This book discusses the overall development and use of smart courts from the perspective of system-of-systems engineering (SoSE) and its methodology, analyzes the relationships between the components, structures, environments, and functions of various systems, and illustrates the basic approaches to system design, specification, integration, operation and management. As the general introductory book of the
China Smart Court Development Series
, this book provides an overview of the development of Chinese people's courts in the application of information technology over the past two decades and outlines the key areas of exploration in the Smart Court SoSe project centered on the development practices during the 13th Five-Year Plan period. It also forecasts the future development and evolution of the smart court information system. The key topics introduced in the book, including the overall design of complex information systems, integrated interconnectionnetworks-based system integration, judicial big data quality control and analytics services, various types of AI-enabled judicial services, quality and efficiency-oriented operation and maintenance services for large-scale information systems, etc., all came from the basic research of information science and theories, as well as the systems engineering practices of the Smart Court SoSe project. They not only reflect the latest findings on systems engineering and architecture methods in China and overseas, but also reveal many innovative approaches to SoSE methods and paradigms, which can be used for the design and continued development of smart courts at a new and higher starting point. It is believed that they can also serve as good examples and reference points for the development in IT application and complex information systems engineering in other sectors.