On How to Build a Curriculum of an e-Business Master Course

Ana Azevedo

1 a

, Agostinho Sousa Pinto

1 b

and Mariana Malta

1,2 c

1

CEOS - Polytechnic of Porto, Rua Jaime Lopes Amorim s/n, S. Mamede de Infesta, Portugal

2

Algoritmi Center, Universidade do Minho, Campus de Azurém, Guimarães, Portugal

Keywords: e-Business, e-Business Master Program, Skills for e-Business Professionals, Methodology to Define

Programs Curricula, Master Curriculum Building.

Abstract: The Business School of the Polytechnic of Porto, Portugal aiming at following the demands of the region

decided to make available a master’s degree program in e-business. This paper describes the study held

ascertain the most relevant skills to be considered in the master program. In order to obtain relevant feedback,

an interview was conducted to professionals working in the field. Also, a questionnaire was applied to the

students attending the last year of undergraduate after working programs, since they have already professional

experience in related fields. The most relevant skills were identified, and curriculum was defined for the

master’s degree according to the analysis of the results of these activities.

1 INTRODUCTION

The Polytechnic of Porto (P.PORTO) is a Higher

Education Institution (HEI) and the biggest

polytechnical institution in Portugal with almost

19000 students. P.PORTO is composed of eight

Educational and Research Units, designated by

Schools, whose mission is to teach, research and

provide services in the areas of their specific

attributions and with scientific, pedagogical,

administrative and financial autonomy. The Business

School (ISCAP) is one of those eight schools being

the second biggest school of P.PORTO with more

than 4500 students. ISCAP provides, at the time of

writing of this paper, thirteen bachelor degrees and

sixteen master degrees, providing other sixteen post-

graduation courses of one year and three professional

courses of two years.

P.PORTO is located in the North of Portugal, a

NUTS III region that has 39% of the population of

Portugal, exports 39% of the national products and

represents 29% of the Portuguese GDP. Textile

clothing and automotive products dominate the

international specialization profile of the Northern

Region, but the greatest contribution to the growth in

the value of regional exports in 2017 was achieved by

a

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0882-3426

b

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1454-030X

c

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3512-931X

automotive products, machinery and appliances;

electrical material and common metals (Norte

Estrutura - Gabinete de Estudos e Avaliação de

Políticas Regionais, 2019).

ISCAP aims to follow the demand or even

anticipate it by not only creating courses adapted to

the needs of the region but also to the needs of the

countries that have Portuguese as official language

(POL). There are students from Angola, Brazil and

Cape Vert following courses in ISCAP, these are the

richest POL countries but ISCAP aims to reach also

students from Mozambique, Guinea Bissau and East

Timor.

In the year of 2015 ISCAP decided that the

demand of the business context of the region needed

an e-business master course. This course aims to

serve professionals of the Portuguese companies that

want to understand how to adapt their traditional

business’ to the ever development of technologies,

and to the new ways of doing business using new

methods and techniques provided by the specific

characteristics of e-business such as ubiquity, global

reach, interactivity, personalization and

customization, richness and density of information

(Turban, et al., 2018, p. 17).

This paper presents the methodology followed to

define the curricula of the course and presents how

222

Azevedo, A., Pinto, A. and Malta, M.

On How to Build a Curriculum of an e-Business Master Course.

DOI: 10.5220/0008120202220230

In Proceedings of the 16th International Joint Conference on e-Business and Telecommunications (ICETE 2019), pages 222-230

ISBN: 978-989-758-378-0

Copyright

c

the results of the survey and inquiry influenced the

definition of the course.

The goal of the research presented in this paper

was to define the skills for a new master program on

e-business using scientific methods. Interviews were

put in practice to professionals working in the field of

e-business, and questionnaires were applied to final

year students of some after working hours degrees,

and to graduate students who are already in the labour

market, thus already having professional experience

in related fields. The analysis of the questionnaires

and interviews used both qualitative and quantitative

approaches. The analysis of the interviews revealed

the interest for the proposed program, anticipating

good levels of employment to future holders of the

degree. The analysis of the questionnaires showed

that students demonstrated a high interest in the

proposed program, expressing interest in attending it,

possessing high expectations about the quality of the

course.

