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Introduction

COMP3410: Information Technology in Electronic Commerce

(6 units)
Second Semester

Thirty one-hour lectures and seven two-hour tutorial/laboratory sessions

Lecturer: Dr Ramesh Sankaranarayana

Prerequisites

COMP1100 or COMP2720; 12 units of 2000-series IT courses; and 6 units of MATH/STAT courses

Syllabus

This course studies some of the current and potential applications of information technology in electronic commerce. Topics will be chosen from areas such as document representation (XML, XSL, DTD, CSS), knowledge discovery (meta-data, web-based data mining information retrieval), data management (digital library, electronic document management), trading (spontaneous, deliberative, auctions) and security (encryption, public key, symmetric key, PKI, authentication, etc). Case studies will be used wherever appropriate. Other topics will be included to match developments and maturation of the area.

Proposed Assessment

Assignments (30%) and final exam (70%)

Description

This course studies some important applications of information technology in the area of electronic commerce. The focus is on document representation, knowledge discovery, storage and retrieval, and electronic trading. The areas covered include XML, XSL, DTD, metadata, data mining information retrieval, data management and different forms of trading such as deliberative, spontaneous and auctions.

Rationale

Electronic Commerce is an area that is growing in leaps and bounds. The use of information technology is at the heart of electronic commerce. It is important that students doing a degree in Information Systems have a sound understanding of the role that information technology plays in electronic commerce. This course, along with the course on Internet, Intranet and Document Systems, is meant to do just that. It looks at some of the current and potential uses of information technology in electronic commerce. The topics covered include document representation in the form of XML, XSL, DTD's; knowledge discovery using metadata and data mining information retrieval; data management as in the case of Digital Libraries and Electronic Document Management; trading, including deliberative, spontaneous and auctions; and security (public keys, PKI, digital signatures, etc). Other topics would be included as the area matures. It is anticipated that this course will be of interest to people in the industry as well.

Ideas

This course is responsible for

• current trends in representation of data and documents on the web.
• knowledge discovery in the form of metadata and data mining information retrieval.
• database management in electronic commerce.
• electronic trading.
• security in electronic commerce.

Topics

The following topics will be addressed.

• knowledge representation - XML, XSL, DTD, CSS.
• knowledge discovery - metadata and data mining information retrieval.
• data management - digital libraries and electronic document management.
• trading - deliberative, spontaneous and auctions.
• security - public keys, symmetric keys, PKI, authentication, digital signatures, etc.

Objectives

Upon completion of this course, the student will be able to do the following.

1. Describe the XML language, write simple DTD's, write CSS style sheets for documents, and explain where XML can be applied to advantage and why. (level in Biggs SOLO taxonomy: 4 ; generic graduate attributes: 1,2)

2. Describe the use of metadata, and describe the current trends in data mining information retrieval. (level in Biggs SOLO taxonomy: 3 ; generic graduate attributes: 1)

3. Describe how digital libraries and electronic document management work. (level in Biggs SOLO taxonomy: 3 ; generic graduate attributes: 1)

4. Describe the different kinds of trading that an individual, or an organisation, can do electronically. Explain the advantages and limitations of electronic trading, and the risks involved. (level in Biggs SOLO taxonomy: 4 ; generic graduate attributes: 1,2)

5. Explain why security is such a big issue in electronic commerce and how it is being addressed. Describe key concepts like public keys, symmetric keys, PKI, authentication and digital signatures. Given a system specification, come up with a design that allows secure transmission of information. (level in Biggs SOLO taxonomy: 4 ; generic graduate attributes: 1,2,5)

Assessment

The following assessment modes are used.

final examination

Tests all objectives.

assignments

Each student will submit two assignments. This will include small programming tasks, essays, reports and system design. Collectively, this tests all objectives.

Technical Skills

At the end of this course, the student will have a good understanding of some of the important applications of information technology in the area of electronic commerce.

Recommended Reading

• Simson Garfinkel and Gene Spafford. Web Security, Privacy and Commerce. O'Reilly, 2002.