E Commerce

Spring 2013 Bachelor of Science in Information Technology (BScIT) – Semester 5 BT8902 – E-Commerce – 4 Credits (Book ID: B1186) Assignment Set (60 Marks)
Answer all questions 6x10 = 60
1. Explain the different activities carried out on E–Commerce, with appropriate examples.
The core activities that are carried out on Electronic Commerce are:
a) Buying and selling of products
b) Shipping of products
c) Producing financial statements
All the above functions are carried out without any human intervention, and that is the reason of coining “E” in E–commerce. This however does not imply that the humans completely vanish from the scene, their contribution to the organization‟s growth can be seen in the form of:
i) Personalized customer service ii) Sales iii) Corporate development and iv) New product research etc.

We will avoid tasks that can be handled faster and more efficiently by a computer such as creating journal entries, sending purchase orders or confirming shipments etc. If a company uses computers extensively to perform tasks within the organization, then such companies are referred to as “E–Commerce Ready or Capable”.
2. Explain the core components of E–Commerce in detail with appropriate examples.
Main Components of E – Commerce
There are three important components of E – Commerce. They are:
a) Catalog: A catalog is something that has information about the products sold or services being offered. This is to let the user browse through what is being offered and allow him to choose and purchase from the list. A catalog varies from manufacturer to manufacturer or service provider to service provider depending upon what they offer. The catalog might carry the picture of the product (if any), details of the product, and cost of the product.
b) Shopping Cart: An easiest way to understand what a shopping cart is to look around for a basket that we carry to the market to purchase some goods. Since we cannot carry a basket on a website, the website provides us with a tool in which we can keep adding up of items that we wish to purchase.
c) Payment Mode: While purchasing a product in a local market, we use currency to mark the transaction, but with the advent of plastic money, otherwise known as credit cards or debit cards, one need not bother about carrying the currency. In an E–Commerce website, the third most important component would be to identify how to make the payment for the products purchased. The payment mode could be wire to wire bank transaction, pay pal transaction or net banking transfer.
In addition to this, the technical components of electronic commerce comprises:
i) Client or PC work station ii) Transaction server iii) Database server iv) Database transaction
v) Router vi) Internet communication line 3. What digital token based ecommerce systems.
Digital Token Based E-Payment Systems
The introduction of charge cards in the early 1900s, beginning with western union in 1914, represented a breakthrough in payments. While these cards enhanced customer loyalty and stimulated repeat behaviour, they were generally limited to a local market or in store use. In 1958, Bank of America took a major step forward, introducing what eventually became the modern credit card. Based on extensive test marketing in Fresno, California, it became clear that there was a large market for a general purpose bank card featuring a revolving credit facility and wide acceptance.
With the launch of Bank of America‟s card, the consumer was not tied to one merchant or product, but was now free to make credit purchases at a wide range of outlets. As the adoption of bank card grew, the potential size Sikkim Manipal University Page No.: 143 of the market transactions expanded geometrically. It was a profound turning point in the history of money.
The development of the modern electronic payment network took an important step forward in the mid 1970s, with the creation of a global joint venture that would eventually be known as visa. Through shared investments, the visa association created a global system to authorize transactions, clear and settle electronic payments, codify operating regulations to protect consumers and merchants alike, and set interoperability standards to ensure that, unlike cash and cheques, a visa card could be used anywhere in the world.
Debit cards, a popular “pay now” product, allowed consumers to access funds in a demand deposit account to conduct transaction at the point of sale; and e-commerce emerged as mainstream business channel, both relying on and stimulating electronic payments. The rapid adoption of these relatively recent developments demonstrates the speed at which the payments landscape is changing. This shift in consumer preference is driving major changes in personal consumer expenditure, also known as PCE. The growth in card usage as a share of PCE continues to expand relative to cash and cheque.
This trend of doing away with cash and cheques is driven by well established benefits of electronic payments to all parties especially to buyers and sellers.

4. Explain the different types of physical networking.
Different types of Physical Networking Local Area Network, Metropolitan Area Network and Wide Area Network One of the primary categories into which a network falls is determined by the network’s geographical size – which we have termed as Physical Networking. A network may be confined to an area or it may be between two cities or may be between two countries.
Any network that is confined to a building or campus and not exceeding a few kilometers (1 KM to be specific) is termed as Local Area Network or LAN. A Metropolitan Area Network or MAN on the other hand is a network set up within a town or a city or even between two cities of the same country. Wide Area Network or WAN does not have any kind of limitations set and the network may comprise a country, continent or even the whole world. The wide area network is also some times referred to as wireless area network.
When a network is setup, connecting two or more computers with the help of wires or wireless, the way in which the computers behave with each other determines the type of architecture we have established. Let us take a general scenario in order to understand the concept of Network Architecture. Imagine a student who wants to pursue higher education so as to have a better future. What does he do? He approaches a University that offers him a course of his interest and enrolls him in that course. When the student starts attending the classes, the behavior he displays with his teachers differs from that of with his friends. With his friends he has fun, enjoys jokes and so on, but when it comes to interacting with the teacher his approach differs.
A computer network works almost in the similar manner. In any network, we may find two types of computers – A Server and A Client. A Server has information and the Client requests for the information. It is up to the server whether it wishes to share the information with the client or not. In a network, a client may also interact with another client, such interaction cannot be referred to as a request.
Architectures such as Client Server or Peer to Peer define how a workstation (computers on a network connected to a server are referred to as workstation or nodes or may be clients) interacts with the server or may be with other workstations.

