EDITORIAL

This issue of the AJIS contains papers from Australia and Chile and is unique, in that
it not only contains contributed papers, but three papers judged to be amongst the best
ten from the recent 5th Australian Conference on Information Systems (ACIS) held in
Melbourne last September. They were chosen on the basis of maximum points
awarded to them by the referees. Due to space restrictions, only three of the papers are
published in this edition, those by Darke & Shanks, Broadbent & Butler and Hasan
& Gould. The others will be included in the September edition (Vol 3 No 1).

The first paper by Alan Colman and Ying Leung from Swinburne University of
Technology is from the field of Human Computer Interaction and proposes a
modified version of Johnson's Knowledge Analysis of Tasks. As well as applying the
modified form to intelligent distributed control systems they also show how it can be
useful in object-oriented analysis.
Paper two is from Jose Pino and Jose Montanana in Chile and deals with a software
system designed to facilitate interactive communication between negotiating teams.
This is particularly relevant in light of the improved teleconferencing facilities
promised by the information superhighway.
John Maltby from Southern Cross University presents an interesting and unusual
analysis of the Windows environment in order to quantify operational complexity thus
enabling interface dialogue to be described as Markov process.
The fourth paper by Peta Darke and Graeme Shanks from the ACIS conference
focuses on the NIAM conceptual design process. They propose that viewpoint
development, one approach to the socio-organisational dimension of information
systems development, be incorporated into the NIAM procedure.
Paper five by Marianne Broadbent and Carey Butler, also from the ACIS conference,
highlights the experiences of a number of Australian firms which have implemented
Business Process Redesign. Ten lessons for would be implementers of this process
emerged from this study. These are listed and explained.
Fiona Rohde's paper gives an ontological evaluation of the Jackson System
Development methodology in terms of the Wand and Weber model so that its
strengths and weaknesses can be evaluated.
The last paper also from the ACIS conference by Hasan and Gould describes a
longitudinal study, conducted over a period of four years, of a company as it went
through the stages of implementing an information system for use by managers.

I would like to thank all the authors and consulting editors as well as the convenors of
the ACIS conference for their help in producing this journal. Their assistance has
been particularly valuable while the regular editor, Rob MacGregor, is on study leave.

Ted Gould
Acting Editor