eBusiness and eCommerce

Duration

30h Th

Number of credits

Lecturer

Ashwin Ittoo

Language(s) of instruction

English language

Organisation and examination

Teaching in the first semester, review in January

Schedule

Schedule online

Units courses prerequisite and corequisite

Prerequisite or corequisite units are presented within each program

Learning unit contents

Course Objectives
This course introduces key concepts and technologies in E-Commerce, E-Business and, more general, Digital Business, to participants.
A relatively wide range of topics will be covered, ranging from those with a marketing orientation (e.g. consumer behavior) to those with a more IT/statistical orientation (e.g. recommender system, link analysis, and clustering)
It comprises a practical component, requiring the development a simple, but comprehensive, e-commerce website. It will include the backend (server-side and database) and front-end (UI). Participants will be exposed to PhP/MySQL and WordPress.
Also, course participants will have to read and present a scientific article in the area of e-commerce.  A  selection of articles will be made available. Representative topics include ranking methods of search engine, deep learning for recommender systems, evaluating recommender systems, and centrality measures.

Course Structure and Topics
1. E-Commerce Business Models:   

• Business model elements
• Importance of revenue models
• Types of revenue models (subscription, pay-per-view,...)

• Consumer behavior model and factors (social, cultural, psychological)
• Consumer buying process (from problem recognition and information search to post-purchase decision)
• Online (and offline) tools for supporting consumer behavior
• Clickstream behavior and analysis
• Net promotor score (NPS)
• Online trust

• Relevance of A/B Testing in E-commerce applications
• Chi-squared test for A/B Testing
• Examples in R and Excel

• Greedy, online algorithms
• Maximal matching problem
• Competitive ratios of algorithms
• Adwords implementation

• Keyword effectiveness
• Basic SEO best practices

• Content-based filtering
• Collaborative filtering
• Worked out examples

• Apriori algorithm

• Partitional & hierarchical clustering algorithms
• Deep clustering (if time permits)

• Introduction to client-server computing
• Client-side vs. server side programming
• PhP programming: Revision (basic constructs: loops, conditionals), database connections, session variables
• SQL statements (select, update, delete)
• AJAX/JQuery for responsive UI
• Introduction to WordPress

Learning outcomes of the learning unit

• Relate the concepts covered in the lectures to real-world business activities
• Uncover new business opportunities via the application and implementation of E-Commerce and E-Business concepts and technologies
• Establish an E-Commerce/E-Business strategy to optimize an organization's activities
• Communicate efficiently about E-Commerce/E-Business projects to various stakeholders, internal and external to the organizations
• Perform independent research to keep up-to-date with recent development in the field and to adapt his/her managerial practice to the needs of a fast-evolving world.
• Critically appreciate the technical architecture of e-commerce applications/websites

Prerequisite knowledge and skills

Students should be well-versed in

• Programming and databases. Students should have programming experience for the project, even if practical sessions will be organized and help sessions will be planned.

Planned learning activities and teaching methods

Course participants will create an e-commerce website. They can use either PhP/MySQL or a CMS like Wordpress.
 

Mode of delivery (face to face, distance learning, hybrid learning)

• Lectures and readings
• Case studies
• Demonstrations and exercices on computer
• Real cases presented by firms (to be determined)

Organisational adjustments related to the current health context

Orange & Yellow Code: Exam will be an oral, virtually (online platform; URL will be communicated later).

Recommended or required readings

• Lecture notes, including HTML and PhP for the practical, will be available on Lol@
• List of scientific articles to be made available on lol@

Assessment methods and criteria

Below you will find information on the evaluation methods planned for in-person and remote exams as well as those planned for hybrid sessions. Depending on how the health crisis evolves, the chosen method will be communicated to you no later than one month before the start of the exam session.

Project: E-Commerce website: 35%
Paper presentation: 15% 
Final written exam: 50% (The above is tentative and will be finalized during the course)

Work placement(s)

Organizational remarks

Contacts

A. Ittoo, ashwin.ittoo@uliege.ac.be
E. Heins, eddy.heins@uliege.be
  
 

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