Sheffield Hallam University

School of Computing and Management Sciences

BSc Routes

Module 12-5206-01L

e-Business

Assessment

Group Sections

Module 12-5206-01L e-Business

Assessment

Information about the Assessment

Aims	· To understand e-Business, its categories and their applications. · To appreciate the benefits and limitations of e-Business · To appreciate the factors that impact on success and failure of e-Business · To apprehend and to be able to implement the architecture of infrastructure for conducting e-Business · To assess the requirements for securing e-Business and ensuring privacy of users
Objectives	· To develop e-Business strategies. · To justify the strategies economically, socially and ethically. · To model the architecture of e-Business and to prototype an aspect of the architecture. · To develop strategies for securing the e-Business infrastructure and protecting privacy of customers.
Outcomes	· A report that describes a proposal for an online business case. · An online shop

Method of Working

You are to organise yourselves in groups of 3.  One member of the group has to notify "Mo Rezai" by email, quoting:

a) The module - eBiz

b) The tutorial group belong to. (Example: Mon, 12:00 am)

c) Names of members in the group

d) This email must be copied to the other members of the group.

Those students who have not organised themselves into a group will be assigned a group at random by your tutor on 17th of October. Beyond this date, composition of the groups can not be altered.

Note that it is not due to volume of work that this project is done in a group. Group working is believed to encourage peer-to-peer learning. Work on all deliverables as a group and do not subdivide the tasks.

Hand-in Date

You need to ensure that you submit this work at the latest by end of business on Wednesday, 1st of April in hard copy at the school office. The normal regulations for the submission of late work apply available at: http://students.shu.ac.uk/rightsrules/regs.html

Resources

· Learning Materials from “e-Business” unit

· Additional external web-based materials identified by the teaching team and yourself

· Additional reading materials indicated throughout teaching of the module

· Access to the module instructors

In the opening lines of his book, Chen (2001), states that "In the space of a few years entire industries have been radically transformed, hundreds of thousands of new businesses have been spawned and fortunes have been made and lost by entrepreneurs and investors, all as a result of digital technologies." 

Requirements outline

You are to act as a firm of business consultants and your aim in this project is to advise CCC.

You are to decide on a range of products suitable for retailing online and to design and prototype a simple-to-use, no-frill e-Commerce Website to enable retailing the products.  You are to develop business strategy, prepare to build and prototype the online shop (See the case study).  Note that the intended users are to be both the employees of the online venture (in administrative role) and the public consumers.  Note that this is not intended to define structure for your presentation but your proposal should consist of a number of sections including:

· An outline of business requirements.  Examples of issues you might need to consider are:

I. An evaluation of products and proposal of a range of products for retailing

II. Product and customer analysis in order to justify the strategy - You may bring in relevant current social and economical issues in order to justify your insertions

III. Indication of suppliers of merchandise

IV. Different strategies for building the shop including use of open source shopping carts and also use of commercial products

V. Administration of the system

VI. A reflection on amount of required funding and where it may come from

VII. An appraisal of what the domain name maybe for the venture, your investigation to make sure that this domain name is available, how you may obtain the domain name, which service provider you may use to mange the domain name and its associated costs

VIII. etc

· Technical requirements -

I. An evaluation of a number of open source shopping carts and commercial products and services to help you develop a case for opting to use a system for developing the online shop and to administer content, products, etc

II. A discussion of how you may host the site - You must consider and state alternative strategies for hosting the site to help you develop the discussion.  For example you may discuss taking advantage of out-sourcing in which case you may need to bring in examples of service providers and their respective services and costs and discussion may also centre on in-house development and its costs and issues

· Promotional plan - An outline of strategies that you think should be in place to drive traffic to the shop

· Use case diagrams, indicating all envisaged roles, functionalities, privileges, authentication and authorisation in the proposed system. In this section you must include all user levels you envisage will access the system i.e. not only the consumer but also staff with different levels of privilege to use the shop

· An elaboration of the implementation.  This must include:

I. A statement of URL for the implementation

II. A CD download of final implementation back-end MySQL database

III. A comprehensive indication (table) of all implemented roles

1. Usernames and passwords for at least one user for each of the implemented roles and

2. Authorised functionalities (What they are allowed to do)

IV. An elaboration of three features/functionalities of your system that you feel are most important

1. These features must be inline with your business strategies

2. Presentation has to be in a table of three columns, Functionality ¦ Description ¦ Business case

Word limit

Blaise Pascal once wrote, "I am writing you a long letter, because I haven't got time to write you a short one." There are strict guidelines for the format of each section. Emphasis is on words and phrases such as;

· outline

· present

· annotated diagram

· use models to present

· enhanced communication with client

You must keep in mind that you are developing a business proposal that should be used as the instrument to communicate and discuss the requirements, proposals, strategies, system architectures, etc, with a potential client - Therefore you must consider and keep in mind that you are applying yourself as a software engineer and so marks are rewarded for innovative and clear presentation and where there is excessive overwrite, we will penalise. You are encouraged to use a variety of presentational skills including diagrams, rich pictures, hierarchical presentations, tables and bulleted points to enhance communication and aid discussion with the client.  Marks will be awarded for demonstrating agility in easy to comprehend presentations.

