MODELS AND IMPLEMENTATIONS*
Zehai Zhou
Department of FACIS
University of Houston-Downtown
Houston, Texas 77002
713 222-5376zhouz@uhd.edu
ABSTRACT
This paper provides details on the development of the course “ElectronicCommerce” in an information system graduate program in a Liberal Arts andSciences university. While an “e-commerce” course in management informationsystems programs normally focuses on the business side (e.g., managerial,organizational, technological, social, ethic, legal, or international issues) and arelated Internet or Web application development course in informationtechnology or computer science programs generally emphasizes on the techniqueside (implementation, security, etc.) of Web-based, database driven applicationdevelopment, it is sometimes more appropriate and very important to strike agood balance between the theory/issues related to e-commerce andimplementation/development of e-commerce systems in an information systemsprogram. The author developed the course by integrating multi-tier architecture,Web technologies, and open source software (Apache, PHP and MySQL) into theteaching materials of the course as well as incorporating the managerial/businesscontents. Some challenging issues related to implementation are also discussedin this paper.
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*
Copyright © 2007 by the Consortium for Computing Sciences in Colleges. Permission to copy
without fee all or part of this material is granted provided that the copies are not made ordistributed for direct commercial advantage, the CCSC copyright notice and the title of thepublication and its date appear, and notice is given that copying is by permission of theConsortium for Computing Sciences in Colleges. To copy otherwise, or to republish, requires afee and/or specific permission.
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JCSC 23, 1 (October 2007)1. INTRODUCTION
Over a billion people around the world have the access to Internet. Business on theInternet has also blossomed. Electronic commerce or e-business refers to the process ofbuying, selling, transferring, or exchanging products, service, and/or information viacomputing networks, including the Internet [20]. Electronic Commerce is definitely one ofthe major driving forces for businesses of all sizes today. The impact of electronic commerceis truly revolutionary. It has significantly changed our society in general, and the ways inwhich organizations conduct businesses, and consumers buy and sell, and individualscommunicate, entertain and get educated in particular. The benefits and advantages ofelectronic commerce are just starting to be felt. A significant portion of businesses rely eitherheavily or solely on the revenues generated from the electronic commerce division of theirbusinesses. More and more organizations, large and small, are trying to make a greaterpresence in the Internet and conduct more e-commerce because of the importance of e-business to the success or even the very survival of the organizations as well the advantagese-business presents. According to Ford and Baum [3], the opportunities that electroniccommerce brings to the business world include (but are not limited to) productivityadvances, expanded and better-focused markets, cost reduction, quality gains, improvedcustomer appeal, improved employee satisfaction, new partnerships based on betterinformation sharing, and new business opportunities, among others. U.S. Census Bureau hasconducted survey on e-commerce sales since 1999 and estimated that the total electronicsales (defined as sales of goods and services where an order is placed by the buyer or priceand terms of sale are negotiated over an Internet, extranet, Electronic Data Interchange (EDI)network, electronic mail, or other online system) in the U.S. reached $108.729 billion in2006, an increase of 23.52% over the total of $88.022 billion in 2005 [21]. This represents,however, only part of electronic commerce activities in USA. According to Laudon andTravor [10], in the ten years since it began in 1995, electronic commerce had grown in USAfrom a standing start to a $172 billion retails business and a $1.5 trillion business-to-businessjuggernaut in 2005. It is believed that ecommerce sales in U.S. and in the world will continueto grow rapidly.
