Curriculum Requirements for the EC-Certificate
(Technology Track)

Each of the five courses meets for 22-24 hours, for either 8 lectures or 6 lectures and 1 laboratory day.

Lectures are offered as evening classes from 6:00 - 9:00 pm one day a week. The laboratory session is offered on a Saturday from 9:00am - 4:00pm with a one hour break from 12:00 - 1:00pm.

Policy on Dropping a course:

Course Descriptions:

Description: Introduction to Electronic commerce technologies, Internet, Networking Technologies, HTML, JavaScript, CGI, Perl, and XML      

Description: This course introduces the emerging area of electronic commerce and the security challenges and threats in EC, and provides with an understanding of the state-of-the-art EC security technologies. In particular, this course discusses security requirements for electronic commerce such as identification and authentication, authorization and access control, data integrity, confidentiality, non-repudiation, trust, and regulation. It discusses various security standards including network security architecture standard, data encryption standards, data integrity standards, digital signature standards, authentication standards, certification standards, electronic data interchange standards, and electronic mail standards. It also discusses the emerging Internet standards, firewalls, public key cryptography, Java security, Lotus Notes security, database security, secure payments such as SET (secure electronic transaction), digital cash and digital checks, and smart card technology. This course also examines security in commercial electronic commerce systems, and share development experience in secure electronic commerce.        

Description: Introduction to Database Management Systems. Data Warehouse Architectures. Warehouse Database Design,. Warehouse metadata. Data extraction and integration. Warehouse maintenance. Query Methods for the Warehouse Data. Data preparation for mining. Data mining techniques such as decision trees, neural networks, clustering, statistical classification, and regression. Software tools and systems enabling the creation and maintenance of data warehouses as well as the mining of the warehouse data.       

Module 1: Formulating and Implementing Strategies for Electronic Commerce

Description: The course will have three parts:

1. Theories of Competition: This part will be specifically tailored to the EC industry and will cover the theoretical aspects of competing in hyper-competitive and technology-intensive environments. The classic frameworks of strategy, for analyzing the external environment (including industry, market segments and competitors), and internal capabilities (including functional strengths and effectiveness of value chain) of the firm will be introduced first. These frameworks, and particularly their underlying assumptions of relatively stable industrial structures and sustainable competitive advantage from unique firm-level capabilities, will be critically reviewed. The frameworks will be extended further to match the EC context of rapidly changing external environment as well as virtual and transient value chains.
2. Case Studies of EC Strategies: The students will be challenged in class discussions of case studies of both proven and failed strategies of EC firms.
3. Presentations by Senior Managers: Senior managers from EC firms will be invited to give special lectures to students.

Module 2: Market Failure and Public Policy toward Economic Commerce

Description: Telecommunications industries are subject to extensive public policy initiatives. This course will set out the rationale for such policies, including market power guarantees of universal service. The causes of market power and various means for regulating it, including competition policy approaches, will be studied. Important examples will be drawn from federal and state telecommunications regulation, recent Congressional legislation, antitrust cases, and merger analyses.       

EC5. Business Law and policy for Electronic Commerce (2)

Module 1: Business Law and Electronic Commerce

Description: Introduction, Establishing a Internet Business Presence, Legal elements of electronic commerce, Internet activities, public policy issues, Electronic contracts, Intellectual property protection, The tax man cometh to Cyberspace, On-line crime, Internet speech, Cyber-torts, Electronic mail and data privacy, Internet ``Spin'' on procedural, regulatory and other issues, Internet and real estate issues, Liability for Internet service failures, and International Internet issues.

Module 2: Public Policy in Electronic Commerce

Description: Strategic Planning: developing a vision of the public organization in an electronic milieu; free information/services vs. charging for services; full cost accounting for EC; opportunity costs; etc. Targets of opportunity, such as: services and publications which are now marketed traditionally searching for solutions: providing research/technical assistance in scanning the environment (i.e. best practices) and providing details as to selected leads; online conferencing: web-based conferencing opportunities—text only, plus audio and video options; expanding the market: national and international opportunities; Building a capacity for EC: assessing the organization's abilities and limits; finding partners: public organizations, not-for-profit organizations, private organizations; establishing agreements: parameters and problems; copyright permissions and problems; financial accounting: "promises to pay" (i.e. purchase orders); invoices; credit cards, etc.; follow-up: necessity for; failures to pay for services such as online conferencing; returns, etc.; Assessing EC Success: financial and performance measures; client surveys; etc.