What is not so clear is how best to prepare oneself to take professional 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.

In addition, most classes feature a guest speaker from industry to share their e-commerce experiences and insights:

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 notes "Business Models for Electronic Commerce".

The emphasis is 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.

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.

Course Home Page

The course home page at http://internal.anderson.ucla.edu/course/1998-9/fa298d01/ will become richer as the term advances and contain nearly all course materials. Both sections will use this one course home page. Enhanced for threaded discussions by WebCT, it will be used also to share student experiences and resources. Some of your homeworks and your Term Project will be submitted as Web pages.

Homeworks

Homeworks are due at the class specified in each case, and all go to the Teaching Assistant. The grace period ends at 5 PM each Thursday. After that, full credit may not be given. Grading will be Check Minus (not meeting a minimum standard), Check (meeting a minimum standard), and Check Plus (exceeding a minimum standard). The "minimum standard" is roughly an A-, so you want to shoot for some Check Pluses.

Participation

For grading purposes, "participation" comprises three things: (1) contributions in class, (2) contributions to the course home page discussion areas, and (3) attendance (which will be taken). Quantity counts for contributions, but quality is more important. Because classes include so many industry speakers, workshops, and demos, none of which can be made up at home, attendance is very important and counts substantially. Please try to attend every class.

As a courtesy to our guest speakers, please make it a habit to display your name card in all classes. As a courtesy to me and the speakers, please refrain from using your laptop in class for non-class purposes. This includes email and off-topic Web surfing.

Modules

The course is divided into 8 modules:

Listed readings and reference items are in the Course Reader unless otherwise noted. The rest are on-line or will be handed out in class. URLs are given when available even for items reproduced in the Course Reader because (a) some on-line versions have live links, (b) you may want to copy-and-paste portions into your notes or a homework assignment or your Term Project, and (c) you may want to refer to a reading when you are away from your Course Reader.

You are asked to skim certain readings. Skimming means to roughly double your reading rate by scanning at fairly high speed for material that looks interesting or useful to you, and slowing down when you find such.

Required readings, optional readings, and reference items are distinguished below. All are annotated -- some quite extensively -- in the weekly assignment sheets that will be handed out and also linked to the course home page. In addition, homework and demo details are given on those sheets or in other documents linked there.

Please work on optional readings as time permits.

Reference items should be consulted whenever the need arises.
 

Overview of course, overview of e-commerce, candidate e-commerce business models, Web resources on e-commerce.

[1¾ hr, week 1] "The Emerging Digital Economy," U.S. Dept. of Commerce, Washington, D.C., April 1998, on-line at http://www.ecommerce.gov/emerging.htm . Read the Introduction, Chapters 1-6, 8. Optional: Appendix 2. Additional notes posted to course home page.

[1/2 hr, week 1] K Chap. 1, "What is Electronic Commerce?"

[¾ hr, week 1] "Electronic Commerce Survey," The Economist, May 10, 1997 , on-line at http://www.economist.com/editorial/freeforall/14-9-97/index_survey.html (after free registration). Skim only.

[1/2 hr, week 1] Upgrade your laptop to Release 4 of Netscape Navigator (the most popular Web browser), Composer (a Web page editor), and Collabra (a Usenet news group reader) if you are not already running this release. You also need to install WinZip and Adobe Acrobat Reader if you don’t have them yet. Instructions are near the top of the course home page. In addition, Ivan Taylor will walk you through these installations at a special clinic on the first day of class (schedule on course home page).

[1 hr, week 2] M. Bloch, Y. Pigneur, A. Segev, "On the Road of Electronic Commerce -- a Business Value Framework, Gaining Competitive Advantage and Some Research Issues," March 1996, 19 pages, on-line at http://www.stern.nyu.edu/~mbloch/docs/roadtoec/ec.htm. This is an extended version of a paper that appeared in Proceedings of the Ninth International EDI-IOS Conference, Bled, Slovenia, June 1996. Additional notes posted to course home page.

[week 1] Reference: The course home page has a section near the bottom titled "On-Line E-Commerce Resources" with links to many Web pages of interest. Links to proprietary information from the Gartner Group and the Patricia Seybold Group are also included.

