Program Overview

The program offers both an ecommerce major and minor. That enables students to pursue a wide range of career options, in ecommerce or in more "traditional" fields.

  • Students specializing in ecommerce cab broaden their career horizon by combining it with a minor in another field, such as marketing, information systems, financial services, international business, and supply management.
  • Those specializing in other fields can gain a competitive edge in their future careers with a minor in ecommerce.
  • All business students ans certain non-business students can take certain ecommerce courses as electives.

 

Target Markets

The program targets the top two layers - Commerce and Intermediary -- of the Internet economy. They generated $160 billion of economic activities and over 700,000 jobs in 1998, according to a study by the University of Texas at Austin [1]. They are the main source of demand for EC-capable managers and executives, EC business consultants, and Web developers (figure 1).

Figure 1 Four layers of the Internet economy

The other two layers include Application Infrastructure and Internet Infrastructure. They are more suitable for students wishing to study computer science and engineering. They are not therefore the targets of this business program

  1. The Internet Economy Indicators, (June 1999), http://www.internetindicators.com/index.html

 

Core Competencies

According to a survey by PricewaterhouseCoopers for the Conference Board, Ecommerce must be business-driven (as opposed to IT-driven) and to be implemented by teams of both business and IT professionals [1]. "As the Web is increasingly seen as a strategic part of the business, companies are looking for strategists, not purely technologists [2]," who possess both business and information technology (IT) competencies, according to the GartnerGroup [3]. The ecommerce program is designed to develop this set of competencies (figure 2).

Figure 2 Ecommerce competencies
  1. PriceWaterhouseCoopers, E-Business Outlook, http://www.e-business.pwcglobal.com/pdf_files/outlook.pdf
  2. "E-Commerce title search," CIO WebBusiness, (February 1999).
  3. The Gartner Group, The Future of eBusiness, (1998).

 

Program Architecture

EC major [] EC career tracks [] EC minor

Developing ecommerce competencies requires a curriculum that contains an integrative EC core and a career track.

  1. The (required) integrative core consists of 4 courses (12 hours), on top of a common core for all business students. They are:

    ECOM3090 Ecommerce and the Networked Economy
    ECOM32 Web Design for Business Communication
    ECOM41 Ecommerce Intelligence Management
    ECOM42 Ecommerce Business Models and Project

  2. An (elective) career track consists of 2 courses (6 hours) and can be either:
    • Information Technology for Electronic Commerce (ITEC), or
    • Electronic Commerce Business Applications (ECBA).

    The career tracks are intended to integrate EC into either business front-end or back-end functions. They accommodate a wide range of career options.

  • ITEC career track (2 courses
    ISOM 3150 Principles of Structured Computer Programming and Problem Solving
    ISOM 4370 Application Development Using Database Management Systems

    ECBA career track (2 courses out of 3
    FINA 4090 Financial Markets and Institutions
    MKTG 3XXX Internet Marketing
    MKTG 3YYY Global Framework for Ecommerce
     

Typically, business students have 9 hours to take elective courses or to pursue a minor field. EC majors are advised to pursue a business minor (e.g., marketing, operation management, information systems, supply chain management, international business, professional sale, etc.) that complements their selected career track.

Figure 3. Ecommerce program architecture

 

Students specializing in other business fields (e.g., marketing, information systems, operation management, financial services, international business, etc) can enhance their career prospect with ake a minor in ecommerce. This minor consists of 3 courses (9 hours) from the EC core.

ECOM31XX Ecommerce and the Networked Economy
ECOM32XX Web Design for Business Communication
ECOM41XX Ecommerce Intelligence Management
 

 

Course Description