E-Commerce Curriculum

INTRODUCTION

This article begins by tracing the rapid development of e-commerce curricula in response to demand from employers and students, and the subsequent impact of the dotcom implosion on e-commerce degree programs. The main portion of the article then identifies the major approaches currently taken by universities with respect to e-com-merce curricula and explores the three critical e-commerce curriculum issues facing universities. These issues concern (1) whether e-commerce is indeed a separate and distinct discipline, (2) appropriate e-commerce curriculum content, and (3) strategies that can facilitate implementation of an e-commerce program. In the next section of the article, five trends are identified that are critical to the immediate future of e-commerce curricula. Finally, conclusions are drawn concerning the long-term prospects for e-commerce degree programs.

BACKGROUND

In 1995, Vanderbilt University was the first in the world to establish a curriculum area with an emphasis in digital commerce (Vanderbilt University, 2003). By 1997, such schools as the University of Texas at Austin, Duke, Harvard, MIT, Stanford, the University of Michigan, and the University of Rochester were also active in the field (Lewis, 1997). By 1998, George Washington University was offering an electronic commerce class where students from a variety of disciplines bought and sold goods and services over the Internet while they designed and developed the supporting marketing and record-keeping infrastructure (Dhamija, Heller, & Hoffman, 1999). This type of integration of business principles with technology is a hallmark of many e-commerce curricula. In May 1999, Carnegie Mellon University began what is widely credited with being the first e-commerce master’s degree in the United States, and over the next few years, e-commerce programs burst onto the academic scene. This rush was uncharacteristically rapid and inconsistent with the historical development of many schools’ curricula. Joseph Alutto, business dean at Ohio State, indicated that “It took 20 years to get business schools to focus on international business, and some schools still aren’t dealing with entrepreneurship.. ..Yet, within a two- or three-year period, the rate of acceptance and integration of e-com-merce into curriculum is much greater than anything we have seen before” (Fitzpatrick, 2000a). Several schools that were early adopters of e-commerce curricula, like Bentley College (Fedorowicz & Gogan, 2001) and DePaul University (Knight & Chan, 2002b), noted the importance of rapid curriculum development practices in responding to the swift emergence of the field.
Universities began offering e-commerce courses because of “the demands of technologically savvy students—and the businesses who want to hire them,” according to Andrew B. Whinston of the University of Texas at Austin (Lewis, 1997). A secondary incentive for the development of e-commerce programs was the millions of dollars in funding offered by major corporations like IBM, Ford Motor Co., General Electric, Microsoft Corp, and iXL Enterprises (Dobbs, 1999). The appropriateness of simply responding to business and student demands has been questioned. Bailey and Dangerfield (2000) have maintained that business school curricula should not be driven by immediate customer demands, but rather should take a longer-range view, anticipating customers’ expressed and latent needs. Bailey and Dangerfield attribute this approach to Slater and Narver’s recommendation that organizations in general should be market-oriented, but not customer-led (Slater & Narver, 1998). Others, including Lightfoot (1999), have maintained that curricula should be driven primarily by educators with long-range perspectives, rather than by shorter-term demands of businesses or students.
With the widespread dot-com bankruptcies and drying up of venture capital funding that began in 2000, many universities began reexamining their e-commerce offerings. Georgia State University terminated its innovative global e-commerce master’s program and incorporated ebusiness courses into other MBA programs (Georgia State University, 2003). DePaul University introduced more advanced technical courses on e-business enterprise architecture design (DePaul University, 2003). Bentley College added more user-centered Web development methods and mobile commerce courses (Bentley College, 2003). As institutions kept pace with industry, curricula moved from an emphasis on entrepreneurial, dot-com implementations to the use of Internet technology in traditional organizations.

ALTERNATIVE CURRICULUM APPROACHES NOW IN USE

The broad range of e-commerce programs has been categorized into a manageable number of models by profiling the programs along three dimensions—career target (a generalist or specialist focus), curricular thrust (a business or technology emphasis), and integration (the extent to which business and technology topics are integrated at the course level) (Chan, 2001). Examples of this classification scheme are depicted in Table 1.

CRITICAL ISSUES OF E-COMMERCE CURRICULUM

Is E-Commerce a Separate Academic Discipline?

As early as 1997, an issue arose that still plagues academics, “Is e-commerce actually a new discipline with a new set of rules and a unique knowledge base?” (Lewis, 1997). Many have argued that e-commerce is a distinct academic field. Donna L. Hoffman of Vanderbilt noted, “The Internet is radically different from traditional markets, and we’re discovering that you need radically different approaches for teaching business.” (Mangan, 1999). On the other hand, James Ho of the University of Illinois at Chicago stated, “Business is business. Everyone is talking about e-this and e-that, but we didn’t say ‘t-business’ when the telephone came along or ‘f-business’ when the fax came along.” (Fitzpatrick, 2000b). The view that eventually e-commerce would be assimilated throughout traditional curricula has become increasingly popular as e-commerce curricula have matured. However, integration of new material within an already over-burdened curriculum is difficult. For many, the issue is what to remove in order to bring in more e-commerce concepts. Further, there is at least some evidence that traditional business faculty may not be effectively integrating e-commerce principles into traditional classes. A survey by Morrison and Oladunjoye (2002) of middle schools, secondary schools, community colleges, and colleges indicated, “business educators are not infusing e-commerce topics sufficiently into existing curricula to prepare their students for roles in companies where e-commerce is an integral part of operations.” The study concluded that educators at all four teaching levels “reported a similar lack of involvement in e-commerce-related activities such as having read an e-commerce topic within the last 6 months or having taken an e-commerce seminar within the past year.”