As more and more businesses and organizations have jumped onto the electroniccommerce bandwagon, employees who can understand the business implication of electroniccommerce and who can build Web-based, database driven applications are needed. Manyuniversities created new programs related to electronic commerce or developed new coursesin this area. Gorgone and Kanabar [5] proposed a Web-centric model curriculum for Mastersin Information Systems programs. Zhang and Chau [25] discussed how to create E-Commerce course with regional intent. Tikekar and Wilson [19] described theImplementation of an e-commerce curriculum in a CIS program. Lam et al. [9] proposed aframework for an e-business curriculum. Rob [15] discussed some of the dilemma associatedwith the development of an e-commerce program. Bloss [2] shared his/her experience inteaching fundamentals for Web programming and e-commerce in a liberal arts computerscience curriculum using Java and Perl/CGI. Rogothaman and Ramakrishnan [16] discussedhow to integrate electronic and technology dimensions into an advanced business elective.Kovacs [8] outlined a project-based model for an advanced web site design and e-commercecourse. Weaver [23] provided details on how an electronic commerce software laboratorywas developed and used in an e-commerce course. Vragov and Wilson [22] discussed howto teach e-commerce through the use of real-time interactive laboratory experiments. Shaikh232
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[17] proposed a course in secure e-commerce systems. This paper provides details on thedevelopment and enhancement of the course “Electronic Commerce” in an informationsystem graduate program in a Liberal Arts and Sciences university in an upper MidwesternState. The course was developed by integrating multi-tier architecture, Web technologies,and open source software (Apache, PHP and MySQL) into the teaching materials of thecourse as well as incorporating the managerial/business contents. 2. BACKGROUND
The course “Electronic Commerce” described in this paper was offered for students intwo master programs at a Liberal Arts and Science University in the upper Midwest Region.The University was founded in 1881 as the first teacher education institution in the two-stateTerritory. In 1984, the State Legislature and the State Board of Regents changed the missionof the University \"to educate leaders for the information age.” The University has createdand continues to build different cutting-edge computer and information systems degreeprograms. The University is considered to be a multidisciplinary university spanninginformation technology, business, education, liberal arts, and natural sciences with anemphasis on information technologies. The information technology and business disciplinesare jointly administered and form one college – Business and Information Systems (BIS).The college offers several degree programs, including Bachelor of Business Administration,Bachelor of Science in Computer Science, Bachelor of Science in Computer InformationSystems, and Bachelor of Science in Computer and Network Security degrees. In addition,it offers several Master level programs, including the Master of Science degree inInformation Systems and the Master of Science program in Information Assurance. TheUniversity has further expanded recently, offering a doctoral program in informationsystems, and a distance education focus that leads the state and the region.
The course, INFS732 – Electronic Commerce, was offered to the students in the Masterof Science in Information Systems (MSIS) program and the Master of Science inInformation Assurance (MSIA) program. Each program offered a choice of three to fourpossible concentrations. The MSIS students were required to take the capstone IS projectcourse which involves the planning and implementation of an actual IS project. The coursewas a required course for the students in the General, Electronic Commerce, NetworkAdministration and Security concentrations of the Master of Science degree in InformationSystems and in the Internet and E-Commerce Specialization of the Master of Science inInformation Assurance program. It was an elective course for all other specializations inthese two graduate programs. The course presented unique educational/implementationchallenges and opportunities.
This course was offered to students using what was referred to as a hybrid learningenvironment - a simultaneous combination of in-class, remote interactive audio/videoconnections (Dakota-Digital-Network or DDN), and Internet connections. The course wastaught as an in-class course in the on-campus DDN classroom/studio which linked to DDNclassroom at remote sites, and it was live via the Internet to several other states through livevideo streaming.
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JCSC 23, 1 (October 2007)Open Source Software
The author selected open source software (Apache, PHP, and MySQL database) fordeveloping Web-based, database-driven applications. The software provides manyadvantages when compared to the other programming and Internet or Web applicationsdevelopment technologies because of its simplicity and there is no cost of obtaining thesoftware. For the history, leading figures, and sub-culture of the free and open sourcesoftware movement from a socio-cultural perspective, please refer to Pan and Bonk [13]. Forsome other important issues related to open source software, please see the interesting articleby Fuggetta [4].
