From the editors

Interesting times and interesting research at Data Base this year. We'll be providing coverage of a new Chinese Information Systems conference, courtesy of Global Co-Editor Patrick Chau. We have an issue on software testing in process with Al Hevner, and this promises to provide some interesting new perspectives on an underutilized but critical research area in our field.

We are expanding our global reach and service dramatically. You'll see important colleagues from distant lands on our masthead as board members, even editors. You'll notice increasing submissions from far parts of the global market. You'll find a new perspective on the practice of scholarship in Information Systems, worldwide, at ACM Data Base!

This issue, welcome Guest Editor Ed Roche, who has brought a globe-spanning body of speculative and futuristic writing about emerging virtual worlds enabled by online technology. Authors from the four corners of the eWorld weigh in with discussions of where the Internet is taking us as an experiential and cultural milieu of modern life. The directions for research provided by this extraordinary overview of an emerging field of inquiry are innovative, visionary and dramatic.

We hope you like it. We hope you'll send us work equally as innovative. We hope you'll tell your friends around the world about how easy it is to access ACM Data Base with our online portal and review system, as well, located at http://www.editorialmanager.com/sigmisdb.