Technology for E-Business
Compulsory module
10 credits
The overall aim of the module is to provide students with knowledge of the key concepts underpinning modern e-Commerce systems, with an emphasis on system architecture, information architecture, and development tools and processes. Advanced topics such as security and privacy issues and agent technology will also be considered.
At the end of the module, students should have a broad understanding of the WWW architecture and associated technologies for developing e-Business applications, including client-and server-side programming, web services, agents, etc. Students should also be able to critically compare the various technologies and should also be able to select appropriate technologies for a given problem. They should also be able to build practical e-Business solutions using such technologies.
Syllabus
This module will be taught in a mixture of lecture sessions and problem-based learning. The former will consist of 10 two-hour teaching blocks over a five-week period. Each session will consist of a mixture of formal lecture style and breakout/active learning sessions. Topics to be covered will include:
- Architecture of an e-Commerce system: function and implementation of major system components (web servers, browsers, proxies, caches, databases); critical system properties (scalability, reliability, security, safety)
- Developing e-Commerce systems: development team, development process
- Web data formats: XML, HTML, XHTML, WML, RSS, ebXML and ways of transforming and displaying them
- Data modelling and storage: relational database management systems (RDBMS); SQL; data warehousing
- Web services: introduction to the concept of web services and service-oriented architectures (SOA); XML and SOAP; web services description and discovery (WSDL, UDDI)
- Development tools and technologies: the Open-Source software stack (Apache, Tomcat, Axis); Microsoft .NET
- Advanced topics: security and privacy, search engine technology
This material will be complemented by a problem-based learning exercise, to design and evaluate e-Business systems for student-defined companies.
Select bibliography
Ince, D. (2002) "Developing Distributed and e-Commerce Applications", Addison-Wesley.
Rosenfeld, L. and Morville, P.. (2002) “Information Architecture for the World Wide Web” 2nd Edition, O’Reilly.
Iverson, W. (2004) “Real World Web Services”, O’Reilly.