Apache As businesses move their IT infrastructure to a web services model, the needfor powerful and reliable web server software is becoming ever more crucial. The ApacheSoftware Foundation [1] provides support for the Apache community of open-sourcesoftware projects. Apache Server is the key project among them and is the world's leadingWeb server. For a number of years, Apache has been the server software chosen by amajority of users. Apache has lots of advantages that serious users have come to expect fromopen source software: reliability, security through auditability, flexibility, efficiency,standards compliance, and low cost, etc.
PHP From the open source world, PHP has become one of the most popular Webprogramming languages used to build e-commerce applications and other Web-based, data-based applications. PHP is a very useful tool because it has many strengths, including: (i)relatively easy to learn and use, (ii) efficient, (iii) supports native connection to manydatabase systems, (iv) has built-in objected-oriented features, (v) portable, (vi) has manybuilt-in functions for performing Web-based tasks, and (vii) free, etc. For more informationincluding downloading PHP, please visit http://www.php.net/ [14].
MySQL There is a plethora of database products available in the market, from Oracle,SyBase, Microsoft SQL Server, mSQL, and PostgreSQL to Microsoft Access, to name justa few. Even amid all its competitions, MySQL has managed to become and remainexceptionally popular in the Unix programming community and the first choice for PHPdevelopers. The biggest draw is the fact that MySQL is free under the GPL license, whichgives it a price advantage over sometimes very expensive commercial options. It is opensource, enjoying the benefits of community development and quick attention to bugs. It isalso important that MySQL is natively supported by PHP without compiling in anyadditional modules and therefore it is a natural choice for Web applications that need to havea database tier. These all add up to make MySQL a compelling choice. MySQL is also fast,adaptable, and feature-rich. Please check the Web site of MySQL AB [12] for more detailsabout MySQL and for downloading MySQL.
3. COURSE CONTENTS FOR A BALANCED E-COMMERCE COURSEAn “e-commerce” course in management information systems programs or MBAnormally focuses on the business side (e.g., managerial, organizational, technological, social,ethic, legal, or international issues). On the other hand, an Internet or Web applicationdevelopment course in information technology or computer science programs generallyemphasizes on the technique side (implementation, security, etc.) of Web-based, databasedriven application development. Although the part related to the background of andintroduction to the Internet and World Wide Web, HTML, concept of Web application234
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development, client-side and server-side programming could be similar, the other topicscould be quite different depending on the computing environment and the software used. Since electronic commerce is such an important subject, the course “ElectronicCommerce” is of interest to more and more students in all related programs. To manystudents, both of the technical side and the business side could be of equal importance. Theauthor feels that it is sometimes more fitting to introduce both the business side and thetechnical side to students in information systems or similar programs (e.g., ElectronicCommerce, E-Business, Web Technology, Internet Technology, or Web Design andDevelopment). To understand technology is an extension of business strategy in the 21stcentury for the students in management information systems or similar programs (e.g.,MBA). Although Web-based, database-driven applications are seen as solution forautomating online transaction processing, optimizing business processing, and improvingonline customer relations management and the development of those applications involvesgood understanding of the Internet, World Wide Web, multi-tier architecture, databasemanagement systems, etc. and requires highly specialized programming skills, it is vital thatmanagement information systems or similar programs (e.g., MBA) students have a certainlevel of knowledge about how electronic systems