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Workshop
Agent-oriented methodologies
[general enquiries email: debenham@it.uts.edu.au]
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Workshop
Agent-oriented methodologies
[general enquiries email: debenham@it.uts.edu.au]
Workshop Organizers (alphabetical order):
- John Debenham (University of Technology, Sydney, Australia)
- Brian Henderson-Sellers (University of Technology, Sydney, Australia)
- Nick Jennings (University of Southampton, UK)
- James Odell (James Odell and Associates, USA)
Call for Submissions for 2002. [deadline: September 6 2002]
Papers are invited for the OOPSLA2002 workshop on "Agent-oriented Methodologies". The workshop aims to share the knowledge and experiences of different organizations in both the theoretical and practical aspects of agent-oriented methodologies and processes for the analysis, design and construction of agents and multi-agent systems. Agent construction integrates both theory, pragmatic guidelines and tool support. Participation will be by submission of a position paper. Selection of these papers for the workshop will be based on review by at least two members of the workshop organizing committee.
Submissions
Contributions are invited in the form of papers of up to twelve single-sided A4 pages. The workshop proceedings will be reproduced in IEEE format [http://www.computer.org/cspress/instruct.htm]. The proceedings will be prepared from camera-ready copy supplied in the correct IEEE format by the authors of accepted papers. Authors will retain copyright of papers published in the workshop proceedings. Papers must be submitted as either postscript or PDF files (with any non-standard fonts embedded in the file) and sent as an email attachment to:John Debenham [debenham@it.uts.edu.au]by September 6th 2002 at the latest. At least one author of each accepted paper is required to register for the workshop and will be expected to attend. Selected papers will be recommended to appropriate editors for journal publication.
Dates:
- Papers to be submitted by Friday September 6, 2002
- Notification of acceptance by Friday September 27, 2002
- Camera-ready manuscripts due by Friday October 11, 2002
- Workshop - Monday November 4, 8.30 a.m. - 5.00 p.m.
Motivation
Following the success of object technology, the next advance is likely to be the introduction, adoption and widespread use of agent technology for business applications. Agents, building as they do in part on objects, require careful design. Appropriate methodologies for developing agent-oriented systems may rely to some degree on OO methodologies but the distinct autonomy of an agent means that the product of agent-oriented design processes cannot be as deterministic as they have been in object-oriented developments. The use of autonomous components means that the system organization is a more significant issue than in the design of OO systems. The complex reasoning of hybrid agents has no parallel in OO methodologies. The interaction protocol, which balances individual autonomy with the system purpose, is not an issue for OO systems. In addition, learning and adaptivity, essential ingredients for agents, do not play a central role in OO design.
Workshop Goal
The overall goal of the workshop is to identify a research agenda for the next five years which will enable agent-oriented methodologies to become of "commercial strength" and to be widely adopted by industry.
Themes
Papers are invited on both theoretical and practical aspects of the following topics relevant to agent-oriented methodology:
- Theories of agent-oriented methodology
- Analysis and design of agents
- Analysis and design of multi-agent systems
- Design metrics for the quality of multi-agent systems
- Full lifecycle issues for agent-oriented development
- Extending UML for the analysis and design of agent-based systems
Workshop Programme Committee
- Bernhard Bauer (Siemens)
- Carole Bernon (Universite Paul Sabatier, Toulouse)
- Paolo Ciancarini (Univ. of Bologna)
- Scott A. DeLoach (Kansas State University)
- Carlos Angel Iglesias Fernandez (Universidad Politecnica de Madrid)
- Paolo Giorgini (University of Trento)
- Fausto Giunchiglia (University of Trento)
- Marie-Pierre Gleizes (Universite paul Sabatier, Toulouse)
- Michael Huhns (University of South Carolina)
- Catholijn Jonker (Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam)
- Liz Kendall (Monash University, Melbourne)
- David Kinny (University of Melbourne)
- Yannis Labrou (Fujitsu Laboratories of America, Inc.)
