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WHAT KNOWLEDGE TOPICS ARE CRITICAL
FOR UNIVERSITY LEVEL E-COMMERCE EDUCATION?
AN EMPIRICAL STUDY IN TAIWAN
RONCHUEN YI-CHENG KAI-DAN J YUNG-CHIEH
x00002051@ x00003148@ cafetrister@ x00001687@ meiho.edu.tw meiho.edu.tw gmail.com meiho.edu.tw
G r a d u a t e I n s t i t u t e o f B u s i n e s s a n d M a n a g e m e n t
D e p a r t m e n t o f Business A d m i n i s t r a t i o n ®
M e i h o I n s t i t u t e o f Technology, T a i w a n
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A B S T R A C T
I n this study, we empirically investigated what knowledge topics are important for university level e-commerce (EC) education i n Taiwan More than 150 IS/IT practitioners participated i n this study to provide what they thought about 28 e-commerce knowledge topics The respondents were asked to rate the knowledge level that they had learned about each o f the course i n their formal education, are now familiar w i t h about i t as w e l l as how practical the topic w i l l be in their career The findings might be helpful to e-commerce training programs, licensing bodies, departments and curriculum designers in universities
or colleges i n Taiwan The results o f this study can provide useful suggestions to help college/university students f o r selecting the suitable and right learning courses as w e l l as to act as practicable guidelines f o r
EC curriculum planning and development
Keywords: e-commerce, E C education, university-level,
c u r r i c u l u m development,knowledge topic
1 Introduction
W i t h the invention o f W o r l d W i d e Web ( W W W ) by 1990, the global network is applied to variety o f domains The digital economy era has been merging i n global industries w i t h unprecedented challenges; therefore, implementation o f information technology has become an important role i n promoting core competition f o r industries
or governments and no doubt w i l l has great impacts upon economy growth rate i n the future Further more, electronic commerce has been starting to develop flourishingly f r o m 1998, and thus, trading between business types and consumers has been changing step b y step
Information technology ( I T ) applications i n the business environment have changed and continue to change dramatically (Benamati & Lederer, 2 0 0 1 ; Tennyson, 2001; W u et al., 2004) Facing these emerging ITs, IS professionals ought to make d i f f i c u l t choices and then implement, deliver, and support these choices throughout their organizations Through those steps force IS educators, instructional
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technologists and practitioners to reevaluate and acquire compulsory knowledge, skills, and abilities as a regular basis ( K i n g , 2002) O n the other hand, regarding the promotion o f electronic commerce, firstly, development o f electronic commerce is based on fundamental facilities
o f the Internet i n order to ensure rapid application to trading among enterprises or between enterprises and consumers Secondly, there •are-professional legal issues involved such as protection o f intellectual property rights, the right to privacy and taxing However, training electronic-commerce (e-commerce, EC) talents as a matter o f great urgency is a top priority solution to aforementioned problems A s a result, institutes for training EC-related human resource were set up rapidly and massively, particularly i n college and university education
I n this report, it w i l l explore not only electronic-commerce education o f college and universities i n Taiwan but also understanding and information o f EC implementation i n the business industry
Hence, cultivating university/college students w i t h the required information literacy regarding EC education and providing them state
o f the art EC course topics to sustain the organization effectively is becoming a great challenge to the relative stakeholders such as IS training educators, departments administrators and curriculum designers (Lee et al., 1995; M i l l i k e n & Barnes, 2002) To address the above challenges, this study investigated what topics are important to IT/IS practitioners f r o m the business enterprises i n Taiwan A survey instrument was developed to answer the questions: h o w much these practitioners had learned about the topic i n their formal educations, how much they know now about the topic and how important the topic has been i n their career
2 The Evolution of Computing Technologies and E-Commerce
I n recent years, the recognized shifts in information and communication technologies (ICTs) have taken place f r o m Web-based computing, mobile computing, to ubiquitous computing ( W u & Hisa,
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2004) These principal I C T directly enabling modern E-commerce include Web-based computing, mobile computing, and ubiquitous computing (Banavar & Bemstenin, 2002; Kannan et al., 2001; Samaras, 2002) The Web-based computing was implemented based on a wired network using the Internet until the ability to connect started approaching physical l i m i t - m o b i l i t y The mobile computing based on wireless infrastructure gave rise to a new S curve, w i t h the new physical limits being a higher level o f ubiquity and embedment (Lyytinen & Y o o , 2002)
