WAIM 2004, Dalian (China), 15-17 July, was hosted by Northeastern Univ- sity, China and Dalian University of Technology, China in cooperation with the Database Society of CCF. It was the International Conference on Web-Age Information Management. WAIM 2004 brought together participants from u- versities,industry, and governmentto present,discuss, and address both current issues and novel approaches in the practice, deployment, theory, and meth- ology of information management in the context of the World Wide Web. The conference provided an international forum for the sharing of original research results and practical development experiences among researchers and appli- tion developers from the many Web-related areas. The previous WAIM conf- ences wereheld in Shanghai(WAIM 2000),Xi'an (WAIM 2001),Beijing (WAIM 2002), and Chengdu, China (WAIM 2003). These conferences turned out to be very successful and each attracted more than 100 participants from all over the world.The WAIM 2004 conference included technical sessions organized around important subtopics such as data streamprocessing,time series data processing, mobilecomputing,cachemanagement,security,XML,Web services,Web search engines, query evaluation, and data mining, etc. Following careful review of the 291 submissionsby membersof the internationalprogramcommittee, 57 regular papers and 23 short/industrial papers were accepted for presentation at the conference and for publication in this volume. The submissions came from a total of 22 countries and regions, and the accepted ones were from 13 countries andregions,including Australia,Canada,Chile,China,HongKongSAR,Korea, Norway, Singapore, Spain, Taiwan, UAE, UK, and USA. The conference also consisted of a poster and demonstration track, the publication of which was done in CD-ROM form.

Web-based learning has attracted ongoing attention for its rapid development in recent years. It introduces not just global and distributed, but virtual learning environments to the students. To the educators, it creates a lot of opportunities, and at the same time challenges. Special learning tools/systems, learning resource management, and personalized learning materials, etc. , are the hot research topics at present. After four successful previous annual conferences, ICWL 2002 in Hong Kong, ICWL 2003 in Australia, ICWL 2004 in China, and ICWL 2005 in Hong Kong, the Fifth International Conference on Web-Based Learning (ICWL 2006) was held in Penang, Malaysia during July 19-21, 2006. ICWL 2006 was a continued attempt to address many of the above-mentioned issues. The conference program was organized in a single-track 3-day workshop. It included a tutorial, a keynote talk, and oral/poster paper presentations in several sessions dedicated to specific topics. Session topics included “Personalization in E-Learning,” “Designs, Model and Framework of E-Learning Systems,” “Implementations and Evaluations of E-Learning Systems,” “Tools in E-Learning,” and “Learning Resource Deployment, Organization and Management. ” We received a total of 99 submissions from all over the world. The Program Committee selected 34 papers as regular papers for presentation, an acceptance rate of about 34. 3%. Due to the high-quality submissions, the committee decided to further invite nine papers for poster presentations. Finally, 32 papers (including the keynote speech) were selected for this post-conference proceedings.

WAIM 2004, Dalian (China), 15-17 July, was hosted by Northeastern Univ- sity, China and Dalian University of Technology, China in cooperation with the Database Society of CCF. It was the International Conference on Web-Age Information Management. WAIM 2004 brought together participants from u- versities,industry, and governmentto present,discuss, and address both current issues and novel approaches in the practice, deployment, theory, and meth- ology of information management in the context of the World Wide Web. The conference provided an international forum for the sharing of original research results and practical development experiences among researchers and appli- tion developers from the many Web-related areas. The previous WAIM conf- ences wereheld in Shanghai(WAIM 2000),Xi'an (WAIM 2001),Beijing (WAIM 2002), and Chengdu, China (WAIM 2003). These conferences turned out to be very successful and each attracted more than 100 participants from all over the world.The WAIM 2004 conference included technical sessions organized around important subtopics such as data streamprocessing,time series data processing, mobilecomputing,cachemanagement,security,XML,Web services,Web search engines, query evaluation, and data mining, etc. Following careful review of the 291 submissionsby membersof the internationalprogramcommittee, 57 regular papers and 23 short/industrial papers were accepted for presentation at the conference and for publication in this volume. The submissions came from a total of 22 countries and regions, and the accepted ones were from 13 countries andregions,including Australia,Canada,Chile,China,HongKongSAR,Korea, Norway, Singapore, Spain, Taiwan, UAE, UK, and USA. The conference also consisted of a poster and demonstration track, the publication of which was done in CD-ROM form.

Web-based learning has attracted ongoing attention for its rapid development in recent years. It introduces not just global and distributed, but virtual learning environments to the students. To the educators, it creates a lot of opportunities, and at the same time challenges. Special learning tools/systems, learning resource management, and personalized learning materials, etc. , are the hot research topics at present. After four successful previous annual conferences, ICWL 2002 in Hong Kong, ICWL 2003 in Australia, ICWL 2004 in China, and ICWL 2005 in Hong Kong, the Fifth International Conference on Web-Based Learning (ICWL 2006) was held in Penang, Malaysia during July 19-21, 2006. ICWL 2006 was a continued attempt to address many of the above-mentioned issues. The conference program was organized in a single-track 3-day workshop. It included a tutorial, a keynote talk, and oral/poster paper presentations in several sessions dedicated to specific topics. Session topics included “Personalization in E-Learning,” “Designs, Model and Framework of E-Learning Systems,” “Implementations and Evaluations of E-Learning Systems,” “Tools in E-Learning,” and “Learning Resource Deployment, Organization and Management. ” We received a total of 99 submissions from all over the world. The Program Committee selected 34 papers as regular papers for presentation, an acceptance rate of about 34. 3%. Due to the high-quality submissions, the committee decided to further invite nine papers for poster presentations. Finally, 32 papers (including the keynote speech) were selected for this post-conference proceedings.