This year ITI 2002 Organizing Committee received 106 contributions - 100 papers (71 from abroad and 29 from Croatia) and 6 poster abstracts (5 from abroad and 1 from Croatia), by 207 authors: 141 authors were from 28 foreign countries: Australia, Austria, Bulgaria, China, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, India, Ireland, Italy, Kuwait, Macedonia, Malaysia, New Zeland, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland, Thailand, UK, USA) and 66 authors were from Croatia.

All submitted papers have been reviewed by at least two independent referees: 149 reviews were given by 87 referees from abroad, and 63 by 36 Croatian referees, all together 212 reviews by 123 referees. The ITI 2002 proceedings (both in hard-copy and on CD-ROM) contain 80 accepted papers (61 from abroad), written by 146 authors (90 from abroad). The choice of referees and the publishing policy were the responsibility of the International Program Committee and the Conference vice-chairs.

Traditionally, the Conference is interdisciplinary as reflected in the choice of this year's topics:

• Collaborative and Internet Computing
• Databases and Data Warehousing
• Data Mining, Statistics and Biometrics
• Distance Education
• Human Interfaces and Interaction
• Intelligent and Multi-Agent Systems
• Issues in Computing Methodologies
• Knowledge Management and E-Commerce
• Modelling, Simulation and Optimization
• Multimedia and Electronic Documents
• Networking, Middleware and Distributed Platforms

• Keynote Lectures (4), given by lecturers from several countries, covered different topics:
  
  A.C. Boucouvalas, Bournemouth University, UK;
  W.A. Halang, FernUniversität Hagen, Germany;
  B.Magas Kusak, Universidad the Magellanes, Chile (not present)
  I.Maršic, Rutgers University, USA;
  A.M. Tyrell, University of York, UK (not present)
  R.E. Wendell, University of Pittsburgh, USA;

  Presentation of the contributed papers as the essential core of the Conference. During 4 working days 55 contributed papers were presented, including 39 papers presented by foreign authors;

  Posters presentations; 10 paper / poster abstracts (4 + 6), written by 16 authors (5 + 11) from 6 countries (2 + 4) were reviewed and published in a separate booklet of Poster Abstracts; 5 posters were presented at the Conference;

  A panel discussion about "Distance Education: Methodology, Technology, Applicability";

  BIOSTAT 2002, co-organized by the Croatian Biometric Society;

  - 8th Meeting of Researchers in Biometrics;

  - 6th School of Biometrics:

  Topic: Cluster Analysis;

  Lecturer: A. Ferligoj, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia;

A selection of papers presented at the Conference (possibly longer, revised versions) are considered for publishing in the following international journals:

• CIT Journal of Computing and Information Technology
• IMACS journal Mathematics and Computers in Simulation.

We believe that the scientific program had created a stimulating professional interaction. We are grateful to all who have contributed to the Conference, the co-operating institutions and the sponsors who have helped us. Our special thanks go to the authors of papers and posters and to the vice-chairs and referees. In between the sessions we hope you enjoyed the crystal clear Adriatic Sea, warm June atmosphere and wealth of historic monuments in Cavtat and its surroundings. Hopefully, they will lure you to accept our invitation to come back the next year, and take part in the Silver Jubilee of the 25th International Conference on Information Technology Interfaces ITI 2003.

June 2002
Vlado Glavinic, Vesna Hljuz Dobric, and Diana Simic