The increasing use of the Web as a software platform together with the advance of technology has given raise to a completely new generation of Web Applications; these applications allow ubiquitous access from fixed and mobile devices, provide personalized features to individuals, support complex business processes and workflows, etc. Applications are now built by composing (reusing) services provided by third parties.

   The Web engineering community has already discussed and hopefully solved many of the design problems arising from this complexity. However, as technology and theory advances new possibilities appear, new kind of applications can be built, and thus existing methodologies, modeling and design approaches must be adapted to cope with these new problems, domains and applications' aspects.

   Since 2001, IWWOST has been an international forum for discussing state-of-the art modeling approaches for Web applications. The first edition was held in Valencia in 2001, the second in Malaga (together with Ecoop 2002) and the third in Oviedo (co-located with ICWE 2003). All three editions have been sponsored by CYTED, the Iberoamerican Institution for Science and Technology.

   IWWOST has been thought as a place for methodologists, designers and developers to meet and exchange their experiences in the process of building complex Web applications. Usually, IWWOST attendees work on the same problem from different points of view, those supported by the method or design approach of their choice. In this way, IWWOST participants can compare their own approaches with others' and discuss strengths and weaknesses of each approach. Most widely known methods (like WebML, WSDM, OOHDM, OO-H, UWE, WUML, W2000, etc) have been discussed in previous IWWOST editions.

   The fourth edition of IWWOST is scheduled to take places on July 27, in Munich, Germany co-located with the International Conference on Web Engineering (ICWE 2004-www.icwe2004.org).

   Since the first edition IWWOST has been a forum for methodologist and designers to discuss their own modeling and design approaches and compare them with others'. The workshop is organized to allow detailed technical discussions on topics of interest-we stress the "work" part of the workshop.

   In order to allow this, we have tried to focus on a common problem or research topic, to allow well-focused discussion. Different from other workshop we do not intend to organize it as a set of papers presentations but rather as continuous discussions in which all presenters are involved and contribute actively.

   This year's edition will focus on different approaches for dealing with Semantic Web applications and Service-Oriented Architectures and in particular on how different existing methods for developing web applications should face web semantic features and SOA in their particular proposals, including new conceptual modeling and meta-modeling techniques, enriched code generation capabilities and MDA-compliant strategies, and improved quality assessment and measurement approaches.

   While our community has extensively discussed data and process-intensive applications in previous IWWOST editions, there is a growing need to find ways to integrate methods and development approaches in the context of applications with added semantic value and to cope with the difficulties posed by the so-called Service Oriented Architectures.

   Even though these themes have received growing attention in the WWW community, methods and modeling approaches have not considered these aspects so far, or they are just considering them right now.

   We invite participants to present their approaches for the different aspects of the engineering of applications belonging to the areas above or some domain areas in which these aspects are outstanding. Paper may discuss any of the following indicative issues:

• Web Ontologies
• Conceptual modeling of Semantic Web applications
• Meta-modeling
• MDA for the Web
• Quality Measurement for Web Applications

   We strongly suggest that prospective authors focus on concrete examples to explain how their approaches copes with some of the previously mentioned issues. We do not require originality or finished work; ongoing work or examples of previously published approaches are welcomed. The goal of the workshop will be to allow presentation or solution proposals with detailed technical discussions.

   The expected outcome of the workshop is a set of recommendation for methodologists, designers, and applications developers regarding the technical problems that must be faced together with the solutions discussed during the workshop.

   All submissions will be screened by the organizing committee for appropriateness with the workshop themes and format. Authors will be shepherded (in the style of Pattern conference) to improve their presentations for the Workshop.

   Those contribution describing novel work will have special consideration for publication in the Journal of Web Engineering

   Send your contribution to Gustavo Rossi (gustavo@sol.info.unlp.edu.ar)

Thank you!

• June 6: Deadline for Workshop contributions
• June 14: Notification to authors
• July 27: Workshops take place