This book comprises a set of papers selected from those presented at the fifth « International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems », (ICEIS’2003) held in Angers, France, from 23 to 26 April 2003. The conference was organised by École Supérieure d’Électronique de l’Ouest (ESEO) of Angers, France and the Escola Superior de Tecnologia of Setúbal, Portugal. Since its first edition in 1999, ICEIS focuses on real world applications and aims at bringing together researchers, engineers and practitioners interested in the advances and business applications of information systems. As in previous years, ICEIS’2003 held four simultaneous tracks covering different aspects of enterprise computing: Databases and Information Systems Integration, Artificial Intelligence and Decision Support Systems, Information Systems Analysis and Specification and Software Agents and Internet Computing. Although ICEIS’2003 received 546 paper submissions from over 50 countries, only 80 were accepted as full papers and presented in 30-minutes oral presentations. With an acceptance rate of 15%, these numbers demonstrate the intention of preserving a high quality forum for future editions of this conference. From the articles accepted as long papers for the conference, only 32 were selected for inclusion in this book Additional keynote lectures, tutorials and industrial sessions were also held during ICEIS’2003, and, for the first time this year, the 1st Doctoral Consortium on Enterprise Information Systems gave PhD students an opportunity to present their work to an international audience of experts in the field of information systems.
