This book is a result of the ISD''99, Eight International Conference on Infonnation Systems Development-Methods and Tools, Theory, and Practice held August 11-13, 1999 in Boise, Idaho, USA. The purpose of this conference was to address the issues facing academia and industry when specifying, developing, managing, and improving infonnation systems. ISD''99 consisted not only of the technical program represented in these Proceedings, but also of plenary sessions on product support and content management systems for the Internet environment, workshop on a new paradigm for successful acquisition of infonnation systems, and a panel discussion on current pedagogical issues in systems analysis and design. The selection of papers for ISD''99 was carried out by the International Program Committee. Papers presented during the conference and printed in this volume have been selected from submissions after fonnal double-blind reviewing process and have been revised by their authors based on the recommendations of reviewers. Papers were judged according to their originality, relevance, and presentation quality. All papers were judged purely on their own merits, independently of other submissions. We would like to thank the authors of papers accepted for ISD''99 who all made gallant efforts to provide us with electronic copies of their manuscripts confonning to common guidelines. We thank them for thoughtfully responding to reviewers comments and carefully preparing their final contributions. We thank Daryl Jones, provost of Boise State University and William Lathen, dean, College of Business and Economics, for their support and encouragement.
