MARKETNG
462: Electronic Commerce
Syllabus
| Links
| Calendar
Bulletin Boards
Announcements
|
Discussion
|
Essays
|
<Insert
Table of Contents>
|
<Insert
Table of Contents>
|
<Insert
Table of Contents>
|
<Insert
Table of Contents>
|
Welcome
to Electronic Commerce. This is one of the most exciting
and dynamic areas in business and society today. Our task
in this class is to jointly investigate electronic commerce
will change current as well as new businesses.
Objectives
The
course has four objectives. They are:
1.
To investigate the strategic implications of e-commerce
with emphasis on existing companies
2. To navigate the broad range of positioning strategies
available within the e-commerce landscape
3. To develop the ability to quickly and effectively research
Internet companies and strategies
4. To learn to distinguish between temporary tremors and
seismic shifts in the unstable e-commerce landscape
Required
Reading Materials:
Generally,
these written contributions will be individually done. However,
if you wish you may turn in a more elaborate response that
you have worked on with your group. For example, suppose
your group discussed a central issue to a case, a written
summary of that discussion could be submitted by the group
and that will satisfy the requirement for each member of
the group.
Essays:
Essays provide a way for you to bring your ideas to your
classmates. They are to be submitted and will be returned
electronically. Post your essay directly in the discussion
folder Final Essays so your classmates can have access to
it. The model of an essay is a memo you might send to your
boss. It should be short, focused, and lead to a change
in action or thinking. It can be about a case, or an issue
raised in the class or our text. A good essay has the following
characteristics:
1. Under 1000 words, exclusive of tables or graphs (total
file size <500KB)
2. It should focus on one well-defended idea
3. Your fellow students should find it interesting
4. It should build on the ideas of the course. An essay
can be a response to another student's essay, or to a theme
discussed earlier in the course
5. Each essay should show evidence of online or journal
research, by citing the publication source or the URL of
the information
You
can find examples of essays from past classes in the folder
titled Example Essays. These illustrate the characteristics
of essays for this class. I have included a range of quality
in the essays shown. You may choose the topic and when you
write your essays; however, your first essay must be submitted
before the 6th session on February 7 and your second one
before the last session on February 28th.
Essay
evaluations: For the 9th session, February 18, you will
be assigned to read 5 essays by your classmates. Your job
for that session involves writing comments about each essay
indicating (1) what you like about the essay (2) what can
be improved and (3) extensions or elaborations on the essays.
These signed comments will be short (about 200 words) per
essay and will be sent by e-mail directly to the author,
with a copy to me.
Group
project/pitch: A pitch involves a presentation to the class
by a group of five or fewer individuals. It can be presented
in one of three ways:
1. Orally during the residency period. This is encouraged,
but groups will need to work very hard before class begins
to craft an acceptable presentation. I will grade your PowerPoint
slides.
2. As a written document (less than 5000 words, exclusive
of attachments)
3. As a PowerPoint presentation with a corresponding real
audio file. (total run time of under 20 minutes)
The project will be shared with your classmates on the Folder
Group Projects.
Like
an essay, a pitch/project leaves the class with a clear
set of conclusions and recommendations. Often, it will be
about one of the cases in the course packet, or about a
related company or industry. If it is about a current case,
it is due to me before the session on that case. It is important
that the team present from a clearly articulated point of
view, for example from the perspective of Priceline's hotel
reservation group.
Group
members evaluate each other's performance in preparing the
pitch. The form, titled Peer evaluation form, is available
in the announcements folder. Each group member must turn
in these reviews before the pitch is graded. The group project
is due before session 11, Monday, February 25.
Web
searches: To remain current in the volatile world of e-commerce
you need to be a fluid user of web-searches and standard
databases. The URL's should be commonly referenced in your
essays or projects. In addition, at the end of each case
we will use web searches to update the business to the present.
A
good place to start is at Fuqua's electronic library. A
special page has been set up for this class at http://www.lib.duke.edu/fsb/ecomm.htm.
For some databases, you will need to register for a password.
Passwords are usually provided to you within 24 hours of
your request (Monday - Friday). First go to DowJones Interactive,
which has a good search engine for current publications.
Business and Industry Data base will provide trade journals,
and both Gartner and PROMPT have useful current summary
articles. You should also should become proficient at searching
directly from the Web, either directly from the search engine
of your choice (my favorite is Google.com).
The
use of case updates: Because change is so rapid, we will
spend time at the end of each case discussing what has happened.
The discussion board for each case will contain a thread
titled Case update. You are welcome to browse that part
of the board and comment on it. When we discuss the case,
you may not use what you know happened after the case to
buttress your points about what they should have done at
the time of the case. We will act in discussions as if we
are making decisions at the time of the case. At the end
of each case discussion, we will reserve some time or space
to discuss what happened and lessons that can be drawn.