Instructor:	Prof. Arthur Geoffrion, Room D-524, Tel. 5-1113
Teaching Assistant:	Max Moroz, Room D-501, Tel. 454-7220
Time & Place:	Wednesday 3:00-7:00* PM (Fall 1998), Room D-310  */ 3-6 on days without a speaker, 4-7 on days with a speaker
Prerequisite:	Good computer skills
Texts:  (selected portions)	1) R. Kalakota and A. Whinston, Electronic Commerce: A Manager's Guide, Addison-Wesley, 1997  2) D. Kosiur, Understanding Electronic Commerce, Microsoft Press, 1997  3) J. Hagel III and A.G. Armstrong, Net Gain: Expanding Markets Through Virtual Communities, Harvard Business School Press, 1997
Grading:	50% homework, 25% participation, 25% term project
Other:	Term Project in place of final exam; enrollment limit 30

 
Electronic commerce is mushrooming in both the business-to-business and business-to-consumer sectors. It will shake the foundations of most industries, lead to entirely new kinds of businesses, and directly impact both your career and the way you live. This much is clear to everyone.

What is not so clear is how best to prepare oneself to take advantage of these new developments and opportunities. That is the mission of this course.

The e-commerce landscape is evolving so rapidly that no existing book or collection of cases does it justice. You will read the best written materials, but the main approach of this course will be experiential. You will do hands-on exercises and explorations that will develop your appreciation not only for what is happening in e-commerce now, but also what is likely to happen in the future and what your personal role might be. For example, you will:

• study and patronize (at your option) some of the most successful e-commerce websites
• profile the websites of some conventional businesses that you personally patronize regularly
• examine the websites of the research projects and guiding organizations that are most influential in shaping the future of e-commerce
• participate in some leading virtual communities and on-line discussion groups pertinent to e-commerce (listserv, news group, Web-based)
• obtain and use (at your option) a CyberCash Wallet
• obtain and use a free trial Class 1 Digital ID from VeriSign
• experiment with the Firefly and GroupLens recommendation systems, a type of software increasingly used by consumers to help them find just what they are looking for
• learn and use the advanced features of the top search engines and directories such as AltaVista, DejaNews, HotBot, and Yahoo
• work with PGP, a leading software package for encryption and digital signatures
• learn basic HTML, post a personal Web page (if you haven't yet), and review more advanced techniques for creating compelling Web sites.

One of the unifying threads running through this course is the quest for a comprehensive collection of e-commerce business models in terms of which to a) describe any e-commerce venture (existing or proposed), and b) think powerfully about how to make it succeed. Everyone will help to flesh out and improve the instructor's written lecture notes on this topic.

The Term Project, to be done in teams of 2 or 3, can take any of several forms: development of an e-commerce strategy for some company or small set of companies or even an entire industry or subindustry; an analysis of e-commerce for an industry or subindustry that is already heavily involved in it (e.g., auto sales, banking, bookselling, magazines, music selling, newspapers, retail, travel); a design and (possibly) partial implementation of a Web site for some organization; a modest e-commerce "consulting" assignment for some company; or a report on some technology or topic relevant to e-commerce. Your project will be presented and discussed in class, and offers an opportunity to focus on an area of particular interest or importance to you.

The course website, enhanced for threaded discussions by WebCT, will be used to share student work and opinions; some of your homeworks and your Term Project will be posted there as Web pages. The site will contain nearly all course materials and additional valuable links.

The emphasis will be on Web-based business-to-consumer e-commerce, but by the end of the quarter you will be well positioned to continue in the direction of business-to-business or intraorganizational applications if you choose. There will be a fairly strong entrepreneurial and technology orientation. General topics to be covered include: Internet foundations, Web applications, categories and characteristics of e-commerce, security and encryption, electronic payment, on-line publishing, on-line retailing, on-line customer service, applicable theory and technology from economics/marketing/IT, design/implementation/management of business-to-consumer websites, recommendation systems, virtual communities, strategic issues.

You should be better able, after this course, to contribute to any company's e-commerce activities, to follow the rapid evolution of e-commerce on your own, and to recognize and pursue opportunities in this area.

For further information, please visit the course home page at http://internal.anderson.ucla.edu/course/1998-9/fa298d01/.  In particular, you may wish to see these documents in that directory: syllabus (syllabus998.htm), instructor’s bio sketch (sketch298D.htm), and the first week assignment to be completed prior to the first class (Week1a.htm).

At the first class on October 7, the downtown KPMG Peat Marwick Partner who leads their e-commerce practice will speak on "Electronic Commerce: A Consultant’s Perspective."