actually automate Web transactions,streamline business processes, and how Web-based systems manage contents, data andinformation. For the programs such as computer science or information technology thattraditionally focus on the technical side of electronic commerce or E-business, a relatedInternet or Web application development course generally emphasizes on the technique side(implementation, security, etc.) of Web-based, database driven application development. Thestudents in those programs, however, would certainly benefit from a general understandingof the business side of e-commerce or e-business including managerial, organizational,technological, social, ethic, legal, or international issues, etc. Efforts could and should bemade to strike a good balance between the theory/issues related to e-commerce andimplementation/development of e-commerce systems in those programs, depending on thefocus of the programs and the students’ needs and interests. Table 1 provides the majorcontents and other information on the course developed and offered in the University.Table 1: Tentative Schedule
______________________________________________________________________WeeksTopicsReadings 1-2 - Course introduction
- Overview of Electronic Commerce(EC) Ch.1- Introduction to PHP(PHP) Introduction- Installing MySQL, Apache and PHP(PHP) Appendix A- PHP Crash Course(PHP) Ch.1
3-4. - E-Marketplaces(EC) Ch.2
- Storing and retrieving data(PHP) Ch.2- Using arrays(PHP) Ch.3
5-6 - Retailing in EC(EC) Ch.3
- Consumer behavior(EC) Ch.4- String manipulation(PHP) Ch.4- Reusing code and writing functions(PHP) Ch.5
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- Object-oriented PHP(PHP) Ch.6
7-8 - Company-centric B2B(EC) Ch.6
- Designing web database(PHP) Ch.8- Creating web database(PHP) Ch.9
9-10- Public B2B exchanges and portals(EC) Ch.7
- Working with MySQL databases(PHP) Ch.10- Access MySQL from the web with PHP(PHP) Ch.11
11-12 - E-Commerce security(EC) Ch.11
- Implementing authentication (PHP) Ch.16- Using session control(PHP) Ch.22- Building user authentication and
personalization(PHP) Ch.26
13-14 - Building EC applications/infrastructure(EC) Ch.18
- Building a shopping cart(PHP) Ch.27- Other advanced topicshandouts- Review
15-16Final Exam * (EC): Electronic Commerce textbook; (PHP): PHP textbook
Table 1 is a sample course outline for one fall semester. The author put equal importance tothe business part and technical component of the course. However, the technical side wasallocated 60-65% of the class time and the business part 35-40% of the class time becauseit was much more challenging and difficult as well as more time-consuming to master thecomponents/topics related to Apache/PHP/MySQL. It was hard enough to do programming(in PHP or other programming or scripting language), to manage Apache sever, or to workwith MySQL individually. Learning all three, putting all three together under MicrosoftWindows or Linux environment and making them work seamlessly proved to be even morechallenging. Assignments were given regularly for both the technical side (mostlyprogramming) and the business side. However, the project (term paper) the author requiredthe students to complete was mostly related to the business side (e.g., managerial,organizational, technological, social, ethic, legal, or international issues, etc.). There weretwo major reasons for doing it this way: (i) the students would normally do not have enoughtime to find real world projects and finish the project from scratch in the same semester whenthey tried to master the materials covered in this course, and (ii) significant programmingassignments or mini-projects related to Web-based, database driven application development(e.g., shopping cards, Web log, Web Service, discussion forum, session control, userauthentication, security implementation, etc.) could be assigned during the semester.For the business side of electronic commerce, several textbooks were available [10, 18,20]. For the technical side of electronic commerce, there were only a few textbooks on themarket [6] although there are a lot of professional books available [7, 11, 24]. After seriousconsiderations, the author adopted the e-commerce textbook by Turban, Kingan, Viehland,and Lee [20] and the professional PHP book by Welling and Thomson [24].
