ER2003,the22ndInternationalConferenceonConceptualModelinginChicago, Illinois, hosted four workshops on emerging and maturing aspects of conceptual modeling. While the entity-relationship approach is used to address data (base) modeling, the increasingly connected information infrastructure demands - swers that can handle complexity and can develop models about systems that aremaintainable. Wereceivedsevenexcellentproposalsforworkshopstobeheld at ER 2003, out of which we selected the following four based on peer reviews: - ConceptualModelingApproachesforE-Business(eCOMO2003)brought- gether researchers and practitioners interested in conceptual modeling te- niques for e-business. - The International Workshop on Conceptual Modeling Quality (IWCMQ 2003) concentrated on approaches to quality assurance in the modeling p- cess. - The International Bi-Conference Workshop on Agent-Oriented Information Systems (AOIS 2003) was devoted to investigating the agent paradigm for information systems development. - Finally,theInternationalWorkshoponXMLSchemaandDataManagement (XSDM 2003) addressed the impact of XML on topics like data integration, change management, and the Semantic Web.
All four workshops highlighted relatively new viewpoints on conceptual - deling. Conceptual modeling as such has been greatly in?uenced and shaped by the entity-relationship model of Peter Chen. However, new developments like object-orientation and the World-Wide Web require adaptions and new te- niques. No longer can developers assume that they can completely understand or model the information system. The new developments create challenges in various directions; some of these were discussed in detail in the four ER 2003 workshops: E-Business and E-Commerce. TheriseoftheInternethascreatednew opportunities for de?ning and enacting business relations between partners. The question is how information systems can help in ?nding business partners, cr- tingnewservices,andenactingthosenewservices.