Advanced Research Topics in E-Business (2024 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 teaching materials.

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.
   • Digital Systems, 2020.
   • Processor and Computer, 2020.
   • Operating Systems, 2020.
   • Computer Network, 2022.
5. Able to complete a coursework report as compared with a jorunal publication.

Course Outline

1. Topic A: 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).
     • Literature survey is usually a multi-round process.
       • Initial survey => Deeper survey => . . . => Comprehensive sruvey => Survey report.
       • The time taken in each round could range from weeks to months and even to years.
       • ChatGPT, Google Gemini and other large language models could help in the initial survey.
   • Statement of hypothesis, i.e. the system of hypotheses or equivalently the conceptual model.
   • Proof of correctness - Design of a research method.
     • Design of a reasonable research method: What are you going to do to prove the correctness of your hypothesis!
       • Determination of the data to be collected to validate the hypotheses.
       • Design of the experiment or survey for collecting data.
       • Empirical (Statistical) analysis.
     • Conducting your research.
   • 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.
     • Documentation (Word processing) - Latex, Pages and Words.
     • Documentaiton (Diagrams) - Power Points, XFig.
     • Presentation slides - Power Points, Latex.
   • JS experience.
     • Session lifetime distribution of Gnutella clients.
     • Gnutella is a disconnected social network.

2. Topic B: Research plans.
   • A research plan must be executable.
     • 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 C: 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 D: 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 I: 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 II: 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 III: Intelligent technologies.
   • Introduction to AI and machine learning.
   • Current applications of AI/ML.
   • Future applications of AI/ML.
   • Ethical and safety issues in the usages of AI/ML systems.

8. Topic IV: 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 computing', 'digital computing', 'neural computing', 'quantum computing' and 'statistical computing'.

9. Topic V: Other topics.
   • Journal papers in any hot topic in electronic business.
   • Jounral papers in any advanced topic in electronic business.

Reading List

Assignments/Lecture Diary

1. Class Exercise 01 (ARTEC 2022).
2. Class Exercise 02 (ARTEC 2022).
3. Class Exercise 03 (ARTEC 2022) (20221024 Version).
4. Assignment 1 (ARTEC 2023).
5. Prepare a homepage of yourself, in which your assignment solution files and project report (written report and presentation slides) are linked for download (ARTEC 2023).
6. Assignment 2 (ARTEC 2023).
7. Lecture Diary (October 11, 2023; October 18, 2023).

Students' Homepages

• Julie Yu Ting Sung (宋如婷).
• Arno Lou.
• Zih Yi Chen (陳咨亦).

Individual Project

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 submit a written report and give an oral presentation (no shorter than 90 mintues) in the semester end. The written report and the presentation slides must be 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 have to be prepared in English.

Further details on the course project can be found in here.

Use of AI Tools

AI tools, like ChatGPT and Google Bard, might have limitations in 'avoiding misinformation (resp. incomplete information)' and 'avoiding plagiarism'. Moreover, Google Bard is designed not to give any reference (equivalently, source) of the content displaced to the users. Students have to be aware of these.

ChatGPT, Google Bard and other AI text generators are very good in paraphrasing. Using these tools to paraphrase your assignments and project reports are highly encouraged.

You are allowed to use AI tools, like ChatGPT and Google Bard, for your assignments and project reporting. In the first step, you have to complete your assignment or the project report based upon your own writing. In the second step, you could use those AI tools to paraphrase the contents of your assignments and reports.

WARNING: For any part of the content (respectively, any word) you have put in an assignment or report, I will ask for your reason and explanation why this part of content (respectively, the specific word) has to be added. If you fail to do so, your assignment (respectively, group project) score will be zero. Nevertheless, your assignment (respectively, group project) score will be zero if you fail to give the source for any part of the content you have added in your assignment (respectively, group project).