Over the past decade, we have witnessed the rapid developments
in I C T w h i c h have substantially changed the landscape o f E-commerce The Internet has introduced a significant wave o f change Our communication patterns have changed E-commerce (EC) is based not only on developments pertaining to the Internet compound, but also on prior technological and organizational innovation arising f r o m the combinations o f telecommunications and network computing (Zwass, 2003) W e have become dependent on Internet We interact w i t h firms via Web sites The proliferation o f Internet has stimulated the development o f online commercial applications and business innovations, commonly referred to Internet-enabled commerce ( I -commerce) The next wave introduced through mobile technology-is about to change our lives and business w o r l d even more The increase
i n transmission capacity o f wireless devices lays the foundation f o r transaction unrestricted by physical locations We can do transformation any time, blurring the borderlines o f business and private space The enabling E-commerce f o r m is called as mobile commerce (M-commerce) (Varahney et al., 2000, Balasubramanian et
a l , 2002) Recently, many experts have proposed another wave o f change-a w o r l d that provides the ultimate f o r m o f ubiquitous networks and universal devices, a w o r l d that presents an alternative view o f space and time (Fano & Gershman, 2002; Islam & Fayad, 2003)
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Likewise, we w i l l enter into a new context o f E-commerce a f o r m that goes over, above, and beyond traditional commerce The emerging frontier for E-commerce is ubiquitous commerce (U-commerce) (Watson, et al., 2002)
New I C T applications often are i n conjunction w i t h organizational changes (Markus, 2004) Indeed, the rapid evolution o f E-commerce: f r o m I-commerce, M-commerce to U-commerce poses considerable challenges for many firms and results in many new change management issues For incumbent firms, the main challenge is change (Wheeler, 2002, Daniel & Wilson, 2003) Innovative E-commerce applications, however, have the potential for significant changes i n I C T applications and i n f i r m ' s business model and performance - and the potential for all kinds o f disruption f o r the E-commerce stakeholders To cope w i t h the changes, a number o f researchers have suggested that it is vitally important for f i r m s to understand the dynamics and nature o f change and how to manage it
w e l l (Straub, 2001; Markus, 2004) Therefore, a systematic study^of commerce education is needed i n Taiwan
E-3 The Development of University/College-Level of EC
E d u c a t i o n
From 1998 on, commerce automation research and development centers we're set up by Ministry o f Education i n National Taipei University, Dayeh University, National Y u n l i n University o f Science & Technology, and respectively in the south, the midland, and the north
o f Taiwan B y integrating intramural, cross-campus, and industrial academic resource, research and educational achievements, commerce automation were popularly promoted I n Taiwan, undergraduate and graduate schools o f commerce automation were instituted i n few colleges, and most o f colleges have commerce automation programs Statistic data i n 1998 f r o m Ministry o f Education showed that there
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were 110 instructors o f professional faculty including 6 professors, 76 associate professors, 6 assistant professors and 22 lecturers f r o m departments o f information management and departments o f business management W i t h completing a phased mission o f ten-year production automation project by 2000, Taiwan-Ministry o f Education made a plan
o f educational development i n integration o f manufacturing and commerce to operate i n coordination w i t h a scheme o f production automation and e-business carried out b y The Executive Yuan i n order
e-to educate talents for logistics, cash f l o w , business f l o w , service f l o w , and information f l o w Further more, there were 3 EC-related graduate institutes and 3 undergraduate programs o f e-commerce i n colleges and universities by 2007 in Taiwan Afterward, 103 colleges and universities had departments o f information management, EC-related programs i n 75 schools U p to 2008, 10 colleges and universities set up EC-related programs such as electronic commerce (management), information commerce, and information management i n National Chung Hsing University, Tatung University, Nan Hua University, Aletheia University, W u Feng Institute o f Technology, etc
Comprehensively understanding education development o f business automation i n Taiwan, many colleges and universities focus
