Acc 680 Research Seminar in Accounting: Electronic Commerce

Welcome

Welcome to Acc 680, and to the world of Electronic Commerce. During the course of this semester you will have ample opportunity to gain an understanding of the technologies enabling electronic commerce over the internet. This course is not comprehensive. For example, it does not cover some important issues concerning electronic commerce, such as pricing of internet services and on-line corporate reporting.

We start with a basic study of the communications infrastructure that supports electronic commerce, including networking, protocols, electronic data interchange mechanisms, etc. Next we study certain advanced aspects of java that facilitate electronic commerce, including Enterprise Java Beans (EJB), deployment techniques, servelets, and distributed computing protocols. This is followed by a study of the Extensible Markup Language (XML) in relation to electronic commerce and the role of java in providing an interface between web-based GUIs and back-end database processing. A comprehensive study of secure transaction processing (including encryption, authentication, firewalls, public-key infrastructures, certificates, and the support for these features in java) completes the topics covered in this course.

You will find this course quite demanding and challenging, but hopefully amply rewarding. This course is for self-learners, and I will be a mere facilitator. You should plan on spending considerable time reading and writing programs for this course.

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Administrivia

Semester: Spring, 1999
Time: TBA
Room: TBA
Instructor: Jagdish S. Gangolly
Office:BA 365A
Phone: (518) 442-4949
Fax: (518) 442-3944
Office Hours: TBA
Instructor Homepage: https://www.albany.edu/acc/gangolly
Newsgroup: sunya.class.acc680
Announcements Page: https://www.albany.edu/faculty/gangolly/acc680/spring99/announce.html

Prerequisites:

This course is intended to be taken concurrently with Acc 683. You are also expected to be familiar with the unix operating system, the Emacs editor, the Java programming language (or some other higher level language with object-oriented features such as C++), and the Oracle database management system (including SQLPLUS) to the extent covered in Acc 681 and Acc 682. Materials on topics such as data structures, discrete mathematics, or algorithms, to the extent covered in those courses will also be assumed. You are also expected to have background in accounting at least at the level of Intermediate accounting, and be quite familiar with the fundamentals of controls in accounting systems.

Handouts:

This will be the only web handout you will get during the semester. All future handouts will be postscript. Therefore it is important that you learn to print postscript documents in the Lab, or, if you have computers at home, to download Ghostscript/Ghostview from ftp://ftp.cs.wisc.edu and install it so you can print them on non-postscript printers. You will need to download and install Ghostscript interpreter and the fonts from ftp://ftp.cs.wisc.edu/ghost/aladdin/gs510/, Ghostview browser from ftp://ftp.cs.wisc.edu/ghost/rjl, and the Ghostscript manual in .pdf form from ftp://ftp.cs.wisc.edu/ghost/.

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Course Objectives

The main objectives of the course are:

To gain an understanding of the communications infrastructure that supports electronic commerce, including the network topologies, hardware, protocols, site hosting services, domain naming conventions, etc.

To gain a basic understanding of the architecture of electronic commerce applications through the integration of back-end processing by database management software with web-based front-ends.

To gain an understanding of the of the authentication and security aspects of electronic commerce.

To gain an in-depth understanding of the software infrastructure that supports electronic commerce.

To gain hands-on experience in software development for electronic commerce using advanced features of the java programming language.

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Catalog Description

Intensive reading and research on an approved topic of special interest in the student's field of concentration; a comprehensive report and an oral presentation required.

An Honest Description

A study of the hardware and software infrastructure supporting electronic commerce, including network topologies, hardware, protocols, site hosting, domain naming, etc. Integration of back-end and front-end processing to support electronic commerce including a study of XML, JDBC/ODBC, servelets, etc. Security and integrity aspects of electronic commerce including a study of digital certificates, encryption, real-time on-line credit payment processing, etc.

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Textbooks/Readings

The main textbooks for the course are:

Advanced Java Development for Enterprise Applications by Cliff Berg Prentice Hall Computer Books; ISBN: 0130804614 (1998)

Designing XML Internet Applicationsby Michael Leventhal, David Lewis, and Mathew Fuchs Prentice Hall PTR; ISBN: 0-13-616822-1 (1998)

Secure Electronic Commerce by Warwick Ford, Michael Baum Prentice Hall PTR; ISBN: 0-13-476342-4 (1997)

Business Data Communications by William Stallings, Richard Van Slyke Prentice Hall; ISBN: 0-13-594581-X (1998)

Since the theme of the course is evolving rapidly, a number of readings from recent materials is anchored to the schedule below. You are expected to read them before they are discussed in the class.

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Requirements

The classes will consist of discussion of reading materials assigned, occasional programming exercises, and the student presentation of assigned readings. The requirements will include short papers on specific topics assigned as well as a full-length term paper and its presentation in the class.

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Grading

The final course grade is dependent on the following factors:

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TENTATIVE SCHEDULE

[Jan 28] [ Feb 4] [ Feb 11] [Feb 18] [Feb 25] [Mar 4] [Mar 11] [Mar 18] [Mar 25] [Apr 1] [Apr 8] [Apr 15] [Apr 22] [Apr 29] [May 6]

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