E-commerce involves the buying and selling of products and services over the Internet. It provides several advantages such as cost savings, increased efficiency, and access to a global market. However, it also poses challenges such as lack of trust, lack of understanding between departments, and resistance to change. When evaluating hardware, software and services for e-commerce, factors like quality, cost, flexibility, security and documentation should be considered. Standards like ISO/IEC 9126 define key quality characteristics for software.

1. Definitions…
• Electronic-Commerce could be defined as the
E-Commerce, Security, Ethics, Professional
E-Commerce, buying and selling of information, products,
Issues, and Software/Hardware Evaluation and services via computer networks and
distributed media, usually the World Wide
Web.
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What is E-Commerce? Examples
Electronic commerce (e-commerce) is a general term • www.ibuy.lk
for any type of business, or commercial transaction
that involves the transfer of information across the • www.amazon.com
Internet.
• www.argos.co.uk
This covers a range of different types of businesses • www.ebay.com
from consumer-based retail sites, like Amazon.com,
through auction and music sites like eBay or MP3.com,
to business exchanges trading goods or services
between corporations.
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2. E-Commerce Advantages
• Reduction of risk; low capital requirements
• cost savings
• Increased efficiency
• Growth of customer base and market share
• Better profits
• Access to up-to-date information
• Efficient price comparison of a large number of
products on a single web portal
(www.Kelkoo.com)
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E-Commerce Advantatges
• Integrated information on inventories,
payments, tracking of logistics SCM
• Enhanced customer services and information
about products/services through Customer
Relationship Management CRM systems
• Feedback of vital information; allows
customisation
• Business Process Reengineering through the
changes in the organisational structure and
culture
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E-Commerce Benefits E-Commerce Challenges
• Elimination of Constraints with
traffic, parking, limited store hours,
other shoppers, carrying heavy • lack of understanding/communication
packages. between departments (IT dept and
• Better accessibility by clients who has Business Units do not understand
internet -> Global market each others)
• 24hrs * 365 days accessibility • Resistance by the employees to
• Reduced price through reduced change business processes
overheads and disintermediation ( • Brand awareness (first brand stays in
links in supply chain may disappear) customer’s mind); solve by offering
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Internet freebies 12

3. E-Commerce Challenges Variants of E-Commerce(Pure vs
partial)
• Consumer lacks trust in information
security systems
• Customer has to know exactly what • Variants of EC exists depending on the
he/she wants degree of digitization of three parameters
• E-Commerce wrongly perceived as a 1. The product or service
technology issue rather than a business 2. The process
opportunity
3. intermediary
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Variants of E-Commerce(Pure vs partial) Variants of E-Commerce(Pure vs
partial)
• Observations (Partial and Pure
Ecommerce)
– In traditional commerce, all 3 dimensions are
physical
– In pure e-commerce, all dimensions are digital
eg: buying digital products such as an e-
book,music, software
– In other types a blend of digital and physical
dimensions (Minimum of one digital dimension).
merchandise is physically delivered.
• This situation is partial e-commerce).
– example: buying grocery items online from keelsSuper
Portal is partial e-commerce,
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Characteristics Comparison Revenue Models
Digital Organisations Physical Brick-and-Mortar Organisations
Merchandise is Digital Merchandise is Physical
Online auctions 24hrs, 365days Conventional Limited auctions
accessibility
Virtual marketplace Physical market place
e-intermediateries and Value Addes Broker based services, physical
Services transactions
Electronic billing, payment processing, Paper based billing, tendering,
tendering payment processing
Order driven Pull Production Forecast based Push Production
Enhanced e-Marketing Word of Mouth Slow limited
advertising
Hub - based Supply Chains Linear Supply Chains 17 18