This paper is organised as follows. The second

section presents a brief presentation of the master’s

degree; section 3 presents the method used in the

research; section 4 the results and section 5 a

discussion. The paper ends with the presentation of

the conclusion and future work.

2 BRIEF PRESENTATION OF

THE MASTER’S DEGREE

E-business refers “primarily to the digital enabling of

transactions and processes within a firm, involving

information systems under the control of the firm.” as

defined by Laudon and Travers (2018, p. 9).

This master is located at the confluence of the

areas of Information Systems and Management. The

specialized technical training in these scientific areas

in the context of Electronic Business is further

complemented with training in other scientific areas

such as Law and, Languages and Cultures.

At the end of the program the master in electronic

business should be able to: i) know and critically

analyse tools, techniques, and methodologies specific

to electronic business; ii) develop analytical skills

using concepts that come from a wide range of areas,

aiming the structuring and developing of solutions

within the scope of the Electronic Business; iii)

conceive, develop, and promote electronic business in

an organization, including processes, technologies,

and people; iv) develop, under guidance, applied

research projects, namely action-research projects,

about specific issues in the area of electronic

business.

3 METHOD

The authors started by developing a list of the skills

considered as most relevant for the master in e-

business. This list was built based on the author’s

personal experience and based on results of the

establishment of the state-of-the art of similar

programs in the European Union. Difficulties were

found, since there were few similar programs and the

vast majority of the already implemented programs

were more focused on digital marketing and e-

Table 1: List of skills considered initially.

Soft Skills

Management Skills

Information Systems Skills

Q.1.1. Leadership

Q.2.1. Comprehensive view of the

business

Q.3.1. Business analysis and modelling

Q.1.2. Oral and written

Communication

Q.2.2. Strategic marketing

Q.3.2. Improvement of the organizational

processes

Q.1.3. Intercultural

communication

Q.2.3. Establishment of partnerships

and alliances

Q.3.3. Identification and evaluation of

alternative outsourcing solutions

Q.1.4. Team work

Q.2.4. Content marketing

Q.3.4. Exploration of the opportunities created

by technological evolutions

Q.1.5. Autonomy

Q.2.5. Customer Relationship

Management (CRM)

Q.3.5. Comprehension and development of

information requirements

Q.1.6. Adaptation to change

Q.2.6. Mobile Marketing

Q.3.6. Conception and management of business

architectures

Q.1.7. Critical and analytical

thinking

Q.3.7. Structuring, collecting and analysing data

Q.1.8. Problem resolution oriented

Q.3.8. High level web or mobile programming

Q.1.9. Analysis and decision

capacity

Q.3.9. SEO, semantic marking, web of data, big

data

Q.3.10. Data and infrastructure security

On How to Build a Curriculum of an e-Business Master Course

223

commerce. This initial list of skills was divided into

three groups, namely: soft skills, management skills,

and information systems skills. Table 1 presents the

list of skills initially defined.

With the aim of designing a course that

corresponded as much as possible to the needs of the

labour market and incorporating the expectations and

concerns of potential employers and future students,

the authors carried out 1) an inquiry, doing interviews

to potential employers, and 2) a survey, applying a

questionnaire to ISCAP final year students of some

after working hours degrees, and to graduate students

who are already in the labour market.

3.1 Interviews

An interview or an interview survey is a data

collection process that can be structured, semi-

structured or unstructured. In fact, the interview is the

most common form of data collection in qualitative

research (Myers, 2013). A semi-structured interview

combines open and closed questions as a commitment

between an organized script, and the freedom of the

interviewee to express opinions or report practices

that were not originally considered by the interviewer

and that can enrich the interview. Aligned with this

view, the script used on the interviews

4

, in addition to

having closed questions, also had open-ended

questions to emphasize the issue of freedom in

responses. The objective of the interviews was to

validate the list of skills initially defined (see Table

1). The interviews were recorded and later

transcribed. The script of the semi-structured

interview was applied to two companies.

