G53DDB
Developments in Digital Business
Introduction
Basic Info
• Lecturer: Dr Guoping Qiu
– qiu@cs.nott.ec.uk
– Office: C34, School of CS
• Module Activities:
– 2 lecture meetings per week.
• Fridays, 9:00 –10:00, JC-EXCHE-C33+
• Fridays, 11:00 – 12:00, JC-BSSOUTH-B52+
• Web page:
– http://www.cs.nott.ac.uk/~qiu/Teaching/G53DDB
2
Educational Aims
• This module aims to give students an
understanding of contemporary issues in the
application of information and
communications technology to the business
world.
• As this area is changing rapidly the content of
the module will vary from year to year to
reflect these changes.
3
Expected Learning Outcomes
• To know of recent effective uses of communications
technology and understand the reasons for their
success.
• To understand the technology behind recent and
predicted advances in internet based services.
• To know about the recent developments in Digital
Business, to understand the effects of such
developments in historically similar situations and
make predictions based on this information.
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Expected Learning Outcomes
(cont.)
• To assess the opinions and predictions of journalists
and professionals involved in Digital Business
• To acquire and evaluate information on the recent
developments in Digital Business.
• To communicate effectively in writing.
• To retrieve information from appropriate sources
(e.g. learning resource centre, internet etc)
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How?
• Invited guest lecturers from academia and
industry:
– Covers a broad range of contemporary issues,
recent technical developments, and case studies;
– Ensures exposure to a wide range of opinions and
predictions.
6
How? (cont.)
• Coursework; an essay on a current topic:
– Information gathering.
– Critical evaluation of sources.
– Forming opinions and making predictions.
– Communicating results effectively in writing.
• Self study!
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Resources
• Main book: Kenneth C. Laudon and Carol Guercio
Traver. E-Commerce: Business, Technology, Society,
Prentice Hall, 3rd Edition, 2006.
• Tom Standage. The Victorian Internet, Phoenix Press,
1999.
• Chris Anderson. The Long Tail: Why the Future of
Business is Selling Less of More, Hyperion, 2006
• Individual lectures may have some suggested
readings. Please check the web site of the module
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Lecture Overview
• January 29th (9-10), Introduction/Warriors of the net (Qiu)
• January 29th (11-12), Coursework description (Qiu)
• Feb 5th (9-10), Video: How the Victorians Wired the World
• Feb 5th (11-12), Introduction to e-commerce (Qiu)
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Lecture Overview (cont.)
• Feb 12th (9 – 10), TBA
• Feb 12th (11 – 12), 21st Century Communications - How we
Wire the World, John Poon, BT
• February 19th(9-10), Information Security, Joe Dauncey,
Scottish & Southern Energy
• February 19th (11-12), Open source software business models
- Stephen R. Walli (Optaros), Brian Aker (MySQL), Miguel de
Icaza (Novell/Ximian), and Mike Olsen (Oracle/SleepyCat)
(from USENIX Conference 2006)
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Lecture Overview (cont.)
• February 26th (9-10), Coursework questions and answers (Qiu)
• February 26th,(11-12) On Demand Business Infrastructures,
Kevin Malone, IBM
• March 5th (9-10), Business of web design: latest trends in web
design and web-based applications, Simon Collison, Erskine
Design
• March 5th,(11 -12), eTourism and Strategic Management,
Speaker TBA, Nottingham Business School
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Lecture Overview (cont.)
• March 12th (9-10), Trends in Digital Payments, Paul Love, ACI
Worldwide
•
• March 12th (11-12 Facebook for the Business User?, Alfresco
and the benefits of Web 2.0 technologies for business and
government, John Powell, Alfresco (TBC)
• April 19th (9-10), The Past, Present and Future of computer
games development, Nick Burton, Rare
• April 19th (11-12), Business In The Virtual World, Speaker TBA,
Nottingham Business School
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Lecture Overview (cont.)
• March 26th (9-10), The Use of Simulated Learning in
Business, Samantha Sierwald, Accenture
• May 7th , Sustainable IT, Steve Cayzer, HP (TBC)
• May 14th, Advances in Digital Identity, Steve Plank,
Microsoft
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Lecture Overview (cont.)