Assessment Marking Scheme

Strategy	<34%	35-39%	40-49%	50-59%	60-69%	70-79%	80%>
Business requirements (30%)	Inaccurate and irrelevant understanding of the objectives and the requirements in terms of problems/short-falls/position/community/etc.	Some awareness of problem and objectives, but they are not clear or not appropriate. Limited awareness of the required results. It is regurgitation/bookwork as oppose to application to a domain.  No clear objectives.	It may still be limited but it demonstrates a good understanding of the requirements. Demonstrates thinking process and understanding of business and e_Business concepts and contexts. Clear and appropriate objectives are stated. Demonstrates good understanding of what one is doing and the final product.	+ demonstrates some awareness of critical points about doing business electronically.  A few drivers and inhibitors of electronic strategies are also identified. There is good evidence of critical thinking and understanding of issues that relate to doing business online.	+ demonstrates critical understanding of requirements. Indicates consequences of potential flaws and benefits of the strategies.  Demonstrates clearly how the objectives will be achieved.	+ insertions are well justified and sensible. There is critical appraisal of the objectives and the requirements and critical evaluation of how these may be realised.	+ analyses environment and identifies the position of online merchant relative to others.  Puts in perspective the need for digital thinking in managing, communicating, informing, supporting the customers.  Shows initiative and innovative approaches to realising the objectives.
Technical requirements (20%)	There is very little investigation of what there is available.  Insertions are rudimentary and amounts to naming a few.	Some indication of awareness and understanding of available systems and what their capabilities/functionalities are. At least two open source systems and one commercial approach are investigated.	+ extends the discussion to cover benefits and drawbacks of using open source and where the support may come from versus commercial approaches. Brings in actual costs for the commercial offerings.	Discussion covers a number of system examples and group demonstrates understating through comparing and contrasting these systems.	+ Discussion is instrumental in helping the group decide which system/approach to use for the implementation.	+ Brings in strategies for hosting the system including costs, benefits and drawbacks. Discussion is comprehensive in the way it compares and contrasts out-source and in-house hosting.	+ identifies comprehensive and appropriate criteria according to which the different strategies are to be compared and contrasted. Discussion is flawless. It is complete and helpful in identifying the way forward. In conclusion clear decisions are made and discussion well justifies these decisions.
Promotional plan (10%)	No valid plan is outlined. None or few strategies are offered for developing the business into a revenue generating entity.	Develops an outline of few things to do in order to generate interest in the shop.	Demonstrates a good level of understanding of why marketing and promotional activities are important in success of online business.	+ develops a good number of strategies that takes advantage of online and offline marketing methods and tools for promoting the business.	+ states methods for driving traffic to the website.	+ demonstrates good comprehension of aligning promotional plans with business objectives.	+ strategies may make use of 3rd parties such as search engine marketing tools, Web-II community sites, info-mediary / price-comparison sites, etc. Demonstrates initiative in developing marketing strategies.
Requirement model (10%)	There is no user model or it is poor. Very few valid use cases. Does not conform to UML notation.	There is an attempt with some valid use cases and roles although there are some errors and inaccuracies.	Use case diagram is not robust but it does demonstrate a good number of relevant and valid use cases and roles.	User model is good with a large number of valid use cases and roles.  Tries to be robust with a few number of uses of valid includes and extends.  All are in line with the outlined business strategy.	User model is comprehensive.  There is good evidence of cohesiveness between the user model, business strategy and the required back end functionalities.	A very robust model that promotes the use of implementation reuse.	A very complete use case diagram.   All the indicated use cases and roles are sensible and inline with the user requirements and the business strategies. User model will be instrumental in implementing the system.  It is flawless.
Implementation (20%)	There is no implementation or implementation is very basic.  Amounts to very little work.  It is of poor quality and it has little use.	Implementation has potential but has serious faults or limitations.  It has some use but lacks some important qualities.	There is some evidence of implementation of functionality based on the indicated user model with some of the functionalities working.  Useful implementation with most appropriate attributes in evidence.	Implementation maybe basic but it is related to the model and all links are working well. Useful and appropriate attributes are in evidence.	Implementation does address all functionalities indicated on the user model.  All buttons/links/modules work.	+ attempts to implement a tangible and of value business process completely.  Good quality implementation.	+ implementation is clearly derived from the user model.  Implemented business process is full cycle. A novel approach. It is of exceptional use and quality.
Presentation (clarity, conciseness, professionalism and accuracy of communication)  (10%)	Little apparent structure; unclear or inaccurate. Presentation is verbose.	Difficult to understand the main features, often inaccurate. Little use of presentational techniques such as table, graphs, etc.	Understandable but lacking in clarity or accuracy, or of poor structure.  Some professional practice shown. Evidence of some consideration in preparing to present.	Understandable; well structured; mostly accurate. Some professional practice shown. Uses some of the models that have been discussed during the delivery.	Clear; well structured; concise; accurate. Appropriate professional practice shown.	+ presentation is instrumental in effectively communicating with potential clients.	+ good use of language and style. Clear evidence of professional practice.