Exploring Process, Enterprise Integration and E-business Concepts in the Classroom: The Case of petPRO

Journal of Information Systems Education, Fall 2004 by Hajnal, Catherine A, Riordan, Robert

3.3 Course Website

The discussion of the curriculum innovation has made reference to a corporate intranet for petPRO. This intranet is an integral part of the learning experience for the students. The course website system not only allows fully granular administration of the various entry, exit and temporal points of the course system, but also serves as a teaching tool by putting into practice many of the core concepts of both an integrated enterprise and, more generally, information systems in business.

Table 3 outlines the functionality, organized by view, provided by the course website. The student view consists of a traditional repository of course material (syllabus, PowerPoint presentations, detailed assignment descriptions, marking criteria and support material) as well as common schedules and dates. In addition, a layered approach allows for increasing specificity in information delivery. Upon arrival at the course website, students are required to select their section of the course.

The system then delivers section-specific information (such as news items and class schedules).

The next level of information delivery is provided by the student logging into 'My Page' using their student number and a password of their choosing. Here, students can view their individual and group grades, along with instructor feedback on assignments at the individual and group level. Moreover, My Page acts as a portal to various other functions such as assignment submission, group contact information, peer evaluation and the mentoring system (students can volunteer to help others with the technical aspects of the course in exchange for a minimal 'bonus' mark). Finally, My Page allows access to the Portfolio updates that are required as a component of in-class 'Group Hugs.' All individual and group assignment submissions eventually become part of the petPRO view, described below.

The petPRO site functions as a corporate intranet. The basic shell is always there, and can be browsed at any time. This view furnishes basic corporate information and provides a look and feel against which students are expected to design their individual and group content. Product information and corporate logos and graphics are available here. Students are expected to 'brand' their own individual (EWS) and group (FAWS) sites using these style components. Finally, a news page provides timed announcements for the various milestones in petPRO's metamorphosis from traditional manufacturer to e-tailer, corresponding with course content. If, however, students first log into My Page and select to browse petPRO from a link provided on that page, their authentication information is passed to petPRO and the system is able to provide richer content. This content is comprised of two components: 1) the individual and functional group information sharing subsystem, and 2) the data sharing subsystem. The individual and group subsystem is made up of the Employee Website (EWS) and Functional Area Website (FAWS). Every EWS is expected to adhere to corporate look & feel, and must provide links to their respective FAWS, to other FAWS under the same Senior Manager and to the petPRO website (home). The FAWS component provides information at the group level, and acts as a cumulative repository for assignment submissions. Since the students are required to publish their EWS, FAWS and other assignments to known locations on the school's servers, the petPRO corporate intranet actually builds itself as students fill in the content. Ultimately, each student in each section can find contact and role information for any other student and/or group in their respective class (but not to other sections of the course as entry is controlled by their student number). This provides the basis for the data sharing component described below. The data sharing component is made up of the results of the database assignment (described earlier). Upon validated entry (from My Page), students are allowed to see information provided to them by their partner functional groups. A mechanism to evaluate the efforts of their partners in furnishing the requested information is also provided here. This peer evaluation functions as a component of the group database assignment mark. The method by which the students' Access databases are uploaded to SQL Server is still somewhat mechanical owing to limitations in the respective software and given that students don't always follow the standards set out for them in the assignment guidelines. Any deviation from the requirements throws an exception in the upload process, necessitating manual intervention. Efforts are underway to fully automate this process.