Good Practice from Howard Rosenbaum, IU Bloomington

In this course, students build (7 weeks) and operate working ebusinesses (8 weeks) that compete in an online, Web-based virtual economy simulation for the (fake) digital dollars of student-shoppers. These businesses typically sell information products designed to help shoppers with assignments that are due late in the semester (although some businesses may attempt to chase disposable income with entertainment products and services). The student shoppers come from all over the world.

In the Spring 2002 version of the class, students operated five stores here at IU competing for the business of 410 student shoppers at 11 universities in four countries (US, UK, Scotland, Australia). Most of the student shoppers were in ecommerce courses and their experiences in the "virtual economy" were integrated into their class discussions and assignments. This year, students are operating 3 stores competing for the business of 180 student shoppers in four countries (UK, UK, Australia, South Africa). Some students analyzed the business models of the stores; others assessed their usability.

To support these goals, I used my SBC Fellowship to transform the course from a traditional lecture based experience taught for the last time in spring 1999, to a dynamic and situated learning experience using an approach called “problem-based learning” (PBL). This has involved the development of an inquiry-based learning environment that is centered on a large, complex, and ill-structured problem that students explore, analyze, and resolve over the semester - how to start up and operate competitive, working, Web-based, information “ebusinesses.” The redesign required a major change in pedagogical strategy, the reorganization of the course content, and a reworking of the class assignments to integrate PBL into the course. The main objective of the course is to provide students with a challenging, novel, technology-focused, and learner-centered educational experience where they learn by “doing” ecommerce instead of listening to someone talk about “how to do” ecommerce.

Curricular support for this problem required the development of new materials (readings, tutorials, and interactive assignments), a reorganization of the structure of the course and a new pedagogical strategy to support the ebusiness start-up cycle. For example, new material has been made available about developing business plans, including a business plan template that can be downloaded in several formats. Classes for the first seven weeks mirror the sequence of the components of the problem the students are completing as they prepare their stores to go online. Class time is used to discuss problems that arise in the development of their stores in the context of the relevant readings for that session (for example, how one develops a customer service strategy for an ebusiness). The tight integration of the group project with the in-class interactions supports the first three learning goals. While the VE is open for business, in class discussions range to broader issues of the history, development, economics, and regulatory framework of ecommerce, supporting the last two learning goals.

The learning environment is supported by a technical infrastructure, a working, robust, and Web-based virtual economy (VE) that provides a powerful tool for teaching students about ecommerce.

A more general way in which I have seen the impact of my teaching has been in the frequent invitations I have received over the last five years to speak at local, state, and regional conferences about topics that I have been teaching in my classes. I have addressed audiences of information professionals about a range of topics including electronic commerce, intellectual freedom, internet filtering, and the state of the Web. Many of these invitations have come from former students.

I have obtained feedback from peers that has also been very positive. I post an annual message on ISWORLD, a listserve for Information Systems faculty soliciting participation in the VE, in late fall (for the spring). I have received over 80 expressions of interest from IS faculty in the US, UK, Australia, South Africa, Scotland, and New Zealand and all have made positive and supportive comments about the course and the VE project. Colleagues at Napier University School of Business who participated in spring 2000 and Duquesne University and Indiana University of Pennsylvania, who participated in the fall, also have been very positive about the course. They suggested ways to improve the class that I will be incorporating this spring. These include new topic areas, such as network security, and technical improvements, such as improved reporting functions for traffic statistics.

I have presented work on this course at an IS conference (America’s Conference for Information Systems, 2000), at SuperComputing 2000, and have written an article on problem-based learning and ecommerce instruction for the Journal for Informatics Education Research (2001). Other positive feedback has come in the form of outside funding to support the course. I am a recipient of one of the first Ameritech Fellows Awards for a proposal to develop this course and have received a Sun Microsystems Academic Equipment Grant, allowing me to host the VE on a Sun Enterprise Server.