The goal of this interdisciplinary workshop is to discuss state-of-the-art and future research directions in workflow and process automation involving information systems. There is significant recent commercial activity on developing workflow tools as well as significant interest in this topic in several fields of computer science. However, the current commercial systems are not poised to exploit even much higher market potential for workflow technology that can support information processing applications within and across enterprises. Guided by an interdisciplinary program committee, the workshop provides a forum for identifying synergy among experts working on the topics of workflow and process automation in information and database systems, distributed computing, and software engineering (including computer supported cooperative work, software process modeling, component-based software development, and business process reengineering). The workshop is expected to cover state-of-the-art in current research and technology, real-world application requirements, existing and emerging standards, and ba sed on these project the future research and development directions. Workshop results will be made broadly available through an NSF report, ACM-SIG/IEEECS-TC publications, and by electronic means. The report will identify the complementary technical issues that are being studied or should be further researched, to enhance information systems that can incorporate intra- and inter-organizational workflows to support information processes in a variety of enterprises in an effective and efficient manner.
