing to the slow adoption of DOC technology in industry. Although object-oriented technology and products, including CORBA, have been in existence for several years, few production ISs are being launched. This seminar addresses cooperative information systems from a variety of points of view, such as those mentioned above, including: * business motivations driving future information systems * technical challenges driving future information systems * principles underlying the new technology paradigms * the death of ISs, as we knew them * status and challenges facing OMG and proposed directions * towards a comprehensive reference model for DOC, including cooperative ISs * dealing with the legacy: an incremental migration methodology and state of the art review * new methodologies and technology in support of next generation (cooperative) ISs (e.g., integration frameworks, domain-based ontology-based modelling) * case study: DOC as a technology basis for corporate wide re-engineering * case study: design and development an enterprise-wide DOC computing architecture * case study: one of the worlds largest DOC applications * research challenges The presentation will address core technology, systems management, distributed computing architectures, engineering, standards, and methodologies. We hope to address such questions as: What does it mean to put object-oriented (OO) technology to work, on a massive scale. What are the problems? What is the progress to date? What are the challenges in designing a target environment and migrating from the current, legacy, non-OO, information systems infrastructure to the target? What are the business objectives? How are the business processes determined? How do you migrate an organization from its current state to that envisioned in the re-engineering plan? What is the role of information technology (IT) in establishing this vision and migrating to it? How does business requirements relate to IT pragmatics? How do you keep the corporation running while migrating the entire information systems infrastructure? How do you introduce or utilize object-orientation in a legacy environment? Dr. Michael L. Brodie is a Senior Staff Scientist at GTE Laboratories Inc., Waltham, Mass. His primary research focus is on Distributed Object Computing (DOC). Until 1994, he headed the Distributed Object Computing Department within GTE Labs' Computer and Intelligent Systems Laboratory. He received his B.Sc., M.Sc., and Ph.D.. from the University of Toronto, Canada. His research interests include: next generation computing and applications, and relevant emerging technologies such as distributed object computing, interoperability, cooperative information systems, database technology, artificial intelligence, programming languages, and computer communications/telecommunications. He has a major concern for the social responsibility of his own work and that of computer science as a whole. Michael has written and spoken out on this topic for many years. Michael is a on several boards including the VLDB Endowment, the ACM SIGMOD Advisory Committee, the Telecommunications Information Networking Architecture Scientific Committee (TINA), Cooperative Information Systems (CoopIS), and the International Foundation for Cooperative Information Systems (IFCIS). He has consulted to research advisory organizations of the governments of USA, Canada, France, Italy, Germany, Colombia, Brasil, Denmark, Australia, Russia, Ukraine, and the EEC. Michael has authored over 70 books, journal articles, and refereed conference papers. He has given invited lectures and short courses on Distributed Object Computing, Database Technology, Information Engineering, CASE, Integrating AI and Database Technologies, Intelligent Information Systems, and Next Generation Database Technology in over twenty five countries. His most recent book is Brodie, M.L., and M. Stonebraker, "Migrating Legacy Systems: Gateways, Interfaces, and the Incremental Approach", Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, San Francisco, CA (1995). ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----- End Included Message -----