INFS 640 Spring 2012 Course Syllabus [Last updated: 21 January 2012]

Course Information:  Note, additional material will be posted on GMU Blackboard.

 

Course title:

Introduction to Electronic Commerce

 

Course number:

INFS 640, Section 001

 

Course discipline:

Major technologies and trends of Electronic Commerce (EC)

 

Course description:

Course Overview

The Internet and the World Wide Web are revolutionizing the way people, businesses and governments transact business via electronic commerce. This process is just beginning and will have enormous impact on our activities and the way we relate to people and organizations. This course will examine the major technologies and trends that enable eCommerce, including the Internet, security, software ad hardware architectures, policy and social/economic issues.

Topics Covered

The topics covered correspond to those chapters in the textbook, "E-commerce: business, technology and society, Third Edition" by Kenneth C. Laudon and Carol Guercio Traver. There will be additional readings made available through GMU's Digital Library, including articles from the ACM and IEEE Digital Libraries, and supplemental material presented during class sessions. 

1.           E-Commerce Business Models and Concepts

2.           E-Commerce Infrastructure: The Internet and World Wide Web

3.           Web 2.0: Evolution & Technologies

4.           Building an E-Commerce Web Site

5.           Security and Encryption

6.           E-Commerce Payment Systems

7.           E-Commerce Marketing Techniques

8.           E-Commerce Applications: Business-to-Consumer, Consumer-to-Consumer, Business-to-Business, Digital Government, Marketplaces, and Communities.

 

Course dates:

January 23 through May 14, 2012

 

Location:

IN 132 (Innovation Hall)

 

Meeting day & time:

Mondays 4:30 to 7:10 PM.

 

Prerequisite(s):

INFS 501, 515, and 590, or equivalent

Instructor Information

 


Name:

Professor Alex Brodsky,  cs.gmu.edu/~brodsky

 

Email:

Brodsky@gmu.edu

 

Office location:

Nguen Engineering Building, 4418

 

Office hours:

Tuesdays 4:00 -  5:30 pm

 

Phone:

703-993-1529 (office)

 

Teaching Assistant (TA):

Sahil Khanna, office hours TBD

Grading Policy

Student grades will be determined based on class participation, homework assignments and papers, a final exam and a project:

Component

Weight

Class participation

5%

Homeworks

15%

eCommerce Project and/or Research Paper on ecommerce (encouraged to focus on ecommerce market mechanisms and/or recommender systems)

40%

Final Exam

40%

Grading Guidelines:

Some assignment components are evaluated subjectively:

A: consistently above and beyond the course/assignment requirements
B: meets and occasionally exceeds the course/assignment requirements
C: minimally meets the course/assignment requirements
F: fails to meet the course/assignment requirements



Some grade guarantees:
>= 90% - A

>= 75% - B

Honor Code

 

Objectives and Goals:

Honor Code

All work performed in this course will be subject to GMU's Honor Code. Students are expected to do their own work in the course unless a group project is approved by the instructor. In papers and project reports, students are expected to write in their own words, rather than cutting-and-pasting from sources found on the Internet. If you do use material from books, articles, and the Web, enclose the material in quotes and provide a reference. If a paragraph is used then it should be indented in the text (both left and right margins). [See Format below]

Textbooks

 

Required reading:

E-Commerce : business. technology. society, Third Edition., Kenneth C. Laudon and Carol G. Traver, Pearson Prentice Hall, Inc., 2007.

 

Recommended reading:

Developing Web Applications, Ralph Moseley, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., 2007.

Information Architecture for the World Wide Web, Third Edition, Peter Morville and Louis Rosenfeld, O'Reilly Media Inc., 2006.

 

Assignments

 

Format

Plain text, PDF, HTML, StarOffice/OpenOffice, OpenDocument, all accepted, but PDF preferred. MS format documents also accepted, but the instructor will have to convert them to one of the previous formats...best to do the conversion yourself. Upload all assignments to WebCT. Papers should be formatted double-space, 10 or 12 point font, 1" margins. Use Chicago Manual of Style for guidance on citation style, usage, etc. (Don't buy the big CMS. See the smaller A Manual for Writers by Kate Turabian).

 

Writing Style

Reference other work within the text of your paper, and list the references at the end of the paper in a bibliography. Proper references are essential for crediting the work of others, and to help your readers locate the referenced material. See cs.gmu.edu/~menasce/papers/cmg00.pdf for one example of how to cite and list references.

Assume that the audience for your paper is an intelligent reader with computer knowledge who is not familiar with your specific paper topic.

·              Do not use slang or colloquialisms; some readers whose first language is not English may not understand phrases such as "the system was wedged"

·              Do not misuse terms nor use terms whose meanings are not clear, like "increased exponentially", or "steep learning curve"

·              Check your grammar and spelling; if you need help expressing yourself, get help from GMU's Writing Center at http://writingcenter.gmu.edu  Read the paper aloud to yourself or to a friend to help you indentify misused words and phrases.

·              Avoid jargon.  Explain and reference concepts critical to your topic.

·              Expand NTAs [Non-Trivial Abbreviations] upon first use

·              Avoid meaningless marketing terms (like "seamless integration")

·              Read http://ftp.digital.com/pub/DEC/SRC/publications/levin/SOSPhowto.html for some useful guidance on writing technical papers

Details on Class requirements

 


Class Participation

Contribute to the in-class discussions, participate in online discussion topics posted on Blackboard

 

Homeworks
  1. eCommerce Web Site Review
  2. eCommerce Travel Reservation & Critque
  3. CBMG Interpretation

(detailed homework requirements will be provided in class and on Blackboard)

 

ecommerce project and/or research paper

·              ecommerce project may be focusing on any aspect of ecommerce. The desired outcome is a working system that can be demonstrated, possibly with a narrow scope.

·              ecommerce research paper should target a more challenging topic, focusing on existing problem in ecommerce, identifying a research gap (relatively to the state of art) and, ideally, suggesting a direction for solution. The idea is that the research paper could lead to an external publication.

 

 

 

 

Schedule

 

No

Date

Notes

Work assigned

Work due

1

Jan 23

Lecture 1

 

 

2

Jan 30

Lecture 2

 

 

3

Feb 3 – Friday!

Lecture 3. Note this meeting is instead of Monday, Feb 6.

 

 

 4

Feb 6

No class

 

 

 5

Feb 13

Lecture 4 – Guest lecturer: Dr. Kerschberg will talk about game changers in Electronic Commerce

 

 

 6

Feb 20

Lecture 5

 

 

 7

Feb 27

Lecture 6

 

 

 8

Mar 5

Lecture 7

 

 

 9

Mar 12

No class – Spring Break

 

 

 10

Mar 19

Lecture 8

 

 

 11

Mar 26

Lecture 9

 

 

 12

Apr 2

Lecture 10

 

 

 13

Apr 9

Lecture 11

 

 

 14

Apr 16

Lecture 12

 

 

 15

Apr 23

Lecture  13

 

 

 16  

Apr 30

Catch-up and review for Final Exam

 

 

 17

May 7

No class – Reading Days

 

 

18

May 14

Final Exam – good luck!