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4. IMPLEMENTATION ISSUESOperating Systems
The author offered this course for several years in Microsoft Windows environments.The overall experience was very positive. It seems that most textbooks or professional bookscovering PHP, MySQL and Apache normally contain technical instructions on installation,configuration, and management of multi-tier Web applications supported by Apache, PHPand MySQL in both Microsoft Windows (different versions) and Linux (different versionsand from different vendors) environments with a bias favoring Linux. The author expectsthat the same course would run smoothly as well in Linux environments. Depending on thetechnical support the instructors can get from their Computing Service Department, theinstructors could choose either Linux or Windows because both could work equally well.Prerequisites or Course Sequence
The prerequisites for INFS732 are: INFS612 Management and Evaluation ofInformation Systems or permission of instructor and INFS730-Programming for E-Commerce or equivalent. The former is a foundation course and the latter is a core coursefor students in the Master of Science in Information Systems program. INFS612 is anintroduction to the application of information systems in organizations and the role ofmanagers in providing IS services to the organization. The course includes a survey of thevarious topics that comprise information systems, with a focus on Business Process Analysis,Problem Identification, Business Process Problems, Process Mapping, Modeling EnterpriseProcesses, Measuring Enterprise Processes, and Evaluating Enterprise Processes,Benchmarking, Business Process Reengineering, and Creating AlternativeRecommendations. INFS730 is an introduction to the architecture of WWW, usability ofWeb site designs and Web client programming. There is a substantial programmingcomponent in the course INFS730. The major components of INFS730 are client-sidescripting with JavaScript, and XML. Since that INFS732 contains the materials/topics inboth the business side and technical side of electronic commerce, it is important that thestudents have taken the prerequisite courses or the equivalents.Two Courses Offering
The course “Electronic Commerce” was offered to students in the two Masterprograms. The students either had taken courses or had some technical (computing)background before they joined the Master programs or they had taken foundation coursesand prerequisite courses before they took the course “Electronic Commerce”. In other words,the students should have significant and sufficient preparation for programming in generaland knowledge about the Internet, World Wide Web, HTML, XML, database managementsystems, and client-side scripting/programming experiences. Otherwise, if possible, theauthor would suggest that separate courses, Electronic Commerce (or similar title), and E-Commerce Systems Development (or similar designation) be offered. At least in theundergraduate level, offering two courses (with one focuses on the business side and theother emphases on the technical components) would be a viable option.
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JCSC 23, 1 (October 2007)PHP vs. ASP.NET
The major decision to make for the technical side is to choose the programming (orscripting) language to use, the Web server (either Apache or Internet Information Service),and the database management system (either MySQL or Microsoft SQL Server or Oracle).Among them, the programming/scripting language could be primary. From the open sourceworld, PHP has become one of the most popular Web programming languages used to builde-commerce applications and other Web-based, data-based applications. PHP is a very usefultool because it has many advantages/characteristics as mentioned in Section 2. If PHP isselected, MySQL could be a natural choice for database management systems. However,PHP is open source software and it has some of the major disadvantages other open sourcesoftware share. For example, technical support could be an issue. In addition, it seems thatit is kind of “low-level” and that it is sometimes harder to master for some students orbeginning programmer compared with other options. There are some alternatives, e.g.,ASP/ASP.NET, CGI/Perl, ColdFusion, Ruby, etc. for server-side programming and forbuilding Web-based, database driven applications. The author thinks that ASP.NET couldbe very attractive for the course “Electronic Commerce” because it is marketed by Microsoftand thus the students and the instructors can enjoy the technical support from Microsoft.Because the dominance of Microsoft in other areas (such as operating systems, office suite),the students would end up working in an organization where Microsoft products areemployed after they graduate. The students can learn to use ASP.NET to build dynamic websites, web applications and XML web services relatively easier than PHP because of itsmany built-in features and the integrated development environment (Visual Studio.NET).ASP.NET is the successor to Microsoft's Active Server Pages (ASP) technology and is partof Microsoft's .NET platform and the applications developed could be linked with databasetier (naturally with Microsoft SQL Server) easily. If ASP.NET is chosen, Microsoft SQLServer or Oracle would be a better choice for database management systems.5. CONCLUSION
The feedbacks from the students were positive. It seemed that the course provided forthe students a solid technical foundation as well as comprehensive coverage of the businessside of electronic commerce or e-business, including managerial, organizational, technical,social, ethic, legal, or international issues, etc. It was especially useful and practical for thestudents who eventually selected a graduate project that involves developing Web-based,database-driven applications. In informal contacts with a few of those students, theyexpressed appreciation for the balanced coverage of both the business side (e.g., managerial,organizational, technical, social, ethic, legal, or international issues) of electronic commerceand the technical side (implementation and development of Web-based, database drivenapplications, Web or e-commerce security, etc.) of electronic commerce in this course: itproved very important and useful in finishing their degree, launching or securing jobs, andvery relevant for their early careers.REFERENCES
[1]Apache Software Foundation, http://www.apache.org/
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[2]Bloss, A., Teaching fundamentals for Web programming and e-commerce in a
liberal arts computer science curriculum, Journal of Computing Sciences inColleges, 16(2), 300-305, 2001.[3]Ford, W. and Baum, M.S., Secure Electronic Commerce: Building the Infrastructure
for Digital Signature and Encryption, 2nd edition, Upper Saddle River, NJ: PrenticeHall PTR, 2001.[4]Fuggetta, A., Open source software – an evaluation, Journal of Systems and
Software, 66, 77-90, 2003.[5]Gorgone, J. and Kanabar, V., Masters in Information Systems: A Web-Centric
Model Curriculum, Proceedings of IS2002 Informing Science and IT EducationConference, 553-563, 2002.
