A seminar on e-business – Was it worthwhile? Zoran Budimac, Zoran Putnik

Intro Depending on the direction they are studying, students of DMI in Novi Sad, have ONE, TWO, or THREE elective seminars during their studies. Those elective seminars are situated in their II, III, and IV year of studies.

Intro Every year, lecturers from DMI offer topics to be covered through course elective seminar. So far, we had for example courses on: –eLearning / Advanced eLearning –Mobile agents / Multiagent systems –Web mining –XML databases –Software metrics tool creation –.NET technologies –Selected topics in software/hardware development –Combinatorial algorithms –Symbolic calculus –Prince and PMBOK in software project management …

Intro Some of the topics received a lot of attention over the years, some less. Some received great attention at the beginning, but numbers decreased over the years, some vice versa. Some seminars have steady, constant number of students every year.

Intro For example: –Symbolic calculus, Combinatorial algorithms – 0 students for 2 years – seminars were not offered again –XML databases, Agent-oriented seminars, Web mining – HAVE their audience, ARE offered and conducted every year –eLearning – started with 6 students, increased up to 90, then (by force) decreased back to 40 –Selected topics in software/hardware development – started with 80, came down to 20, and stayed there.

Intro Still – a need to cover a great number of students and offer them good seminars is obligatory: –II, III, and IV year has more than 200 students regularly enrolled + who-knows-how-many “old” students who are repeating their studies. –as mentioned, one direction has 2, and one direction even 3 elective seminars during their studies. –As a consequence, this year, we had a little bit more than 200 students enrolled for some of the courses.

Intro – other side As a part of TEMPUS project for Joint Master studies, there was a significant number of courses to be developed “from scratch”. One of those courses was “Advanced e-Business”. Consortium of project members developed a guide what a course should cover, and enumerated general list of topics it should contain.

Intro – other side During June 2007., course material was developed that consists of: –Presentations covering 7 topics, consisting of around 400 slides –Set of individual assignments: several for self-assessment several for assessment by lecturer –Set of group assignments for assessment by lecturer –Text covering exam principles

Intro – other side Course material was reviewed by external expert, and approved for usage. Course was not offered, and material was not used at Master studies in winter semester of school-year. Instead, material was tested as an elective seminar.

Course Students of the direction “Business informatics” have as an obligatory exam during their I year of studies, course “Introduction to eBusiness”. We offered elective seminar “Advanced eBusiness” for students of the III and IV year of all directions, and for II year of “Business informatics” direction

Course In the beginning, around 15 students applied for the course – which we consider very good, since this is the first year the course is offered. During the following 2 months, additional 15 students applied, either switching from some other elective seminars, or simply because they were late.

Course Course was slightly modified from the version prepared for Master studies: –One whole topic, and parts of other topics considered too advanced, were skipped. –Instead of using individual and team assignments, a list of topics covered during the lectures was offered, student selected one of those, and had to write a paper on the topic.

Course Course was slightly modified from the version prepared for Master studies: –Students were given some material they can use for their papers (freely available e-books). –Students were encouraged to find some material on their own, either in electronic or paper form.

Course By the end of June examination period, we had 12 papers of a good quality submitted by students. We also had several papers submitted, that were returned to their creators, because those needed some improvements. Finally, we had a couple of papers that were created by copy+paste technique, from the copyrighted material found on the Internet. Those were rejected, naturally.

Course With “submitted 12 papers of a good quality”, we actually have a chance to add a “book”, or at least “e-book” to the course material. Since this was only the first examination period, and we have additional 18 students who applied for the course, we expect to have more usable literature for the students in the following years.

Course There is a visible difference in quality, maturity and even literacy of material developed by students of the II year, and students of the IV year. Maybe, just maybe, course is too advanced for the students of the II year.

Success of the course As usual, we conducted a survey among students considering the course. This time, being the first time the course was conducted, this survey had additional importance. Survey has been put on the Moodle course supporting system, filled anonymously, with questions adjusted to our needs.

Results of the survey The most important points considered in a survey are presented here, graded on a scale 1 – 5 (1 – do not agree at all, 5 – agree completely): –Amount of knowledge is appropriate4.42 –Course is well structured4.71 –Presentation was too slow1.57 –Amount of information adequate4.14 –Slides were well structured4.14 –Contents of the lecture is useful4.29

Results of the survey Grades about the lecturer were as follows: –Lecturer is familiar with the content4.86 –Lecturer was well prepared4.57 –Lecturer was engaged4.57 –Lecturer was willing to answer questions4.86 –Presentation style encouraging4.29

Results of the survey Final grades about the course were as follows: –International support important4.00 –I would NEVER choose the same course1.28 (if I live again and know what I know now) –Course should be obligatory3.57 –Overall grade4.57

Comments Final comments and grades: –Any special pre-knowledge needed No, just some general sum of experiences in the field –Should topics be in Serbian or English Everything should be in Serbian –General remarks about the course Lectures were easy to follow and interesting. However, I would suggest more practical approach and higher criteria. But all in all, general structure and topics of the course were well-selected.

Comments Final comments and grades: –Assignments My final paper topic is stimulating and up-to-date, so it was fun to do it. I would suggest case-studies exams and more tasks in practice. –Course I'm generally satisfied with this course, but I think that the number of examples were too fewMore examples in the future, please!!! :)

Comments Final comments and grades: –Course Lectures about the user interface and culture were great, in fact almost every lecture was useful and interesting. Generally, this was a prolific experience. I got familiar with new terms and fields in IT, which I found quite useful, especially UE and HCD. I am encouraged to do further research and reading regarding the topic of my final paper.

Conclusion The question in the title of the presentation was “Was it worthwhile?” Yes, it was. Because: –students were introduced to the new subfield, not covered within any other course –we got a chance to check and refine material –we will have a “book” we can use as a literature, as a result of this course –both students and us were satisfied with the course and enjoyed it! Our happy student