[week 2] Reference: Spring Internet World 98: CD-ROM Transcript, Mecklermedia, June 1998. Over 17,000 hours of verbatim transcripts in pdf format of more than 100 sessions, workshops, and keynote presentations. Table of contents in course reader. Available for personal loan from Alex Duffy in D-513, 825-2509.

History and evolution of Internet and Web, Internet/Web activity data sources, basic Net literacy (subscribing to mailing lists, finding email addresses, elementary search, telnet, FTP, HTTP, compression/encoding/archiving, etc.), publishing your own Web pages using Netscape Composer and HTML, more advanced search techniques and research tools, more advanced Web authoring techniques and tools, site management issues and tools, server log analysis.

[0.35 hr, week 1] K Chap. 2, "The Importance of the Internet"

[1.2 hr, week 2] K-W Chap. 3, "WWW-Applications" (skim 3.5, 3.6)

[1.4 hr, week 2] K-W Chap. 4, "WWW-Concepts and Technology"

[15 min, week 3] D. Lidsky and R. Kwon, "Searching the Net," PC Magazine, 16:21 (Dec. 2, 1997), 227-258, on-line at http://www.zdnet.com/pcmag/features/ websearch/_open.htm (skim).

[15 min, week 6] J. Heid, "Making Waves with Streaming Audio," Macworld, February 1998, 125-129 (you need only skim the five-step plan on pages 128 and 129), on-line at http://macworld.zdnet.com/pages/february.98/Column.4140.html.

[15 min, week 6] N. Randall, "The Results Are In," PC Magazine, 17:5 (Mar. 10, 1998), on-line at http://www.zdnet.com/pcmag/features/webanalysis2/index.html. Optional complementary reading: N. Randall, "Who Goes There," PC Magazine, 16:17 (Oct. 7, 1997), 253-263, on-line at http://www.zdnet.com/pcmag/features/webanalysis/_open.htm (not in course reader).

[15 min, week 7] E. Mendelson, "Web Authoring Tools," PC Magazine, 17:2 (Jan. 20, 1998), on-line at http://www.zdnet.com/pcmag/features/htmlauthor/_open.htm (skim).

[15 min, week 8] "XML: Enabling Next-Generation Web Applications," abridged from a Microsoft Corp. document dated Apr. 30, 1998 at http://www.microsoft.com/xml/articles/ xmlwp2.asp.

[week 3] Optional: "Guide to Web Site Design," PC Magazine, 17:2 (Jan. 20, 1998), on-line at http://www.zdnet.com/pcmagcd/v5d4/build/html/webtipst.htm (not in course reader).

[week 3] Optional: S. Lawrence and C.L. Giles, "Searching the World Wide Web," Science, Vol. 280 (3 April 1998), 98-100, on-line at http://www.sciencemag.org/content/vol280/issue5360/ (access requires a member subscription to SCIENCE Online).

[week 7] Optional: D.S. Linthicum, "Open for Business: Web Storefront Creation Software," PC Magazine, 16:20 (Nov. 18, 1997), 143-181, on-line at http://www.zdnet.com/pcmag/features/e-comm_prod/_open.htm.

[week 2] Reference: "A Beginner’s Guide to HTML," The National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1998, on-line at http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/General/Internet/WWW/ HTMLPrimerAll.html.

[week 4] Reference: A. Geoffrion, "Crosswalk Between Unix, DOS, and Mac Commands," 9/98.

[week 4] Reference: A. Geoffrion, "Uncompressing/Decoding/Unpacking Archives: Quick Reference," 9/98, on-line version linked to course home page.

[week 4] Reference: "Back of Envelope Numbers," Chap. 8 in Technology Forecast: 1998, Price Waterhouse LLP, 1998.

[week 6] Reference: "Real Audio Guide," Babylon 6, on-line at http://www.babylon-6.demon.co.uk/rac.htm.