http://proceediiigs.informingscience.org/lS2002Proceedin gs/papers/Gorgo236WebCe.pdf[6]Gosselin, D., PHP Programming with MySQL, Boston, MA: Thomson/Course
Technology, 2006.[7]Harris, A., PHP 5/MySQL Programming for the absolute beginners, Boston, MA:
Thomson/Course Technology, 2004.[8]Kovacs, P., A Project-based Model for an Advanced Web Site Design and E-Commerce Course, Information Systems Education Journal, 3(9), 3-11, 2005.[9]Lam, S.S., Ngai, E.W.T. and Gunasekaran, A, A framework for an e-business
curriculum, International Journal of Information and Operations ManagementEducation, 1(1), 32-43, 2005.[10]Laudon, K.C. and Traver, c.g., E-Commerce: Business, Technology, Society, 3rd
edition, Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2007.[11]Meloni, J., PHP 5: fast and easy Web development, Boston, MA: Thomson/Course
Technology, 2004.[12]MySQL AB, http://www.mysql.com/
[13]Pan, G. and Bonk, C.J., A Socio-Cultural Perspective on the Free and Open Source
Software Movement, Internal Journal of Instructional Technology and DistanceLearning, 4(4), 3-21, April 2007.[14]http://www.php.net/
[15]Rob, M., The rise and fall of an e-commerce program, Communication of the ACM,
46(3), 25-26, 2003.[16]Rogothaman, S. and Ramakrishnan, K., Integrating electronic and technology
dimensions into an advanced business elective, Journal of Computing Sciences inColleges, 17(3), 265-281, 2002.[17]Shaikh, S.A., Information security education in the UK: a proposed course in secure
e-commerce systems, Proceedings of the 1st annual conference on Informationsecurity curriculum development, 53-58, 2004.
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[18]Schneider, Gary, Electronic Commerce, 7th edition, Boston, MA: Thomson/Course
Technology, 2007.[19]Tikekar, R. and Wilson, D., Implementing an e-commerce curriculum in a CIS
program, Journal of Computing Sciences in Colleges, 16(2), 9-20, 2001.[20]Turban, E., Kingan, D., Viehland, D and Lee, J., Electronic Commerce 2006: A
Managerial Perspective, 4th edition, Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Prentice Hall,2006.[21]United States Department of Commerce News, Estimated Quarterly U.S. Retail
Sales (Not Adjusted): Total and E-commerce,
http://www.census.gov/mrts/www/data/html/06Q3table4.html retrieved May 19,2007.[22]Vragov, R. and Wilson, B.J., Teaching e-commerce through the use of real-time
interactive laboratory experiments, International Journal of Information andOperations Management Education, 1(1), 74-86, 2005.[23]Weaver, A.C., Electronic commerce software laboratory, Proceedings of the 35th
SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer science education (SIGCSE '04), 36(1),453-456, 2004.[24]Welling, L. and Thomson L., PHP and MySQL Web Development, 3rd edition,
Indianapolis, IN: Sams Publishing, 2005.[25]Zhang, Q.B. and Chau, Y.K., Creating E-Commerce course with regional intent,
Communication of the ACM, 45(2), 35-37, 2002.
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