4. Online Stores:
Components & Processes Online Stores
1
a Catalogue
• List of Products Customers
Customer Catalogue • Descriptions
• Prices
• Options, size, etc. Banks
b • Pictures
2
Shopping Cart
Shopping • A temporary list of
Cart item to be
purchased Suppliers •Products Payment
Your Website
•Prices Processor
c •Descriptions
•Accounts
3
d Checkout
Payment • Billing Info Database
Checkout • Shipping Address
Collection • Shipping Cost
Web Hosting Company
• Record Order
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• Process Payment 20
E-Governance
• http://www.srilanka.lk/web/guest/welco • ICT in Health
me
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VR Applications
• Hospital Maganement
– WorldVista
Medical Applications
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5. Therapeutic uses
Post-Traumetic Stress Disoreder War Zone Stress Reliever
• Treat post-traumatic stress disorder in troops
• Provides effect of reactions on the battlefield
• Isolate things that were causing war-related
stress
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Medical Training
Surgical Simulation
• Prosolvia Clarus is currently involved in a project called
Virtual Shoulder Arthroscopy (VSA). The purpose of
this project is to develop a simulator for arthroscopic
operations on shoulders
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Medical Applications Medical Applications
Anaesthesia Training Simulator - Maelstrom •Eye Surgery Simulator: Medical College, Georgia
• Portable Simulator
• Networked environment
• Performance evaluation
capability • Eye surgery training simulation
• Real-time "feel" of tool-tissue
interaction
• Tactile recording facility
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6. VR Treatment Treatment With Kids
•Exposure desensitization treatment has proved effective • VR provides an effective distraction
for a wide range of phobias utility
• “Alleviates pain for those that have
severe injuries or illnesses”
• Minimizes stress during long operations
• Increases endurance in certain situations
if allow to interact with the VR
http://www.cc.gatech.edu/gvu/virtual/Phobia/
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Public Key Encryption
Data Security
• Uses two different keys: a public and a
private key.
• Receiver’s public key must be delivered in
advance.
• Sender uses receiver’s public key to encrypt
the message and receiver uses private key to
decrypt the message (Sender can be sure the
receiver is the true receiver)
• Example:
– RSA (Rivest, Shamir, and Adelman)
– Note: Although the two keys are mathematically
related, deriving one from the other is
“computationally infeasible”.
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Public Key Cryptography – A Simple Public Key Cryptography: Creating a
Case Digital Envelope
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7. Digital Signature
Digital Certificates and Public Key Infrastructure
(PKI)
• Digital certificate: Digital document that • It is used for the authentication and
includes: non-repudiation of senders.
Name of subject or company
Subject’s public key • A certificate is a digital document issued
Digital certificate serial number
Expiration date
by a trusted third-party certificate
Issuance date authority (CA).
Digital signature of certification authority (trusted
third party (institution) that issues certificate • A certificate contains records such as a
Other identifying information
serial number, user’s name, owner’s public
• Public Key Infrastructure (PKI): refers to the
CAs and digital certificate procedures that are key, name of CA, etc.
accepted by all parties
• Example of CA: VeriSign, U.S. Postal
Service.
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Protecting Networks: Firewalls and
Digital Certificates and Proxy Servers
Certification Authorities • Firewall: Software application that acts as a
filter between a company’s private network
and the Internet
• Firewall methods include:
Packet filters
• Proxy servers: Software servers that handle
all communications originating from for being
sent to the Internet (act as “spokesperson” or
“bodyguard” for the organization)
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Security Risk Management
Firewalls and Proxy Servers
Must actively seek to understand the
possible risks (new risks regularly
emerging), and implement
appropriate security measures.
Review and maintain:
• Information architecture
• Organisation policies and practices
• Information security technologies
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8. Professional Issues, Ethics The roles of IT professionals
• Technical/machine-oriented
• Systems-oriented
• Information oriented
• Specialist application area-oriented
• Technical/machine-oriented
– Programmer, network engineer, systems administrator
• Systems-oriented
– Systems analyst, system designer, business analyst
• Information oriented
– Records manager, librarian, data integrity officer
• Specialist application area-oriented
– Multimedia, health informatics
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Knowledge, Skills and Aptitudes Professional Organisations for IT
1 Oral communication skills
2 Capacity for co-operation and teamwork
3 Capacity to learn new skills
4 Interpersonal skills with colleagues and clients
5 Written communication skills
6 Capacity to analyse and solve problems
7 Effective use of Information and Communication Technologies
8 Understanding of professional ethics
9 Ability to apply knowledge in the workplace
10 Numeracy
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Bodies of Knowledge
Ethics in IT
• Define essential knowledge and understandings for
the profession
– Mandatory knowledge
– Interpersonal Communication
– Ethics/Social Implications/Professional Practice
– Project Management and Quality Assurance
– Secondary knowledge
» Computer Organisation and Architecture
» Conceptual Modeling
» Database Management
» Data Communication and Networks
» Data Structures and Algorithms
» Discrete Mathematics
» Program Design and Implementation
» Security
» Software Engineering and Methodologies
» Systems Analysis and Design
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» Systems Software

