An Interdisciplinary Approach to Teaching Electronic Commerce
Matthew K. McGowan
This paper describes an electronic commerce course that was taught using an interdisciplinary approach combining business issues of electronic commerce from an MIS perspective with principles of effective web design from a graphic arts perspective. Another characteristic of the course that made it unique was the team teaching approach used to implement the course. An MIS professor teamed with a commercial graphic artist to teach the course. Students in the course implemented web applications with small businesses and not-for-profit organizations as clients. The projects lasted throughout the semester and required students to balance business needs and web site design. The approach used here is an effective way for students to gain a more holistic view of web application development.
Matthew K. McGowan is an assistant professor of business computer systems at Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois. He received his PhD in management information systems from Kent State University in 1994. Dr. McGowan's research interests include electronic commerce, ethical issues of information technology, management information systems pedagogy, and diffusion oftechnological innovations. He has published papers in Information Resource Management Journal, Journal of Computer Information Systems, and Philosophy in the Contemporary World. Dr. McGowan also wrote a chapter in the book Information Systems and Technology Innovation and Diffusion, and has published papers in several regional and national conference proceedings;including Proceedings ofthe Midwest Decision Sciences Institute. Proceedings ofthe Americas Conference on Information Systems, and International Association for Computer Information Systems (IACIS) Refereed Proceedings. He teaches courses in electronic commerce, database management systems, management applications of personal computers. implementation of business computer systems,andinformation technology management.
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