Project Background
Throughout this course, you will be working on several aspects of the implementation of an e-commerce Web site using a tutorial or template of your choosing. The work will include the development of an E-Commerce Implementation Plan document, as well as some actual development work on an e-commerce prototype Web site.
Additional information and the deliverables for each Individual Project will be provided in the assignment description for the project.
Project Selection
The first step will be to select an organisation as the target for your e-commerce implementation plan and prototype e-commerce Web site. This organisation will be used as the basis for each of the assignments throughout the course and should conform to the following guidelines:
Nontrivial: The selected organisation should be large enough to allow reasonable exercise of the e-commerce implementation planning process.
Domain knowledge: You should be familiar enough with the organisation to allow focus on the planning tasks without significant time required for domain education.
Accessibility: You should have good access to the people and other information that are related to the organisation because this will be an important part of the planning process.
Note: The selected organisation may already have an e-commerce site and can still be used as the basis for the projects in this course. The following is an example of the features of an e-commerce Web site created for a company that sells shoes:
The Web site allows the buyer to review all different types of shoes.
The Web site allows your company to list different types of shoes.
The Web site should have the registration page for the users.
The Web site should have Add to Cart functionality.
The Web site allows users to check out the shoes and provide the confirmation.
In addition to the organisation selection, you must select a tutorial or template e-commerce Web site to use as the code base for your prototype e-commerce Web site. The purpose of the Web site development in this course is to help you learn about the major components found in e-commerce Web sites and how they are coded.
Your prototype will be built from the code you select. This code should meet the following requirements:
Uses the latest version of Visual Studio for development
Includes representation of product catalogue, shopping cart, checkout, payment, and customer accounts. These features do not have to be fully functional. There must be at least pages that represent this type of functionality.
Uses a database
Available for public use
Note: The code you use does not need to be fully functional. It should demonstrate the basics of how an e-commerce site should work and it should be sufficiently complete to allow you to create the prototype site for your project by modifying the code and Web design. Try searches for “Visual Studio e-commerce Web site” or “Visual Studio e-commerce tutorial” as initial searches or other similar searches.
You will want a relatively simple Web site so you can focus on the changes required. Take some time to review some potential sites and make sure you have access to the complete code base for the site.
Select an organisation and sample e-commerce code that fits these requirements, and submit your proposal to your instructor before proceeding further with the assignments in the course. Approval should be sought within the first several days of the course. Your instructor will tell you how to submit this proposal and what notification will be given for project approval.
After your instructor has approved your sample code selection, you should begin working with the code. Make sure you have downloaded and installed the latest version of Visual Studio, then download your sample code and load the project into Visual Studio.
Spend some time looking around in the code so you begin to get familiar with the code. If possible, build the sample project to ensure it is compatible with your version of Visual Studio.
Click here for instructions on downloading and installing Visual Studio.
Assignment Details
For the assignments in this course, you will develop a comprehensive E-Commerce Implementation Plan document and a prototype e-commerce Web site. Your first task in this process will be to select an organisation and sample e-commerce code to use as the basis of your project. You will also create the shell document for the final project deliverable that you will be working on during each unit.
As you proceed through each project phase, you will add content to each section of the final document to gradually complete the final project deliverable. You will also work on the prototype e-commerce Web site and show demonstrable progress as part of each weekly deliverable.
Project Deliverables
Create a Word document with the following details:
Title Page
Course number and name
Project name
Student name
Date
Table of Contents (TOC)
Use auto-generated TOC
Should be on a separate page
Maximum of 3 levels deep
Be sure to update the fields of the TOC so that it is up-to-date before submitting your project
Project Outline
Brief description of the organisation and its products
List of items that the organisation sells
How many users are expected to use this e-commerce site?
Description of the Web site selected as the code base for the prototype e-commerce Web site including the URL of the site. Note: This must have been approved by the instructor.
Architecture (Please refer to your unit resources to complete the following activities)
E-commerce site deployment architecture; using Visio to create a high-level network diagram.
Benefits of deploying e-commerce site on cloud compared to on-premise
How the load balancing should be handled