9. What is Ethics? Ethics
• What is right?
• What is wrong?
• “set of moral principles or values”
• What is good?
• What is bad?
• “the discipline of dealing with good and bad and
with moral duty or obligation” • What is just?
• What is unjust?
• simplify ethics to mean • What we ought to do?
“DOING THE RIGHT THING ! “
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Ethics and technology Ethics is People
• Intellectual property People are the only
ethical component of
• Copyright
an IT system
• Fair use
• Pirated software, music and movies
• Counterfeit software
• Privacy
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Individual choices Ethical ≠ Legal
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10. Ethics and the Law
• The relationship between ethics and law
Evaluating Hardware,
leads to four possible states for a given Software, & Services
problem
LEGAL NOT LEGAL
Copying software to use only
ETHICAL Buying a software package as a backup even if the licence
to use at work
prohibits copying for the purpose
Using a pirated version
Not ETHICAL of a software in a country Pirating copyrighted software
with no copyright laws
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Evaluating Hardware, Software,
Evaluating Hardware, Software, & Services and Services (continued)
• May require suppliers to present bids and • May use a scoring system for evaluation
proposals based on system specifications – Determine evaluation factors and assign
– Minimum acceptable physical & performance points
characteristics for all hardware and
software requirements are established
• Performance of hardware and software
– Large businesses and government agencies
must be demonstrated and evaluated
formalize requirements by listing them in a
Request for Proposal (RFP) or a Request for – May use benchmark test programs
Quotation (RFQ)
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Evaluating Hardware, Software, and Evaluating Hardware, Software, and
Services (continued) Services (continued)
• Hardware evaluation factors • Hardware evaluation factors (continued)
– Performance – Reliability
• Speed, capacity, throughput • Risk of malfunction & maintenance requirements
– Cost • Error control and diagnostic features (e.g Hard
• Lease or purchase price Disk Diagnostic)
• Cost of operations and maintenance – Compatibility
• With existing hardware and software?
• With hardware & software provided by competing
suppliers?
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11. Evaluating Hardware, Software, and Services
(continued)
• Hardware evaluation factors (continued)
– Technology
• Year of product life cycle
• Does it use a new, untested technology?
• Does it run the risk of obsolescence?
– Ergonomics
• “human factors engineered”? Keyboard
• User-friendly?
• Safe (e.g Radiation), comfortable, easy to use?
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Evaluating Hardware, Software, and Evaluating Hardware, Software, and
Services (continued) Services (continued)
• Hardware evaluation factors (continued) • Hardware evaluation factors (continued)
– Connectivity – Software
• Easily connected to WANs and LANs that use • Is system and application software available that
different types of network technologies and can best use this hardware? – Interoperable /
bandwidth alternatives? Legacy Apps runs?
– Scalability – Support
• Can it handle the processing demands of end • Is support available?
users, transactions, queries, & other processing
requirements? E.g Expansion Bays
Communication Technologies: WSN
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Evaluating Hardware, Software, and Evaluating Hardware, Software, and Services
Services (continued) (continued)
• Software evaluation factors • Software evaluation factors (continued)
– Quality – Flexibility
• Bug free? • Can it handle our processes easily without major
– Efficiency modification?
• Well-developed system of program code that – Security
does not use much CPU time, memory capacity, or • Does it provide control procedures for errors,
disk space? malfunctions, and improper use?
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12. Evaluating Hardware, Software, and Services Evaluating Hardware, Software, and Services
(continued) (continued)
• Software evaluation factors (continued) • Software evaluation factors (continued)
– Connectivity – Documentation
• Web-enabled? • Well-documented? Help screens and helpful
– Language software agents?
• Is the programming language familiar to internal – Hardware
software developers? • Does existing hardware have the features
required to best use this software?. Windows XP
on PIII?
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Evaluating Hardware, Software, and Services The Six Quality Characteristics of
(continued) a Software (ISO/IEC 9126)
• Software evaluation factors (continued)
– Other factors
• Performance, cost, reliability, availability,
compatibility, modularity, technology, scalability,
and support characteristics
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The Six Quality Characteristics of
a Software (ISO/IEC 9126)
• Software quality: The totality of features
and characteristics of a software product that
bear on its ability to satisfy stated or implied
needs.
• Software quality characteristics:
– A set of attributes of a software product by which
its quality is described and evaluated.
– A software quality characteristic may be refined
into multiple levels of sub-characteristics.
– Each characteristic is refined to a set of sub-
characteristics .
– A sub-characteristic is evaluated by a set of
metrics. Some metrics are common to several sub-
characteristics. 71 72

13. Evaluating Hardware, Software, and Services
(continued)
• Evaluating IS Services
– Performance
• Past performance in view of past promises
– Systems development
• Are website and other e-business developers
available? Quality and cost
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Evaluating Hardware, Software, and Services Evaluating Hardware, Software, and Services
(continued) (continued)
• Evaluating IS services (continued) • Evaluating IS services (continued)
– Maintenance – Training
• Is equipment maintenance provided? Quality and • Provided? Quality and cost
cost – Backup
– Conversion • Are similar computer facilities available nearby
• What systems development & installation services for emergency backup purposes?: Special Apps.
will they provide during the conversion period?
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Evaluating Hardware, Software, and Services Evaluating Hardware, Software, and
(continued) Services (continued)
• Evaluating IS services (continued) • Evaluating IS services (continued)
– Accessibility – Hardware
• Services from local or regional sites? • Provide a wide selection of compatible hardware
• Customer support center? devices and accessories? E.g Special H/W
• Customer hot line? – Software
– Business position • Offer a variety of useful e-business software(e.g
• Financially strong with good industry market osCommerce) and application packages?
prospects?
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