HOMEWORK 2 [2 hrs -- 1 hr week 2, 1 week 3 (due)]: Basic HTML and Web Page Publishing

HOMEWORK 3 [3 hrs -- 1 hr week 3, 2 week 4 (due)]: Search Engines (class notes included)

HOMEWORK 9 [1/2 hr, week 7]: Webmaster Helper Sites

WORKSHOP 1 [1.5 hr, week 2]: Web 101 and 102, by Ivan Taylor

WORKSHOP 2 [1 hr, week 4]: Personal Research Skills, by Eloisa Borah

Self-DEMO 1 [15 min, week 2]: Know Your Market: Web Resources on Internet/Web Activity; notes posted to course home page

DEMO 2 [10 min]: OSI Reference Model; notes posted to course home page

DEMO 4 [15 min]: What Your Browser Reveals About You; notes posted to course home page

DEMO 5 [15 min]: Web Server Survey; the WN Server; notes posted to course home page

DEMO 6 [20 min]: Compressing, Encoding, Encrypting, and Archiving Files; notes posted to course home page

DEMO 7 [15 min]: Scripting (CGI, Java, JavaScript); notes posted to course home page

DEMO 9 [1/2 hr]: Streaming Audio and Video in E-Commerce; notes posted to course home page

DEMO 10 [15 min]: XML in E-Commerce; notes posted to course home page

Computer and network security risks, digital certificates, encryption and PGP, firewalls, transaction security.

[1 hr, week 3] K-W Chap. 5, "Firewalls and Transaction Security" (skim 5.1, pages 138-143, and 5.4)

[1 hr, week 3] K Chap. 4 , "Security and Electronic Commerce"

[15 min, week 3] D. Youd, "What is a Digital Signature," on-line at http://www. youdzone.com/signature.html.

[week 3] Optional: C. Särs, "Encryption and Strong Authentication for Electronic Commerce," 12/96, Proceedings of Helsinki University of Technology Seminar on Network Security 1996, on-line at http://www.iki.fi/ged/NetSec/.

HOMEWORK 4 [2.5 hrs -- 1.5 hr week 4, 1 week 5 (due)]: PGP Encryption (class notes included)

Web-based payment systems based on credit cards, checking accounts, and cash.

[1.25 hr, week 4] K-W Chap. 6, "Electronic Payment Systems" (skim 6.5, 6.6)

[1/2 hr, week 4] K Chap. 3, "Handling Money on the Net" (skim 35-43, 49-59)

[week 4] Optional: N.G. Itoi, "Promises, Promises," Red Herring, Feb. 1998, 78-81, on-line at http://www.redherring.com/mag/issue51/promises.html (but without the main figure).

[week 4] Optional: J.K. MacKie-Mason and K. White, "Evaluating and Selecting Digital Payment Mechanisms," in G. Rosston and D. Waterman (eds.), Interconnection and the Internet, Lawrence Erlbaum, 1997, 113-134. PDF version on-line at http://www-personal.umich.edu/~jmm/papers.html#esd.

HOMEWORK 5 [1.5 hrs -- 3/4 hr week 5, 3/4 hr week 6 (due)]: CyberCash

HOMEWORK 7 [1.25 hrs, week 6]: VeriSign; additional notes posted to course home page

E-commerce business models, on-line retailing, on-line publishing, on-line customer service and support, Internet marketing, examples of successful Websites, recommendation systems, organizational Website design.

[15 min, week 2] A. Geoffrion, "Business Models for Electronic Commerce," 9/98, linked to course home page.

[15 min, week 2] M.V. Rafter, "Pushing the Envelope," LA Times, February 9, 1998.

[¾ hr, week 3] Appendix 5, "The Emerging Digital Economy," U.S. Dept. of Commerce, Washington, D.C., April 1998, on-line at http://www.ecommerce.gov/emerging.htm. Additional notes posted to course home page. Optional complementary reading: K-W Chap. 8, "Electronic Commerce and Retailing."

[5 min, week 3] M.J. Cronin, "Business Secrets of the Billion-Dollar Website," Fortune, 2 February 1998, on-line at http://pathfinder.com/fortune/digitalwatch/0202tec1.html (not in course reader).

[5 min, week 3] A. Geoffrion, "An Appreciation of Doing Business on the Internet, by Mary Cronin, VNR, 1994," 9/98.