Table 1. Sample classification of e-commerce curricula (Derived from Chan, 2001)

What is the Appropriate Content for an E-Commerce Curriculum?

There is no widely recognized model curriculum for e-commerce, and considerable variation exists across universities. King, Frank, and Platt (2001) studied 65 syllabi from 47 institutions, and noted that most programs were graduate level, and electronic payment, security, and business models were the only topics covered by most institutions. Etheridge (2001) studied 77 e-business programs at AACSB-affiliated institutions, and concluded that the most commonly offered courses were e-business marketing at the graduate level and an introductory survey course at the undergraduate level. Durlabhji and Fusilier (2002) examined 67 North American programs and found that most offered more non-technical than technical content. In a follow-up study a year later, they found that, while the U.S. was “the treasure trove of e-business education,” there were multiple programs in Australia, the UK, and Asia (Fusilier & Durlabhji, 2003). Further, technical programs predominated outside North America and were growing faster than more business-oriented programs. The most prevalent strategy among North American master’s degrees remained a concentration or track within an existing Master of Business Administration (MBA) program.
Mechitov, Moshkovich, and Olson (2002) examined 26 U.S. MBA programs with emphasis in e-commerce and 10 U.S. M.S. programs in electronic commerce, and compared these programs with 16 non-U.S. programs. They concluded that the non-U.S. programs were similar to United States M.S. programs, although they found that the American M.S. programs were more likely to include courses on high technology management and e-commerce law. White,Steinbach, and Knight (2003) examined only more technically oriented programs, and concluded that graduate level courses commonly include courses in networking, client side Web development, supply chain management, security, and marketing, along with a project course or practicum. At the undergraduate level, they found that a survey of e-commerce, networking, business math and statistics, Web application models, database, marketing, and a senior project course were the most common.
The Mechitov (Mechitov et al., 2002) study proposed an e-commerce program model that included an introductory course, followed by six technology topics (Web site design and development, Web programming, networking and telecommunications, database management, e-commerce security, and systems analysis and design) and six business topics (e-commerce management, hitech management, e-commerce strategy, e-commerce marketing, supply chain management, and e-commerce law). The model is capped off with an internship or project course.
Two sets of authors have proposed specific sets of learning objectives for an e-commerce program. The categories of learning objectives identified here built upon those proposed earlier by Knight and Chan (2002a, 2002b) and Brookshire, Williamson, and Wright (2002). At the fundamental level, students should be able to exhibit knowledge and competency in the following areas: practical applications and evolving e-commerce business models within the context of organizational strategies; user-centered Web site design principles, techniques, and engineering processes; hands-on use of e-commerce technologies and tools; rapid Web engineering processes to integrate business models, strategies, design methodologies, and technologies; and individual and team-based solution development; privacy and ethical issues that surround e-commerce. At the advanced level, students should be able to exhibit knowledge and competency in the following areas: e-business architecture design; e-business security; e-business solutions for common business applications, including customer relationship management, supply chain management, B2B exchanges, and portal strategies; design, implementation and evaluation of Web-based marketing campaigns; mobile commerce; Web data mining for business intelligence; Web services; and peer-to-peer technologies.

What Strategies Can Facilitate the Implementation of an E-Commerce Program?

The multi-disciplinary nature of e-commerce requires integration of business strategies and technology issues. This is possible at two levels (Chan, 2001). Integration at the curriculum level expects students to integrate knowledge gained from separate business and technical courses. Course-level integration achieves a higher degree of integrated learning, but is more difficult to accomplish because it requires greater faculty efforts in curriculum design and course development, and greater faculty cooperation across traditional boundaries. Each institution must evaluate whether it possesses sufficient resources to integrate business and technology at the course level. If not, practicums may be used to facilitate student integration of discrete learning. Typically, practicums are introduced at the end of a program. However, some researchers have noted that introducing practicums early in an e-commerce curriculum can facilitate students’ ability to integrate knowledge from multiple courses throughout the rest of their programs (Chan & Wolfe, 2000).
As Rob (2003) noted, “Without a core faculty taking full responsibility for its upkeep, an e-commerce program cannot survive.” Knight and Chan (2002a, 2002b) recommend leveraging limited existing faculty resources by facilitating cross-disciplinary collaboration between business and technical programs, and providing opportunities for faculty development and retooling. Further, they note that creating a culture that encourages sharing instructional materials can lessen the burden on faculty straining to keep up with rapid technology change. Finally, involving industry partners in guest presentations, teaching, curriculum development, sponsorship of student internships or in-class projects, and lecture series and roundtable discussions is essential for augmenting faculty resources and keeping the curriculum current.

