If you have seen my syllabus for Spring of 2001, you may have noticed that I did not use a textbook.  We will be using one this semester.  It is by Dr. Craig Van Slyke of UCF and France Belanger of Virginia Tech.  It has not yet been published, but we will have a pre-publication version in PDF format, so you still will not have to buy a textbook.  :-) We will also use some readings from the Web, and I strongly encourage you to surf for e-commerce topics and tools of interest to you and to post your findings on the WebCT site for the class (you get participation points for doing so).  As you know, things in the Internet world change very quickly.  It is impossible for anyone to keep up with things on all fronts.  There are probably many of you in the class that have specialized knowledge on some e-commerce topic that might be of use to your classmates.  So, I also encourage you to share that knowledge by posting links and tips on the WebCT forums.

This class is usually populated mostly by MIS majors, but usually there is a pretty large contingent of MBA's and CS students.  I try to be accommodating of the different needs and skill levels of the students in the class, but it's not possible to please everyone.  I will give some demos of features of software like MicroSoft Frontpage and Netscape Composer (which I'm using right now!) and languages such as Java, Javascript and XML.  But I will not give much formal instruction in any of these.  To do your projects, it will be necessary for you to learn a Web page editor such as Frontpage, but I don't care which one you use.  You will have to learn at least a little about Java, Javascript and XML (and HTML, if you don't know it already), and I encourage you to learn one of these fairly well.  But I do give you some flexibility in that regard.  It's your course, learn what you want about e-commerce and share that with others!

We will also take advantage of the technology ourselves, and the course will be taught about 50% in the classroom and 50% online, mostly via WebCT.  You MUST have good access to a computer and the Internet to participate in this course!

The tremendous growth of the Internet and World Wide Web is having great impact on businesses, governments and individuals throughout the world. The Net and Web allow business to be conducted in ways heretofore not possible.  Organizations of all kinds are being affected in radical ways.  New business models are being invented.  Vast wealth is (well, it was before the stock market headed south!) being accumulated by Internet companies and shareholders.  Internet companies are using their capital value to buy or merge with other companies.  Consumers have rapid access to better information, increasing pricing pressure on competing firms.  Workers are more productive, further helping to keep prices low and inflation at bay.  The U. S. economy has recently set a record for continuous growth.  Stock markets, especially the NASDAQ, have been soaring (well it was when I first wrote this!).  In this course, we will attempt to understand the phenomena, both technological, economic and social, behind these rapid changes, and how organizations successfully conduct Internet-based activities. We will also study some of the technology of the Internet, as described below.

The objectives of the course are to introduce the concept of electronic commerce,and to understand how electronic commerce is affecting business enterprises, governments, consumers and people in general.  In addition, we will study the development of websites using software such as HTML, the extensible markup language (XML), Frontpage 2000, FrontPage Express (available with MS Windows 98) or Netscape Composer (available for free download with Netscape Communicator at www.netscape.com),and the Java programming language.

The course will consist of the following major activities:

• readings from the WWW (links to readings may be found in the schedule),
• development of a personal web page, with a resume', brief  biography, and what ever else you would like to include,
• a group project involving the development of a website for a business firm, other organization or perhaps someone on campus, the more realistic your site the better!
• studies of the languages and software mentioned above.

• Follow the 10 tips for website design.
• Be creative, but remember the tips above.
• A little humor helps, especially during the presentation, 
• Tell us something unique about yourself, or your home country or hometown, etc. 
• Use simple, clean designs with muted colors and some flash, but not a lot. 
• Quick downloads are a must. 
• Something akin to my site or one of the sites below is about the minimum I expect. Mine is about a B, though. :-) 
• Be sure to add a personal objective for the course, such as learning ASP, DreamWeaver or what ever you choose. 

You will also participate in a group project involving the development of a website for a small business organization of your choice. I will try to come up with a list of small businesses, departments on campus and so forth that would like to have a site developed, but I can’t guarantee that I can have potential projects for everyone. You will be required to come up with a project on your own, if I don’t have one for you. 

Ten (10) percent of your grade will be based on a rating of your performance by the other members of your group, referred to as your “peer rating.”