Welcome to the 8th International Workshop on Groupware (CRIWG 2002)! The previous workshops took place in Lisbon, Portugal (1995), Puerto Varas, Chile (1996), El Escorial, Spain (1997), Búzios, Brazil (1998), Cancun, Mexico (1999), Madeira, Portugal (2000), and Darmstadt, Germany (2001). CRIWG workshops follow a simple recipe for success: good papers, a small number of participants, extensive time for lively and constructive discussions, and a high level of cooperation both within and between paper sessions. CRIWG 2002 continued this tradition. CRIWG 2002 attracted 36 submissions from 13 countries, nine of them outside Ibero-America. Each of the 36 articles submitted was reviewed by at least three members of an internationally renowned Program Committee. This year we used a double-blind reviewing process, i. e. , the reviewers did not know who the authors of the papers were. In addition, the reviewers were chosen based on their expertise and we also ensured that they came from countries and institutions not related to those of the paper’s authors. This reviewer assignment worked remarkably well, as indicated by the high average confidence value the reviewers gave their own reviews. This means that papers were usually reviewed by experts in the paper’s topic. As a consequence, reviews were usually quite extensive and contained many suggestions for - provements. I would like to thank all the members of the Program Committee for their hard work, which I am sure contributed to improving the quality of the final articles.