on establishing o f electronic-commerce teaching environments A report regarding improvement o f commercial automation instruction b y Taiwan-Ministry o f Education indicated that most o f colleges have started to plan and establish e-commerce educational environments I n addition, they pondered on how to f i t the Internet properly i n management courses For examples, Dayeh university and National
Y u n l i n University o f Science & Technology set up electronic stores; National Taiwan University o f Science & Technology has done the completion o f building Website o f e-commerce instruction; and Feng Chia University built professional commercial Website for supply
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information about insurance and finance There are several practical strategies o f e-commerce education i n T a i w a n organized as f o l l o w s :
1 To establish e-commerce lab or e-commerce center f o r facilitating relevant research and education i n e-commerce
2 To coordinate faculty and facilities o f relevant courses and plan commerce programs
e-3 To set up campus electronic stores f o r providing opportunities for students to have practical experiences
4 To build Websites o f EC-related instruction and database for improving experience communication
5 To edit kinds o f e-commerce teaching materials such as books and multimedia, and ensure the shareability o f teaching materials
6 To hold e-commerce competitions, workshops, and educational training
This study takes account o f the characteristics o f EC related courses in Taiwan, and gathers the information about EC curriculum planning i n well-known universities i n Taiwan (e.g., National Sun Yat-Sen University) We reviewed the related EC research literature and recommended Association for Computing Machinery ( A C M ) curriculum documents, such as IS 2002, "model curriculum and guidelines for undergraduate degree programs in information systems", CC2005, "the overview report including the guide to undergraduate degree programs i n computing", and M S I S 2000, "model curriculum and guidelines for graduate degree programs i n information systems" to
f i n d out critical EC knowledge topics w h i c h are critical f o r level E-commerce education i n Taiwan Based on the intensive literature review and several rounds o f in-depth interviews w i t h domain experts, 28 EC knowledge topics were identified to f o r m the scales as shown i n Table 1
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Table 1 The Classification and Related EC Course Topics in this Study
Category IT Specific IT-Business Integration Management
2 Systems Analysis &
Design
3 Information Security
4 e-Commerce 5.Information Systems Planning
6 Enterprise Resource Planning
7 Decision Support Systems
8 Supply Chain Management
9 Production Information Systems
10 Strategic Information Systems
11 Accounting Information Systems
1.Knowledge Management
2 Project Management
3 Marketing Management 4.Production and Operation Management
5 Information Ethics
6 Human Resource Management
7 Strategic Management
8 Financial Management
9 Innovation Management
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assess whether the instrument correctly reflected real phenomenon desired by the researchers, and v e r i f y i f any important EC knowledge topics were omitted This process was continued until no further modifications to the questionnaire were necessary Feedbacks from this pilot study served as the basis for refining the experimental scales o f the course items The researchers tested and revised the questionnaire several times before starting to gather the data
The questionnaire contained 2 major parts including respondent's basic data portion and the responses to EC knowledge topics The basic data portion requested IS/IT practitioners to give the names o f their organizations and main tasks and needed demographic characteristics and fill out their current management position o f the subject The second part contained 28 course topics and each topic associated w i t h four o f the f o l l o w i n g questions adopted f r o m Lethbridge (1998) to capture subject's perception on each course topic as follows:
• Ql Amount learned in education (Le., How much did you learn about this in your formal education?)
0 = Learned nothing at all
1 = Became vaguely familiar
2 = Learned the basics
3 = Become functional (moderate knowledge)
4 = Learned a lot
5 = learned i n depth; become expert
• Q2 Amount learned on the job: What is your current knowledge about this, considering what you have learned on the job
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4 = K n o w a lot
5 = K n o w i n depth; become expert
• Q3 Practical level: How useful have the details of this specific material been to you in your career as a professional IS staff or manager? Please leave blank if you know little about the material
0 = N o influence at all
1 = Almost no influence
2 = Occasional influence
3 = Moderate influence i n some activities
4 = Significant influence i n many activities
5 = Profound influence on almost everything I do
5 D a t a Analysis and Results
As mentioned previously, the 28 EC related knowledge topics were classified into three categories including " I T specific", " I T -Business integration" and "management" types o f course topics to