[1.75 hr, week 5] K-W Chap. 9, "Electronic Commerce and Online Publishing" (skim 9.5). Optional complementary reading: Appendix 4 through p. 22, "The Emerging Digital Economy," U.S. Dept. of Commerce, Washington, D.C., April 1998, on-line at http://www.ecommerce.gov/emerging.htm (additional notes posted to course home page). The balance of this appendix is also very worth reading.

[1/2 hr, week 5] K-W Chap. 11, "Intranets and Customer Asset Management" (skip 11.2, 11.4, pp. 336.5-340)

[¾ hr, week 6] K Chap. 5, "Consumer and Business Markets"

[0.4 hr, week 6] K Chap. 6, "Offering Custom Products on the Internet"

[¾ hr, week 7] Appendix 3 (skip 17-20, 25-28), "The Emerging Digital Economy," U.S. Dept. of Commerce, Washington, D.C., April 1998, on-line at http://www.ecommerce.gov/emerging.htm. Additional notes posted to course home page.

[1/2 hr, week 7] A. Geoffrion, "A Review of Webonomics, by Evan Schwartz, Broadway Books, 1997," 9/98, on-line version linked to the course home page; additional notes posted to course home page

[5 min, week 7] A.F. Salam, H.R. Rao and C.C. Pegels, "Content of Corporate Web Pages as Advertising Media," Communications of the ACM, 41:3 (March 1998), 76-77, on-line at http://acm.org/pubs/citations/journals/cacm/1998-41-3/p76-salam/.

[45 min, week 7] Chapter 1, C. Shapiro and H. Varian, Information Rules: A Strategic Guide to the Network Economy, Harvard Business School, October 1998. On-line at the Barnes and Noble site.

[15 min, week 7] "Web Ads Start to Click," Special Report in Business Week, 6 October 1997, on-line at www.businessweek.com/1997/40/b3547018.htm (skim)

[15 min, week 7] "Branding on the Net," Special Report in Business Week, 9 November 1998, on-line at www.businessweek.com/1998/45/b3603145.htm (skim)

[15 min, week 8] R.V. Dragan, "Advice From the Web," PC Magazine, 16:15 (Sept. 9, 1997), 133-144, on-line at http://www.zdnet.com/pcmag/features/advice/_open.htm.

[week 3] Optional: "On-Line Trading: Special Report," Wall Street Journal Interactive Edition, 8 Sept. 1998, 40 pages when printed, on-line at http://interactive.wsj.com/edition/resources/documents/online98-cover.htm (not in course reader).

[week 5] Optional: R.M. O’Keefe and T. McEachern, "Web-Based Customer Decision Support Systems," Communications of the ACM, 41:3 (March 1998), 71-78, on-line at http://acm.org/pubs/citations/journals/cacm/1998-41-3/p71-o_keefe/ (PDF, 211 KB).

[week 5] Optional: T. Kerievsky, "The Top 100 Web Sites," PC Magazine, February 10, 1998, 100-130, on-line at http://www.zdnet.com/pcmag/special/web100/index.html.

[week 5] Optional: T. O’Reilly, "Publishing Models for Internet Commerce," Communications of the ACM, 39:6 (June 1996), 79-86, on-line at http://acm.org/pubs/citations/journals/cacm/1996-39-6/p79-o_reilly/ (PDF, 1733 KB).

[week 5] Optional: W. Rosenblatt, "Learning to Build Loyal Customer Relations -- That Last," SunWorld Online, 1997, on-line at http:// www.sunworld.com/swol-03-1997/swol-03-bookshelf.html.

[week 5] Optional: J. Slaton, "BEWARE! Unsolicited Email Does Work!", 24 Sept. 95, on-line at http://www.spp.umich.edu/spp/courses/744/misc.hyper/0119.html (not in course reader).

[week 6] Optional: "Good-Bye to Fixed Pricing," Special Report, Business Week, 4 May 1998, 71-84, on-line at http://www.businessweek.com/1998/18/b3576023.htm.