- John Mylopoulos (University of Toronto)
- Andrea Omicini (Universita' degli Studi di Bologna)
- H. Van Dyke Parunak (Altarum, Ann Arbor)
- Omer F Rana (Cardiff University)
- Mike Wooldridge (University of Liverpool)
- Eric Yu (University of Toronto)
- Franco Zambonelli (Universita' di Modena e Reggio Emilia)
- Chengqi Zhang (University of Technology, Sydney)
The committee is chaired by Professor John Debenham [email: debenham@it.uts.edu.au]. All members of the committee will be responsible for undertaking reviews so that each paper receives two timely reviews prior to the selection process.
Organizers' Backgrounds
JOHN DEBENHAM is Professor of Computer Science at the University of Technology, Sydney. He is author of two books on the design of intelligent systems. His recent research has focussed on multiagent systems with business process management as his chosen application domain. That work is now being extended into distributed eMarkets where all transactions are managed as business processes by multiagent systems.BRIAN HENDERSON-SELLERS is Director of the Centre for Object Technology Applications and Research and Professor of Information Systems at University of Technology, Sydney (UTS). He is author of nine books on object technology and is well known for his work in OO methodologies (MOSES, COMMA and OPEN) and in OO metrics. He was recently awarded a DSc degree by the University of London for his work in object-oriented methodology.
NICK JENNINGS is a Professor of Computer Science in the Department of Electronics and Computer Science at Southampton University where he carries out basic and applied research in agent-based computing. He helped pioneer the use of agent-based techniques for real-world applications and he has developed systems in many industrial and commercial domains. He has published some 150 articles on various facets of agent-based computing, holds 2 patents (3 more pending), written one monograph, and co-edited five books. He is in the top 250 most cited computer scientists (according to the citeseer digital library). He was the recipient of the Computers and Thought Award (the premier award for a young AI scientist) in 1999 for his contributions to practical agent architectures and applications of multi-agent systems (this is the first time in the Award's 30 year history that it has been given to someone based in Europe) and the recipient of an IEE Achievement Medal in 2000 for his work on agent-based computing.
JAMES ODELL was one of the early innovators of information engineering methodologies and then became one of the first practical implementors of object-oriented analysis and design. Working with the OMG and other major methodologists, he continues to innovate and improve OO methods and techniques. In particular, he participated in the development of the UML and UML 2.0, and remains co-chair of the OMG's Object Analysis and Design Task Force. Most recently, Mr. Odell is involved in agent-based and complex systems---and their application to business systems. He is also a member of FIPA and the co-chair of the OMG's Agents Special Interest Group where he participates in developing standards for agent technology. He has written several books and conducts international seminars and workshops---both on-site and public---and provides consulting to major companies worldwide.
Workshop Plan
Pre-workshopAll accepted papers will be placed on this workshop website. Attendees are expected to have read all the papers before the workshop so that the workshop can focus on more informal yet structured interactions.The workshop
All accepted papers will be reproduced in the workshop proceedings. A limited number of accepted papers will be presented orally. All accepted papers will be "taken as read". ALL submissions, whether presented orally or not, will form the architecture for the discussion which will focus on providing concrete, experience-based yet theoretically valid answers to a subset of the questions raised in the workshop topic list.Following initial presentations of approximately 90 minutes in total, the remainder of the day will be spent in break-out groups, each group focussing on at most two of the selected short list of questions to be answered. A plenary session will end the day from which a workshop report will be produced and made available on this website.
Post-workshop
A poster will be prepared for the poster slot at the end of OOPSLA as normal. In addition, the best papers will be recommended to an international journal (possibilities are currently being investigated). Summaries will also be posted on the workshop website. Hopefully, contacts will have been made between academic researchers and industry developers so that the workshop will have catalyzed some valuable research projects.
Further information:
