The 2005 International Symposium on Business Excellence through Services-oriented Transformation (BEST 2005) is the continuation of the First IEEE International Workshop on Business Transformation and E-Commerce (BTEC 2004), which was part of the 2004 IEEE International Conference on Services Computing (SCC 2004) held in Shanghai, China, September 15-18 2004.

Services computing is a new cross-discipline that covers the science and technology needed to bridge the gap between Business Services and IT Services. The goal of services computing is to develop new computing technology and thereby enable more advanced IT services to support business services more efficiently and effectively. BEST 2005 is a forum for researchers and industry practitioner to exchange information regarding advancements in the state of art and practice of IT-Driven Business Services, as well as to identify emerging research topics and define the future directions of business
management and services engineering.

Business processes have played an important role in enabling business application integration and collaboration across multiple organizations and multiple countries. To stay competitive, companies must be agile in adapting their business processes to the ever-changing market dynamics. The adaptive and process-driven enterprises should look beyond the traditional enterprises and marketplaces and transform themselves through collaborative interactions and dynamic e-business solutions. Proper understanding and implementation of the business evolution strategy as well as services transformation will help these enterprises run more effectively and efficiently.

SCOPE: Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA)
• Best Practice of Web Services
• Business Globalization
• Business process integration architecture
• Business process modeling methodology
• Business transformation methodologies
• E-commerce as a function of inter-organizational services
• Economic issues of cross-country business process management
• Enterprise transformation in China and other developing countries
• International outsourcing as cross-country business services
• Mathematical foundation of business process modeling, integration and management
• Services computing methodology and best practices
• Services modeling, discovery, composition, and management

SUBMISSION:

Interested participants are required to submit an extended abstract (about 4 pages) that clearly state their position on one or more research topics listed above, report any preliminary research results, and pose a number of core research questions or issues that submitter is currently investigating or intend to investigate. All submissions should be in Adobe portable document format (PDF) or Word format. The paper should have a cover page, which includes a 200-word
abstract, a list of keywords, and author's e-mail address. Please follow the IEEE Author Guidelines: (http://www.computer.org/cspress/instruct.htm) to prepare your papers.

Authors should submit an extended abstract (4 pages) using the electronic submission system . All submissions will be evaluated by the symposium committee for originality, significance, clarity, and soundness.
If you have any questions, you can reach the conference organizers at best2005@servicescomputing.org.

To foster better discussions, camera ready versions of accepted submissions will be published in the BEST 2005 online conference proceedings at the conference web site. We will NOT publish printed proceedings. The enhanced version of the best papers will be selected for potential publication in the International Journal of Business Process Integration and Management (http://www.inderscience.com/catalogue/b/ijbpim/indexijbpim.html) published by InderSciences Publishers.

IMPORTANT DATES:

June 15, 2005, Submission of position statement
July 15, 2005, Notification of acceptance
July 30, 2005, Camera-Ready copy of position statement due
August 15, 2005, BEST 2005 and ICEC 2005

SYMPOSIUM CHAIRS:

Guoqing Chen, Tsinghua University, China
Liang-Jie (LJ) Zhang, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, USA
J. Leon Zhao, University of Arizona, USA

LOCAL ARRANGEMENT CHAIR

Qi Li, Xi'an Jiaotong University, China

SYMPOSIUM COMMITTEE MEMBERS:

Bernstein, Abraham, University of Zrich, Austria
Blake, M. Brian, George Town University, USA
Cai, Hong, IBM China Research Lab, China
Chen, Ye-Sho, Lusiana State University, USA
Cheng, Hsing Kenny, University of Florida, USA
Hu, Paul, University of Utah, USA
Huang, Jinghua, Tsinghua University, China
Huang, Wayne, Ohio University, USA
Hung, Patrick C. K., University of Ontario Institute of Technology, Canada
Jin, Zhunhe, Hangzhou Dianzi University, China
Lee, Andy, Digital China Software Research Institute, China
Li, Minglu, Shanghai Jiaotong University, Shanghai, China
Li, Qi, Xi'an Jiaotong University, China
Li, Qing, City University of Hong Kong, China
Mao, Jiye, Renmin University, China
Mei, Shaozu, Beijing University of Science and Technology, China
Shi, Minghua, Zhejiang University, China
Tang, Qian Candy, Singapore National University, Singapore
Wang, Kanliang, Xi'an Jiaotong University, China
Wang, Weijun, Central China Normal University, China
Yan, Yuhong, National Research Institute of Information Technology, Canada
You, Yuan-Chun (Sean), National Sun Yat-sen University, Taiwan
Zeng, Daniel, University of Arizona, USA
Zhang, Han, Georegia Institute of Technology, USA
Zhao, Huimin, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, USA
Zhu, Kevin University of California, Irvine, USA