[week 7] Optional: B.E. Taptich, "Opportunity Walks," Red Herring, February 1998, 98-100, on-line at http://www.redherring.com/mag/issue51/walks.html (although the exhibits are incomplete).

[week 7] Optional: D.S. Williamson, "A Merry Christmas for Online Retailers, but Questions Remain," Industry Standard, 12 January 1998, on-line at http://www.thestandard.net/articles/issue_display/0,1261,88,00.html.

[week 8] Optional: A. Borchers, J. Herlocker, J. Konstan, and J. Riedl, "Ganging up on Information Overload," Computer, 31:4 (April 1998), 106-108, on-line at http://dlib.computer.org/dynaweb/co/co1998/@ebt-link;hf=0?target=if(eq(query(%27%3 CFNO%3E+cont+r4106%27),0),1,ancestor(ARTICLE,query(%27%3CFNO%3E+cont+r4106%27))).

[week 8] Optional: J. Nielsen, "Top Ten Mistakes of Web Management," Alertbox, 15 June 1997, on-line at http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9706b.html.

HOMEWORK 1 [2 hrs -- 1 hr week 1, 1 week 2 (due)]: Customer Service Profiles

HOMEWORK 6 [3 hrs -- 1 hr week 5, 1 week 6, 1 week 7 (due)]: Top Site Profiles

HOMEWORK 10 [1.5 hrs, week 8]: Recommendation Systems

Classical Internet discussion groups (email lists and Usenet news groups), FAQs, newsreaders, Web-based discussion groups, DejaNews, ForumOne, virtual communities (concept, economics, designing, building, managing), examples of successful groups and communities, consumer processes amenable to Web support.

[1/2 hr, week 4] "Internet Communities," Cover Story, Business Week, 5 May 97, on-line at www.businessweek.com/1997/18/b35251.htm; additional notes posted to course home page

[1/2 hr, week 7] H-A preface (skim only), Chap. 1, "The Race Belongs to the Swift"; additional notes posted to course home page

[1/2 hr, week 7] J.C. Champy, R. Buday, and N. Nohria, "The Rise of the Electronic Community," Information Week Online, 17 June 97, on-line (now gone) at http://techweb.cmp.com/iw/583/csc.htm; additional notes posted to course home page

[2 hr, week 8] H-A Chaps. 2-3 from "Part I: The Value of Virtual Communities"; additional notes posted to course home page

[0.9 hr, week 8] Skim H-A Chaps. 5-7 from "Part II: Building a Virtual Community"

[1/2 hr, week 9] A. Geoffrion, "A Mini-Review of Net Gain," 6 pages, 9/98, linked to the course home page.

[1/2 hr, week 9] A. Geoffrion, "My Ideal Virtual Professional Community: A Personal Checklist," 7 pages, 9/98, linked to the course home page.

[part of Homework 8, week 6] "Internet Discussion Groups: Soul of a Wired Global Business Community," from DejaNews, 1/98. Portions are still on-line at http://www.dejanews.com/emarket/about/idgs/.

[week 5] Optional: M. Moroz, "Avoiding Junk E-Mail," on-line and linked to course home page.

[week 7] Optional: G. Alwang, "Meeting of the Minds," PC Magazine, 17:4 (Feb. 24, 1998), 179-192, on-line at http://www.zdnet.com/pcmag/features/discussion/_open.htm (not in course reader).

[week 7] Optional: J. Heid, "Liven Up Your Site with Chats and Conferences," MacWorld, March 1998, 115-118, on-line at http://macworld.zdnet.com/pages/march.98/Column.4187.html.

[week 8] Optional: W. Brian Arthur, "Increasing Returns and the New World of Business," HBR, July-August 1996, 100-109.

[week 5] Reference: A. Geoffrion, "E-Mail Lists: Quick Reference," 9/98, linked to course home page.

HOMEWORK 8: Participation in Discussion Groups and Virtual Communities [5 hrs --1 hr week 5, 1 week 6, 1 week 7, 1 week 8, 1 week 9 (due)]; additional notes posted to course home page

DEMO 8 [1/2 hr, week 5]: Usenet and FAQs; notes posted to course home page

Organizations influencing e-commerce, opportunities to add value, e-commerce strategy, opportunities for research, important neglected topics (business-to-business e-commerce, EDI, intranets, extranets), the future.

