Collaborative Project Across Three Hong Kong Universities: A Case Study in E-Commerce Education

This paper reports on the work undertaken by three tertiary institutions in Hong Kong to provide business students with the opportunity to experience a project-based teamwork game in learning e-commerce (EC). The teaching objective of this EC project is to develop the knowledge and skills of students, such as in the use of EC site-building tools, critical thinking, communication skills, teamwork, and entrepreneurship. This study examined student attitudes toward the learning in introductory e-commerce course via a project-based teamwork game in EC using a non-traditional teaching approach. The results of an evaluation indicate that the project-based teamwork approach performed to expectations. Based on the feedback from students from the three tertiary institutions, the project was found to facilitate the teaching and learning of EC and to be interesting, exciting, innovative, and more worthwhile than traditional textbook-based learning.
. INTRODUCTION
Universities are expanding their syllabuses as the thirst for knowledge grows. There is no exception for information system (IS) educators. IS educators are expanding their syllabuses and incorporating more e-commerce (EC) elements into their curricula and courses. This is prompting them to move into the areas of EC research, teaching, and learning. The teaching and learning of EC is new compared to that of traditional IS courses, and most university lecturers are still trying to figure out how best to incorporate it into existing curricula or introduce it to students.
Generally, the EC courses being offered at many universities either emphasize a technical or non-technical approach. The majority of them are offered by business schools, which view the subject as a business subject and teach it from a non-technical perspective (Durlabhji and Fusilier, 2002; King et al., 2001). King et al. (2001) examined the nature and content of EC courses, and revealed that most of the course were being offered at the graduate level and used one or more textbooks as the primary reading source. In traditional teaching and learning environments, where knowledge is conveyed through textbooks and lectures, students often feel bored and unchallenged. Meanwhile, many organizations have widely adopted EC systems, and therefore expect their employees to be skilled and to have practical experience in EC. As a result, it is necessary to develop teaching tools and environments for students that offer them practical opportunities to learn EC.
A number of non-traditional teaching approaches and tools have been designed and developed for undergraduate students (Anewalt, 2003; Dhamija et al., 1999; Ngai, 2004; Parker and Swatman, 2001). Most of them simulate an EC environment that facilitates learning or the acquisition of skills. The feedback from the students who used these tools was overwhelmingly positive. They not only gained hands-on experience in EC technologies and concepts, but also enjoyed the EC course and learned much in it. Although the idea of designing simulated environments for teaching and learning is not a novel concept, it is quite appropriate for EC courses.
This paper focuses on a project-based teamwork game in EC which formed a part of group project work carried out by undergraduates in three tertiary institutions in Hong Kong. We attempted to explore effective ways of implementing a non-traditional learning approach in the teaching and learning of EC in undergraduate courses from a business context perspective. The project involved a group of students which were required to write an e-business plan, develop an e-shop, perform on-line shopping, and finally perform an online peer evaluation of their peer's e-shop. Section II of the paper gives an overview of the collaborative project between three local Hong Kong institutions. Section III presents details of the exercise. Section IV summarizes the results of the students' attitudes towards the project-based teamwork game. Section V contains some concluding remarks.
In this study, a project-based teamwork game in EC is described that supports teaching and learning in EC through the "learning by doing" approach. This pedagogy is used in the belief that learning is most efficient and effective when it is situated in realistic settings (Schank, 1997). Three Hong Kong institutions of higher education participated and adopted this project as a part of their EC program. In order to investigate the effectiveness of this non-traditional approach to learning, the results of the evaluation will be reported and discussed in this paper.
2. BACKGROUND
The collaborative project described in this paper was carried out as part of work funded by the Teaching Development Grants (TDG) of the University Grants Committee (UGC) of Hong Kong that aims to encourage UGC-funded institutions to adopt innovative approaches to teaching, and to improve the quality of the learning environment. The establishment of the TDG is part of the UGC's efforts to develop, in collaboration with the institutions, increased awareness of the importance of the quality of teaching and learning. The project, "Electronic Commerce Platform for Teaching and Learning," was undertaken by members of the Department of Management and Marketing, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU); the Department of Information and Applied Technology, The Hong Kong Institute of Education (HKIEd); and the Division of Commerce, City University of Hong Kong (CityU). The project aims to facilitate and support teachers and students at tertiary institutions in Hong Kong in the teaching and learning of EC. This project has a three-fold purpose: i) to design and develop EC platforms for teaching and learning; ii) to enable students to have their first experience with EC models; and iii) to develop knowledge and skills such as in the use of EC site building tools, problem-solving, critical and creative thinking, communication skills, teamwork, and entrepreneurship through participation in the project. We believe that all colleagues who offer an EC curriculum will benefit from this project through inter- and intra-institution participation.