Advanced Research Topics in E-Business (2021 Fall)

This course is an elective course particularly designed for the ITM NCHU students who have admitted for the doctoral program specialized in Electronic Commerce. Medium of instruction of this course is English, occassionally supplemented with Chinese. The loading of this course is not light. Students are expected to attend all lectures and complete all courseworks. Attendance will not be accounted for a part of the final score. But, absence without proper reason will be.

Professor John Sum is a strict person and sometimes a monster. His expectation on the behavior and the performance of a student is stringent. It is simply because John Sum has been teaching in the area of electronic commerce for more than two decades. Materials in his mind are abundant. Only some of them are extracted and complied as the teaching materials for the course.

Prerequisites

1. Able to read, write, speak and listen in English.
2. Skillful in the use of word processing software for report writing and presentation.
3. Skillful in searching information over the Internet.
4. Knowledge in one of the following subjects: Principles of Computing, Computer Literacy, Introduction to Information Systems, Introduction to Computer Science, Introduction to Information Technologies or other related subjects.
5. The standard of a coursework report in the doctoral program level as compared with a report in master or undergraduate program level.

Course Outline

1. Essentials of a research.
   • Literature survey.
     • To prove that the research problem (validation of the system of hypotheses) is new. No one else did it before.
     • To prove that the research problem is valuable. Anticipated contributions are significant.
     • Act as the basis for the development of the system of hypotheses (i.e. conceptual model).
   • Statement of hypothesis, i.e. the system of hypotheses or equivalently the conceptual model.
   • Proof of correctness - Design of a research method.
     • Determination of the data to be collected to validate the hypotheses.
     • Design of the experiment or survey for collecting data.
     • Empirical (Statistical) analysis.
   • Documentation and dissemination.
     • Proposals - Research plans.
     • Monographs.
     • Technical reports.
     • Wordings for the claims.
     • Furture works.
   • Use of tools.
     • Analysis - Mathematical formulae and theorems.
     • Software package for mathematical analysis - Matlab, Mathematica, SPSS and SAS.
     • Software package for simulation - Matlab.
     • Word processing software - Latex, Pages and Words.
     • Drawing tools - Power Points, XFig.
   • JS experience.
     • Session lifetime distribution of Gnutella clients.
     • Gnutella is a disconnected social network.

2. Research plans.
   • To be executed and accomplished.
     • Comprehensive background survey.
     • Clear motivations and objectives.
     • Clear research method and reasonable schedule.
     • Anticipated contributions.
     • Survey paper in essence.
   • To be submitted for degree program admission only.
     • Garbage !!!
     • To fool around the admission officers.
     • It will never be executed.

3. Topic I: Literature survey (*).
   • Backgound of the topic.
   • Critical comments on previous works.
     • Limitations and contraints.
     • Factors overlooked or over simplified.
   • Proof of the valuable of the research hyothesis.
   • Formal statement of the hypothesis.
   • Anticipated contributions if the hypothesis is correct.

4. Topic II: Research methods.
   • Mathematical proof.
   • Empirical study (Quantitative method).
     • Common in social science research.
     • Experimental design for data collection.
     • Statistical analysis and test of significance.
   • Simulations.
     • Mathematical model is too complex to be analyzed.
     • Experimental design for data collection.
     • Statistical analysis.
   • Logical analysis (Qualitative method).
   • Research method design - Problem dependent.

5. Topic III: Evolution of the principles and practises of management.
   • Increasing complexity of production process.
   • Expanding scope of quality.
   • Increasing focus on services.
   • Advancing development of technologies.
   • Observations and future trends.

6. Topic IV: Service systems engineering.
   • Business development is essentially the development of a service system.
   • Framework of service systems engineering.
   • Modeling of a service system.
   • Information and technology management.

7. Topic V: Intelligent technologies.
   • Introduction to AI and machine learning.
   • Current applications of AI/ML.
   • Future applications of AI/ML.
   • Ethical issues in AI/ML.

8. Topic VI: Computational XYZ.
   • Computational biology; computational economics; computational neuroscience.
   • Computational intelligence.
   • Computational linguistics.
   • Computational marketing and computational organization theory.
   • Computational social science.
   • Computational thinking and computational science.
   • Different from the areas of 'analogue coputing', 'digital computing', 'neural computing', 'quantum computing' and 'statistical computing'.

9. Other topics.
   • Journal papers in some current topics in electronic business.
   • Jounral papers in some advanced topics in electronic business.
   • Reading list.

Assignments

1. Assignment 01 (Due-date: September 19, 2021)
2. Assignment 02 (Due-date: October 18, 2021)

Assessment

Students would need to submit a survey report on any topic of interest. A student could submit a research paper instead. In either cases, students need to give an oral presentation no shorter than 90 mintues in the semester end. It is expected that the report and presentation slides are prepared in English.

Student could opt to present two journal papers. Similarly, the duration of each presentation should be no shorter than 90 mintues and the presentation slides are expected to be prepared in English.