Interviewees were numbered as Interviewee 1 (I1)

and Interviewee 2 (I2). On the first company (I1), it

was applied to the CEO and on the second (I2) to the

person in charge of the digital business channels and

digital marketing. Both companies are Portuguese.

The first one, where I1 was applied, operates in the

area of luxury tourism, with activities related to wine

and the wine culture, providing its customers with

experiences in the vineyards. This company has seen

an annual growth of over 20%/year in turnover for the

last four years. This company does not have any

physical shop, only operates on-line (B2C - e-tailor).

The interviewee was the founder and CEO of the

company. The second company, where I2 was

applied, started in 1982 as a traditional photography

business that later, with the advent of digital

businesses, changed its business model to digital,

4

The script is available at:

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.2817576

being today a multinational reference. This company

holds a national leadership position in the digital

printing and distribution of photographic material, an

activity that still is its core business today, despite the

diversification of its business to areas such as

distribution and retail. This company operates now on

several cities in Portugal, Spain and Brazil. Today it

employs professionals in the field of digital

marketing, electronic business, computer science

among other areas of information and communication

technologies. The interviewee has a background of

digital marketing and the person in charge of the

digital business channels and digital marketing.

The authors used content analysis techniques

following two steps: 1) in order to capture the general

meaning of the speeches a careful reading of all the

interviews was performed; 2) the answers were

grouped by each identified dimensions of analysis. In

the analysis of the qualitative data collected with the

interviews, two dimensions of analysis were

identified, namely: i) Dimension 1: Pertinency of the

master’s degree in e-business; ii) Dimension 2: Skills

considered as relevant for the master’s degree in e-

business.

3.2 Questionnaire

The next step on the process was the development of

a questionnaire

5

to be applied to the students

attending the last year of undergraduate after working

hours programs that were considered as potentially

interested in this new master program. These students

have already professional experience in related fields,

so they can provide relevant feedback about the skills

necessary for a master’s degree in e-business.

Questionnaires that are completed by respondents

themselves are one of the main instruments for

gathering data using a social survey design (Bryman,

2012)

Likert scales were defined for each of the skills

presented in Table 1, also considering the three

different groups. Students were asked to express the

level of importance they attribute to each of the skills

presented from “1 = not at all important” to “5- very

much important”. Students’ characterization was

achieved through three questions, namely, working

student (y/n), undergraduate (y/n), and age (20-30;

31-40; 41-50, more than 50). Students were also

asked to optionally present some additional

comments.

5

The questionnaire is available at:

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.2816903

ICE-B 2019 - 16th International Conference on e-Business

224

47 students answered the questionnaire

6

.

The data analysis for these questionnaires was

generated using the add-in for MsExcel

TM

Real

Statistics Resource Pack software (Release 5.4)

7

.

Basic statistics were calculated, namely the median,

the mean and the standard deviation for each

question. The skills were ordered by median and then

by mean. The Kruskal-Wallis H test (sometimes also

called the "one-way ANOVA on ranks”) was applied

This test is a rank-based nonparametric test that can

be used to determine if there are statistically

significant differences between two or more groups

of an independent variable on a continuous or ordinal

dependent variable. This test was preferred to One-

Way ANOVA since, “only nonparametric statistics

should be used on Likert scale data” (Jamieson,

2004). The Kruskal-Wallis H test allows the

comparison of two or more independent samples

considering the medians of the samples (Guimarães

& Cabral, 2007). Considering medi as the median of

sample i, we define H

0

and H

1

:

H

0

: med

1

=med

2

=…=med

i

and H

1

: ∃

i, j

: med

i

≠ med

j

We test H

0

against H

1.

If H

0

is rejected, we can

conclude that there is at least one pair of samples for

which there are statistically significant differences.