5. Define knowledge management tools and explain the features of knowledge management tools.
Knowledge management has recently emerged as a powerful concept to provide a firm with sustained competitive advantage. It deals with knowledge as a corporate resource and works around establishing the policies and practices for creating and deploying the firm’s intellectual assets. This in turn helps in improving the organization’s performance characteristics over a longer period. Mere establishing collaboration across the boards is not enough. An organization in this information age must optimally deploy its most valuable asset – the knowledge available with people and databases.
Knowledge Management can be defined as a practice that blends document management and content management techniques – typically content search, categorization, and content retrieval – for processing unstructured data (documents, internet files, news feeds, email and other text based information). In short, knowledge management is the use of technology to make information relevant and accessible, wherever it may reside.
The primary goal of knowledge management is to collect, summarize, match and disseminate an organization’s knowledge – including process and business knowledge associated with specific operations, as well as accumulated intellectual capital – to other members of the organization.

features of knowledge management tools.
A true knowledge management tool supports the user in managing knowledge. The ideal features of knowledge management tool is categorized as expressing, storing, sharing, refining and retaining knowledge within an organization.
Expressing Knowledge : Knowledge as such is quite abstract and to be able to express knowledge in a way that it becomes useful in a software tool, there has to be a simple, flexible user interface.

Storing Knowledge : Once the knowledge is expressed, it has to be stored. Storage has to take place where the user and other users can access it in the future.

Sharing Knowledge : The stored technology can be shared, accessed and utilized by others. The business case for sharing knowledge is obvious. The power of sharing knowledge is also one of the underlying forces of the network and internet revolution. Refining Knowledge : If the knowledge has to be shared, it becomes utmost important to define criteria for sharing. One has to identify what is important, how it must be expressed, who should have access to it and so on and so forth. Retaining Knowledge : Retaining of knowledge is very important in the knowledge management system. An organization will be allowing its employees to retrieve information from its knowledge base regarding its customers. If on a given occasion an employee goes on leave, his part of work should not be stopped and the other employee should be allowed to have access to his work.

6. What are the seven layers of OSI model? Explain the functions in brief.
Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) Model
The OSI – Open Systems Interconnection model is a model based on a proposal developed by the International Standards Organization (ISO) in the year 1984. An open system is one that is open to communicating with other systems using non – proprietary architecture. The OSI model is a layered framework for the design of network systems that allows communication between all types of computer systems.
The OSI model comprises seven separate yet related layers. Each layer defines a part of the process of moving information across a network. An understanding of the fundamentals of the OSI model provides a solid basis for exploring data communications resulting a successful conduct of E – Commerce.
The seven layers are:
Physical Layer – Referred as Layer 1
Data Link Layer – Referred as Layer 2
Network Layer – Referred as Layer 3
Transport Layer – Referred as Layer 4
Session Layer – Referred as Layer 5
Presentation Layer – Referred as Layer 6
Application Layer – Referred as Layer 7

OSI MODEL

Physical layer
The Physical Layer coordinates the functions required to transmit a bit stream over a physical medium. It deals with the mechanical and electrical specifications of the interface and transmission medium. It also defines the procedures and functions that physical devices and interfaces have to perform for transmission to occur.
Following are the elements concerned with the Physical Layer of OSI Model:
Physical characteristics of interfaces and media , Representation of bits , Data rate , Synchronization of bits , Line configuration ,Physical topology ,Transmission mode

Data link layer
The Data Link Layer transforms the physical layer, a raw transmission facility, to a reliable link and is responsible for node to node delivery. It makes the physical layer appear error free to the upper layer. The data link layer also oversees the delivery of the packet between two systems on the same network.
Following are its functionalities:
Framing , Physical Addressing , Flow Control , Error Control , Access Control

Network layer
The Network Layer is responsible for the source to destination delivery of a packet across multiple networks. It ensures that each packet gets from its point of origin to its final destination.
It also oversees the end to end delivery of individual packets; however, it does not recognize any relationship between those packets. Each packet is treated independently irrespective if the packet belonged to the same message or to a different message.

Transport layer
The Transport Layer is responsible for source to destination (end to end) delivery of the entire message. It also ensures that the whole message arrives intact and in order, overseeing both error control and flow control at the source to destination level. The transport layer may also create a connection between two end ports. A Connection is a single logical path between the source and the destination that is associated with all packets in a message.
Creating a connection involves three steps:
Connection Establishment
Data Transfer and
Connection Release

Session layer
Session Layer is the network dialog controller. It establishes, maintains and synchronizes the interaction between communicating systems.
Responsibilities of Session Layer are as follows:
Dialog Control – The session layer allows two systems to enter into a dialog. It allows the communication between two processes to take place in either half – duplex or full – duplex mode.
Synchronization – The session layer allows a process to add checkpoints, or synchronization points to a stream of data.

Presentation layer
Presentation Layer is concerned with the syntax and semantics of the information exchanged between two systems.
Responsibilities of Presentation Layer are as follows:

Translation , Encryption ,Compression

Application layer
Application Layer enables the user, whether human or software, to access the network. It provides user interfaces and support for services such as e – mail, remote file access and transfer, shared database management and other types of distributed information services.
Responsibilities of Application Layer are as follows:
Network Virtual Terminal , File Transfer, Access and Management (FTAM) , File Transfer, Access and Management (FTAM) , Mail Services , Directory Services