[0.4 hr, week 8] Skim K Chap. 12, "Strategies for Electronic Commerce"

[1/2 hr, week 9] K Chap. 13, "The Future of Electronic Commerce"

[1/2 hr, week 9] E. Dyson, "Intellectual Property on the Net," Educators' Tech Exchange, Spring/Summer 1995, 12-13. A much longer version of this paper is on-line at http://www.eff.org/pub/Publications/Esther_Dyson/ip_on_the_net.article. Additional notes posted to course home page.

[15 min, week 9] L.M. Fisher, "The Wired Enterprise: Here Come the Intranets," on-line at the Booz, Allen & Hamilton website, http://www.strategy-business.com/technology/97109/, first quarter 1997 (skim).

[1/2 hr, week 9] T.W. Malone and J.F. Rockart, "Computers, Networks and the Corporation," Scientific American, 265:3 (September 1991), 128-136.

[1/2 hr, week 9] M. Moroz, "Internet Standards: IETF and W3C" (not in course reader, but linked to course home page).

[1 hr, week 9] A.A. Penzias, "The Next Fifty Years: Some Likely Impacts of Solid-State Technology," Bell Labs Technical Journal, 2:4 (Autumn 1997), 155-168, on-line at http://www.lucent.com/ideas2/perspectives/bltj/autumn_97/autumn_97.html. Additional notes posted to course home page.

Think of the Term Project as an opportunity to focus on an area of particular interest or importance to you.

Term Projects will be done in teams of 3 (although teams of 2 and 4 are permitted), and should represent about 15 hours of effort per student. This is not a lot of time per project, so try not to be too ambitious when choosing your project. There is a limit of 10 projects per section, owing to the time needed for class presentation.

Final reports will be presented during the 10^th and 11^th classes for about 30 minutes each (including discussion). Which teams present in which class will be chosen by lottery during Class 8. Reports should be placed on the Web as far in advance as possible -- even if only partial or preliminary -- so that other class members can become familiar with the project prior to the official class presentation. This will increase the value of presentations to the class and permit more informed discussion. A substantial part of the report should be up by Class 9, and the final report no later than Class 11. PowerPoint slides need not be converted to HTML prior to posting, but there should be a home Web page for each project named project.htm that points to any additional pages. Once this page is up, email the exact URL to the Teaching Assistant and me. All project Web pages should be in http://internal.anderson.ucla.edu/student/FirstName.LastName/, where the name is that of one person designated for each team.

Several kinds of projects are permissible. One is to develop an e-commerce strategy for some company or small set of companies or even an entire subindustry or industry. If there is an e-commerce strategy in place, then the project should include a critique of it. If there is e-commerce competition already going on, then the project should comment on it; in fact an attractive criterion for selecting "a small set of companies" would be to pick battling e-commerce adversaries. Include some contextual background and a description of the current state of e-commerce in the target(s).

Another kind of project is to analyze e-commerce activity in an industry or subindustry that is already heavily involved in it (e.g., auto sales, banking, bookselling, magazines, music, newspapers, retail, travel). The analysis should include a sketch of current status, evident trends and opportunities, and should deal with any suitable mixture of technical, managerial, or strategic issues.

Another kind of project is to design and implement (at least partially, perhaps in mockup) a commercial Web site for some organization. Be sure to justify your design by defensible criteria and keep in mind your time limits.

Another kind of project is to undertake a small "consulting" assignment for a company already involved in e-commerce; e.g., eToys, GeoCities, or the ASUCLA Store. Be sure to present an honest appraisal of the quality of your work.

Still another kind of project is to examine some technology or topic relevant to e-commerce and write thoughtfully on that. Possible topics include:

Project topics and teams must be approved in advance by the instructor by Class 3 (October 21). Send me an email prior to that date giving project title, team, and brief project description. There will be 5-minute progress reports during Class 6 by all teams to summarize each project’s scope, goals, and current status, and to engage the class in any discussion that might be useful to the project.