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<td><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=+2> AGENT-ORIENTED INFORMATION
SYSTEMS (AOIS)</font></font></td>
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<blockquote><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>Agent-Orientation
is emerging as a potentially powerful new paradigm in computing. Yet its
role in information systems and information systems development is only
beginning to be investigated.</font></font>
<p><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>Information systems continue
to be the predominant application of computing technology, and the development,
maintenance, and evolution of information systems remain the primary pre-occupation
of most computing professionals. However, the environment for information
systems has been changing rapidly and often radically. Organizations in
almost every sector -- manufacturing, education, health care, government,
and businesses large and small -- are reinventing themselves in a competitive,
fast-moving, global environment. They are becoming more interconnected,
more decentralized, but more interdependent. New information system concepts
and technologies have contributed in no small measure to these changes.
These have accelerated with the advent of the Internet and the World Wide
Web. At the same time, technology has also contributed to much of the complexity
and obstacles to change, as evidenced in the problem of legacy systems.</font></font>
<p><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>Techniques such as Structured
Analysis and Entity-Relationship modelling, while</font></font> <font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>revolutionary
in their time (and still the foundation of much of IS practice today),
were</font></font> <font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>developed
for the environment of the 1970's. Throughout the 80's and 90's, any extensions
have been developed, with object-orientation gaining increasing omentum.The
rapidly changing environments of today and of the near future call for
further</font></font> <font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>advances
in IS concepts and techniques.</font></font>
<p><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>Agent concepts, which originated
in artificial intelligence but which have further developed and evolved
in many areas of computing, hold great promise for responding to the new
realities of information systems. While there are many conceptions of agents,
most have embodied higher levels of representation and reasoning involving
knowledge/belief, perception, goal, intention, and commitment. On the one
hand, the technical embodiment of these concepts can lead to advanced functionalities,
e.g. in inference-based query answering and in transaction monitoring.
On the other, their rich representational capabilities allow more faithful
and effective treatments of complex organizational processes.</font></font>
<p><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>Will agent concepts and techniques
figure prominently in information system</font></font> <font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>architectures
of the near future? Will they play key roles in the requirements
analysis,</font></font> <font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>design,
implementation, and evolution of information systems? What are our visions
of</font></font> <font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>agent-orientation
in information systems, and what will be the appropriate researchagendas
for pursuing them?</font></font>
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Research Questions</font></font>
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Position Papers</font></font>
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