MARKETNG 462: Electronic Commerce

Syllabus | Links | Calendar

Instructor: Joel Huber Secretary: Janine Zanecki
Room: W305 Fuqua Telephone: 660-7839
Telephone: 660-7785 Office Hours: Monday 10:30-11:30
E-mail: Joel.Huber@duke.edu    

Bulletin Boards

Announcements
Discussion
Essays

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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:

  • Place to Space by Peter Weill and Michael R. Vitale, HBS Press 2001.
  • Course packet containing cases and notes

Grading Criteria

25% -- Course participation grade
50% -- Two individual 2-page essays and critiques
25% -- A group presentation (oral, written or audio-PowerPoint)

Course Participation:

Learning in this class will be continuous and interactive; your participation will include both written and oral components. You are expected to write to the discussion board for each class. You have a number of options that can complement your the oral participation requirements for each class session:
  1. A thread on the session discussion board will mark each question. Answer one of the study questions, making sure that you do not repeat responses already on the discussion board.
  2. A response to a posting or an essay by one of your classmates as long as it relates to the topic of that particular class session.
  3. A written postscript on a case or a comment on the class discussion. This would be posted on the discussion board and would be most appropriate after the session, but before the following one.
  4. A web search summarizing the status of a particular business in a case (summarizing what happened in the real world). Your summary should be posted on the Case Update section of the session discussion board.

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.

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All information contained on this site is © 2001 by Joel Huber. Any attempt to reproduce the contents contained within, in part or in whole, is punishable as a United States federal offense, and is subject to investigation by confirmed authorities. For technical problems or questions regarding this web site, contact Andy Whitfield at [awhit@mail.duke.edu].