• As you can see, not all slots in the schedule
have been filled with lectures yet
• Some more lectures will be announced in the
few next days
• Please check the lectures schedule in the web
site for updates or cancellations
Assessment – Examination (75%)
• The exam counts for 75 % of the total mark.
– 3 out of 6 questions have to be answered
on the exam, each worth 25 %.
• Focus on understanding of issues, critical
evaluation, and forming opinions.
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Assessment – Examination (75%)
Examinable Material
• Lectures
– What’s written on the slides
– What’s said
– What’s written on the whiteboard
• Course textbook
• Copies of slides and any other electronic supporting material
will be made available via the module web page when
possible.
• However! The electronic record of the lectures is neither
guaranteed to be complete nor self-contained!
• Come prepared to take notes.
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Assessment – Coursework (25%)
• The coursework (essay) counts for the
remaining 25 %.
• The details of the coursework will be
discussed during next lecture and provided in
the module web-site.
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Internet Basics
The Internet – Definition
• The term Internet was coined during the
1970s by the community of scientists that
designed it
• “the word “Internet” is derived from the word
internetwork or the connecting of two or
more computer networks”
• It appeared in the RFCs, the documents that
specify all standard internet protocols
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First RFC mentioning the Internet
name
Network Working Group
Request for Comments: 60
Category: Experimental
R. Kalin
MIT
13 July 1970
A Simplified NCP Protocol
Status of this Memo
This memo defines an
community. This memo
kind. Discussion and
Distribution of this
Experimental Protocol for the Internet
does not specify an Internet standard of any
suggestions for improvement are requested.
memo is unlimited.
.
.
.
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The Internet – Definition (cont.)
• A network of 1000s of interconnected networks connecting
millions of computers
– Backbones (international reach)
– Network Service Providers (NSPs)
• major telecommunication companies(e.g. BT, MCI WorldCom, AT&T,
Virgin, Sprint)
• Access/delivery sub-networks
– local and regional Internet Service Providers (ISPs)
– Retail providers (e.g. Eastlink, Sympatico, AT&T WorldNet)
• Private institutional networks
– connecting organizational servers
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Internet network architecture
Adapted from
Electronic
Commerce: A
Managerial
Perspective.
Turban, Lee, King
and Chung, 2000.
Pg. 385
NSP
NSP
NSP
NSP
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Distinguishing factor of networks –
Bandwidth (speed)
Adapted from Electronic
Commerce: A Managerial
Perspective.
Turban, Lee, King and
Chung, 2000. Pg. 385
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What can you do with speed?
Time to load a
typical web
Connection Speed
page
(100 Kb)
Time to
download a
Streaming Video
typical 5Quality
minute song
(5 Mb MP3 file)
56K dial-up modem
14 sec
12 min 30 sec
256K broadband
3 sec
3 min
512K broadband
1.6 sec
1 min 30 sec
1Mb broadband
0.8 sec
41 sec
2Mb broadband
0.4 sec
20 sec
4Mb broadband
0.1 sec
5 sec
6Mb broadband
Instantaneous
Instantaneous
8Mb broadband
Instantaneous
Instantaneous
http://www.broadband.co.uk/guide.jsp?section=3
Low Quality
Medium Quality
TV Quality
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Key enabling technology
• Transmission Control Protocol (TCP)
– “a protocol that establishes the connections among sending and
receiving computers, handles the assembly of packets at the point of
transmission, and their reassembly at the receiving end.”
– ensures that two computers can communicate with each other reliably
•
Internet Protocol (IP)
– “a protocol that provides the Internet’s addressing scheme”
(Laudon & Traver, pg. 116)
– ensures that the receiving address of all packets is known
•
1983 –TCP/IP becomes a standard network protocol (RFC 791
for IP, 793 for TCP). Now superseded by 1122
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Growth of the Internet and the Web
•
•
•
•
Created in the late 1960s
About 350 million computers worldwide to
date
Links businesses, educational institutions,
government agencies, and individuals
Provides services such as e-mail, document
transfer, newsgroups, shopping, research,
instant messaging, music, video, and news
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WorldCom backbone (now MCI)
2002
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Is this backbone design robust?
• Why the Mediterranean is the Achilles' heel
of the web
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http://www.caida.org/analysis/topology/a
s_core_network/AS_Network.xml
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How does the Internet work?
• Warriors of the net – movie
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