We then must apply a post-hoc test to find out which

are the pairs of samples that present statistically

significant differences. In this case we applied the

Pairwise Mann-Whitney tests (Guimarães & Cabral,

2007).

4 RESULTS

This section presents the results of the research.

4.1 Interviews

Next paragraphs present the results obtained for each

of the two dimensions of analysis:

Dimension 1: Pertinency of the Master’s Degree in

e-Business.

Both the interviewees consider that there exists

pertinency for the creation of this master’s degree in

e-business. We emphasize the statement made by I2

“Nowadays e-business is an area that becomes very

important, and this is a logical step that most of the

companies will made” (I2). In addition, I1 mentions

that “every week I do regular interviews to

understand how the market is, and I am able to

6

The dataset is available at:

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.2816903

understand that this is a recent area in Portugal and

that there is the necessity of qualified professionals in

an area that is steadily growing around the world”.

Following this idea, it is clear that both the

interviewees emphasized that there are not enough

professionals in this area: “there is a difficulty in

finding qualified professionals to embrace projects

with these characteristics” (I1); “we do not encounter

too many people specialized in the area” (I2).

In addition, the interviewees, I1and I2, consider

that it is important that a master’s degree such as the

one in e-business is born in a prestigious school that

is also a leader in its action areas.

Dimension 2: Skills Considered as Relevant for the

Master’s Degree in e-Business.

Both the interviewees identified several skills as

being important to professionals in this area, thus

relevant to be included in the context of the master’s

degree in e-business. I1 referred that it is important to

have technological skills as well as management

skills. Then both presented some more specific skills.

For the sake of the analysis, the authors considered

useful to group the skills they identified. The skills

were grouped in the same three groups already

referred above. The skills referred by both of the

interviewees are listed (in alphabetical order)

according to the considered groups:

Soft Skills: i) Autonomy (I2); ii) Communication

skills (I1) (I2); iii) Ease of communication in foreign

languages (I2); iv) Research skills (I1); v)

Teamworking skills (I1) (I2).

Management Skills: i) Ability to design e-business as

new business channels in traditional companies (I1)

(I2); ii) Digital marketing skills (I1) (I2); iii) Logistics

(I1); iv) Project Management (I1) (I2)

Information Systems Skills: i) Ability to create

online content and make it available through several

channels ((I1) (I2); ii) Analytical, data representation

and SEO capabilities (I1) (I2); iii) Autonomy in the

handling of technological tools to support the

business (I1) (I2); iv) Improvement of the

organizational processes (I1)

4.2 Questionnaire

There were 46 valid answers to the questionnaire in

the group of questions on soft skills, 45 in the group

of questions on management skills, and 44 in the

group of questions in information systems skills.

The Cronbach’s coefficient alpha was calculated

for the three groups of skills´in order to test the

internal consistency (Maroco, 2013). The obtained

7

Copyright (2013 – 2018) Charles Zaiontz.

http://www.real-statistics.com – accessed in 28.04.2019

On How to Build a Curriculum of an e-Business Master Course

225

values of Cronbach’s coefficient alpha of 0.577,

0.705, and 0.791, respectively, were consided

adequate (Peterson, 1994).

23 of the respondents were afterworking hours

students, 20 were not afterworking hours students,

and the other ones did not give an answer. 33 of the

respondents were undergraduate students, 11 were

not undergraduate students, and the other ones did not

give an answer. As for the age, 37 of the respondents

have between 20 and 30 years, 6 have more than 30

years, and the other ones do not answer.

Table 2 presents the summary of results for the group

of questions on soft skills, Table 3 on management

skills, and Table 4 on information systems skills.

4.2.1 Soft Skills

The most relevant competences are: adaptation to

change, ability to analyse and decide, and critical

thinking. These do not present statistically significant

differences between them. Adaptation to change

presents statistically significant differences with all

other items.

The least relevant competences are: leadership

and intercultural communication. There are no

statistically significant differences between these

two. Leadership presents statistically significant

differences for all, except for intercultural

communication. All the more relevant competences

present statistically significant differences with the

three less relevant.