FUTURE TRENDS

Five trends are critical to the future of e-commerce curricula.
(1) E-business will continue to expand worldwide. Organizations throughout the world will continue to adopt Internet-based solutions for lowering operating costs, increasing productivity, and strengthening relationship with customers and trading partners.
(2) Internet-enabled B2B collaboration will dominate e-business development. Business is moving toward an e-business Web model where members of a participating network of suppliers, distributors, service providers, and customers collaborate. Such Internet-enabled industry value chains redefine ebusiness as collaborative commerce. Incentives for participants include cost and time reduction, realtime communication, lead-time reduction, and improved collaborative planning and forecasting (Lee & Whang, 2001).
(3) Architecture for inter-enterprise collaboration is becoming a critical success factor. Companies are seeking flexible, agile, and economical approaches to collaboration with trading partners. Enterprise architecture must consider external linkages and inter- and intra-enterprise communication through existing systems as well as public and private B2B exchanges (Genovese, Bond, Zrimsek, & Frey, 2001). Web service technologies are emerging as the foundation for a new generation of B2B applications and as the architecture of choice for integrating enterprise applications.
(4) Inter- and intra-enterprise process will be redesigned. The emerging framework for collaborative commerce may lead to more loosely coupled processes for component-based architecture and information exchange. Internal business processes in turn will become public through value chain integration. New approaches for process design and application development may emerge in the near future.
(5) Academic programs need to bridge the gap in the e-commerce IT workforce. Offshore outsourcing has decreased demand for lower level e-commerce IT jobs in programming, Web development, and design (ITAA, 2003), and companies are seeking more advanced IT skills in architecture, systems integration, collaborative systems development, and complex business process redesign. Yet, few academic programs emphasize advanced technology and business issues. Continuous curricular innovation and faculty development is critical to the future viability of e-commerce education.
The five future trends described above will produce major challenges for universities offering e-commerce curricula. As the technological environment continues to morph, universities will be pressed to keep up with the latest technologies and tools. At the same time, the increasingly complex nature of Web-based business applications will mandate more extensive projects to accurately simulate the intricate nature of real world e-business.

CONCLUSION

From an historical perspective, organizations are just beginning to realize the potential of the Internet. E-com-merce solutions are increasingly technically sophisticated and involve increasingly more sophisticated business processes and strategies. In such an environment, e-commerce curriculum must continue to develop rapidly as well.
E-commerce has brought new dimensions to both business and information technology education. Business programs reflect new methods and strategies for organizations interacting with their customers, suppliers, and competitors. In IT programs, beyond the obvious addition of Internet technologies like markup languages, there is a new level of interest in cryptography, human-computer interaction, and networking, along with recognition of the need to combine business and technical knowledge (Ge & Sun, 2000). The latter, the coupling of technology with business, has long been a goal of information systems programs. Its realization may well be the primary lasting legacy of e-commerce curricula.

KEY TERMS

E-Commerce Security Course: Technologies, architectures, and infrastructure for securing electronic transactions over nonproprietary networks. Implementation and maintenance of mechanisms that secure electronic documents with confidentiality, authentication, integrity, and non-repudiation. Public key certificate. Digital signature.
E-Marketplace Technology Course: System development for online trading applications supporting complex interactions among a variety of users. Theoretical models of online information exchanges supporting negotiations, including auctions, brokerages, and exchanges.
Internet Supply Chain Management Course: System architectures, technologies, and infrastructure requirements in the context of supply chain systems. Design, development and implementation of systems that facilitate collaboration with customers and suppliers. Development of messaging-based collaborative frameworks using Web services.
Intranet and Portal Course: Intranet development methodology, data warehousing, and online analytical processing (OLAP). Enterprise information portals. Transforming information into knowledge. Decision support. Customer applications. Content personalization.
Mobile Commerce Course: Bandwidth, platforms, form factors, mobile data services, and security and transaction models. Web synchronization. Server-side content management. Wireless Application Protocol (WAP). Wireless Markup Language (WML). Handheld Device Markup Language (HDML). Wireless user interface design. Wireless Web development tools.
User-Centered Website Engineering Course: Website engineering lifecycle and user-centered design. Site goals, business models, value propositions, user analysis, information architecture, interface and navigation design, usability guidelines, database, testing, hosting strategies, usage metrics, and collaborative development.
Web Data Mining Course: Data collection, data extraction, and knowledge discovery for e-business intelligence. Web usage mining, Web content mining, and Web structure mining. Site management. Personalization. User profiles. Privacy issues. Collaborative and content-based filtering.