Electronic Commerce Systems (ISY10058)
Assignment 1
Title Evaluation of the Effectiveness of E-commerce Websites
Weight 20% of overall unit assessment
Due time 11pm, Friday, 14/08/20 (Week 6)
Length Maximum 2500 words excluding appendix, references and/or footnotes
Task description
You are required to write a report on a professional evaluation of six given websites in three categories of business models for a business manager of a solution provider company. As a specialist in e-commerce, you should provide the insights of effective e-commerce websites, which will be incorporated into the solutions of the company.
Objectives
• You should determine and explain the evaluation criteria, including o at least five success factors and/or business objectives, and o indicators for the success factors and business objectives such as website features, contents, functions, objects, etc.
For example, online product sale is an objective of many e-commerce websites. For this objective, three basic objects/functions are needed: catalogue, shopping cart and transaction processing function. Interactivity is an example of success factors. You should determine the criteria based on the principles and guidelines for effective e-commerce Websites discussed in this unit and gained from your own research. While some criteria are applicable for all e-commerce websites, others may only be applicable for some categories of the sites. You should discuss the difference of the criteria in terms of their application scope. You should also determine assessment methods. For the online sale objective, for example, you may assess if all the three objects/functions are available and evaluate the quality of each in terms of, for example, completeness, appropriateness/effectiveness, usability, etc. (refer to the ‘three basic functions’ in Topic 3).
• You should evaluate the Websites according to the determined criteria by comparing the sites in the same category, and between different categories. You should use tables for the comparison.
• You should identify major strengths and weaknesses of each site based on the above evaluation, and provide recommendations/solutions to improve their performance. Your recommendations/solutions should be actionable or operable.
The following six Websites are categorised according to e-commerce business models. You must evaluate the websites of each category.
Category 1 E-Tailor
Any two sites in Essay Style Question 5 on Page 3 of the Workshop Guide for Topic 01 Introduction to E-commerce Systems.
Category 2 Content Provider https://www.northernstar.com.au/ http://www.acm.org/
Category 3 Transaction Broker http://www.webjet.com.au http://www.ticketmaster.com.au
Marking criteria
Maximum
Category Specific criteria
marks
Determination of Originality, academic rigour, synthesis of evaluation criteria ideas, cohesion (15)
discussion (5)
Documentation Conventional report structure, presentation
and layout (5)
Logical and consistent organisation of
information (5) 20
Document Format
• The document must be word-processed using MS-Word.
• The document must contain an assignment cover sheet.
• Filename = YourLastNameFirstInitial_ISY10058_Ass1.docx
e.g. SmithJ_ISY10058_Ass1.docx.
Assignment submission
You should submit this assignment in the Turnitin assignment box for your location of study at the Blackboard of this unit. It is recommended that you should have sufficient learning to start the assignment after Topic 3.