In any case, all skills present medians (2

nd

quartile) of 4 or 5 and averages higher than 3.76, so

they can be all considered important. Statistically

significant differences were not found out between: i)

Group of working students and non-working

students; ii) Group of graduate students and non-

graduate students; iii) Group of students’ ages

between 20 and 30 years and group of students’ ages

great than 30.

4.2.2 Management Skills

Only the less relevant skill "Establishment of

partnerships and alliances" presents statistically

significant differences with all others. The remainder

competences do not present statistically significant

differences.

The two more relevant silks have medians (2

nd

quartile) 5, namely, Comprehensive view of the

Table 2: Summary of the results of the answers to the questionnaires for the Soft Skills.

Q1.1

Q1.2

Q1.3

Q1.4

Q1.5

Q1.6

Q1.7

Q1.8

Q1.9

Q1.1.

(Med

1.1

= 4); (𝑥̅

1.1

= 3.76); (𝜎

1.1

=

0.121)

---

yes

p≈0.003

no

yes

p≈0.019

yes

p≈0.000

yes

p≈0.000

yes

p≈0.000

yes

p≈0.001

yes

p≈0.000

Q1.2.

(Med

1.2

= 4); (𝑥̅

1.2

= 4.28); (𝜎

1.2

=

0.119)

---

no

yes

p≈0.008

no

Q1.3.

(Med

1.3

= 4); (𝑥̅

1.3

= 4.07); (𝜎

1.3

=

0.126)

---

no

yes

p≈0.000

yes

p≈0.005

no

yes

p≈0.001

Q1.4.

(Med

1.4

= 4); (𝑥̅

1.4

= 4.15); (𝜎

1.4

=

0.124)

---

no

yes

p≈0.001

yes

p≈0.033

no

yes

p≈0.007

Q1.5.

(Med

1.5

= 4.5); (𝑥̅

1.5

= 4.35); (𝜎

1.5

=

0.121)

---

yes

p≈0.019

no

Q1.6.

(Med

1.6

= 5); (𝑥̅

1.6

= 4.65); (𝜎

1.6

=

0.104)

---

no

yes

p≈0.004

no

Q1.7.

(Med

1.7

= 5); (𝑥̅

1.7

= 4.52); (𝜎

1.7

=

0.086)

---

no

Q1.8.

(Med

1.8

= 4); (𝑥̅

1.8

= 4.30); (𝜎

1.8

=

0.107)

---

yes

p≈0.035

Q1.9.

(Med

1.9

= 5); (𝑥̅

1.9

= 4.59); (𝜎

1.9

=

0.096)

---

ICE-B 2019 - 16th International Conference on e-Business

226

Table 3: Summary of the results of the answers to the questionnaires for the Management Skills.

Q2.1

Q2.2

Q2.3

Q2.4

Q2.5

Q2.6

Q2.1

(Med

2.1

= 5); (𝑥̅

2.1

= 4.49); (𝜎

2.1

= 0.099)

---

no

yes

p≈0.000

no

Q2.2

(Med

2.2

= 4); (𝑥̅

2.2

= 4.31); (𝜎

2.2

= 0.118)

---

yes

p≈0.006

no

Q2.3

(Med

2.3

= 4); (𝑥̅

2.3

= 3.08); (𝜎

2.3

= 0.144)

---

Yes

p≈0.020

Yes

p≈0.029

yes

p≈0.005

Q2.4

(Med

2.4

= 4); (𝑥̅

2.4

= 4.27); (𝜎

2.4

= 0.102)

---

no

Q2.5

((Med

2.5

= 4); (𝑥̅

2.5

= 4.22); (𝜎

2.5

= 0.127)

---

no

Q2.6

(Med

2.6

= 5); (𝑥̅

2.6

= 4.33); (𝜎

2.6

= 0.127)

---

business, and mobile marketing. Nevertheless, as in

the previous topic all are considered important.

Statistically significant differences were not

found out between: i) Group of working students and

non-working students; ii) Group of graduate students

and non-graduate students; iii) Group of students’

ages between 20 and 30 years and group of students’

ages great than 30.

4.2.3 Information Systems Skills

There are no skills that present statistically significant

differences in relation to all the other ones.

There are 5 less relevant skills that do not present

statistically significant differences between them,

they are: Conception and management of business

architectures, Improvement of organizational

processes, identification and evaluation of solutions

and alternatives of outsourcing, business analysis and

modelling, understanding and development of

information requirements. All these 5 skills have

median (2

nd

quartile) 4.

There are 5 most relevant competences that do not

present statistically significant differences between

them, they are: Structuring, collecting and analysing

data; high-level programming (web and mobile);

SEO, semantic mark-up, web of data and big data;

Exploration of opportunities created by technological

innovations; data and infrastructures security. Only

the last two have median (2

nd

quartile) 5.

Statistically significant differences were not

found out between: i) Group of working students and

non-working students; ii) Group of graduate students

and non-graduate students; iii) Group of students’

ages between 20 and 30 years and group of students’

ages great than 30.

4.2.4 Open-ended Question

As mentioned above, the application of

questionnaires to finalist students aimed to evaluate

the sensitivity of respondents to the importance of

electronic business, as well as to evaluate how they

evaluated a set of parameters that based on experience

and literature were considered relevant. In addition,

they were asked an open question in order to obtain

other approaches, other proposals for new skills or

other program contents that had not been duly

identified until then. Most respondents valued the

proposal for a new e-business course, even those who

did not consider joining it.

From the analysis to the content of the open

answers, some key ideas were identified, such as: i)

Innovation and the anticipation of ISCAP in offering

pioneering courses; ii) The involvement of students

and employers in the course design; iii) The prospect

of high employability; iv) The convenience of the

course being implemented in a school of business and

not in a school of engineering; v) The importance of

introducing tax and legal content; vi) The importance

of introducing concepts of artificial intelligence,

virtual reality and business intelligence.

5 DISCUSSION

The design of the master program followed the

European and Portuguese regulations as well as the

ones of the Polytechnic of Porto. The master program

follows the traditional standards with a duration of 2

years, divided in 4 semesters, with 120 ECTS

(European Credit Transfer and Accumulation

System). Students in the last year can develop a

Dissertation, a Project or a Curriculum Internship.

On How to Build a Curriculum of an e-Business Master Course

227

Table 4: Summary of the results of the answers to the questionnaires for the Information Systems Skills.

Q3.1

Q3.2

Q3.3

Q3.4

Q3.5

Q3.6

Q3.7

Q3.8

Q3.9

Q3.10

Q3.1

(Med

3.1

= 4); (𝑥̅

3.1

= 4.09); (𝜎

3.1

=

0.130)

---

no

yes

p≈0.044

no

yes

p≈0.03

4

yes

p≈0.04

7

Q3.2

(Med

3.2

= 4); (𝑥̅

3.2

= 3.86); (𝜎

3.2

=

0.136)

---

no

yes

p≈0.001

no

yes

p≈0.020

yes

p≈0.010

yes

p≈0.00

1

yes

p≈0.00

6

Q3.3

(Med

3.3

= 4); (𝑥̅

3.3

= 3.93); (𝜎

3.3

=

0.143)

---

yes

p≈0.006

no

yes

p≈0.037

yes

p≈0.00

5

yes

p≈0.00

6

Q3.4

(Med

3.4

= 5); (𝑥̅

3.4

= 4.45); (𝜎

3.4

=

0.100)

---

yes

p≈0.035

yes

p≈0.000

no

Q3.5

((Med

3.5

= 4); (𝑥̅

3.5

= 4.09); (𝜎

3.5

=

0.129)

---

no

yes

p≈0.02

6

yes

p≈0.03

8

Q3.6

(Med

3.6

= 4); (𝑥̅

3.6

= 3.77); (𝜎

3.6

=

0.129)

---

yes

p≈0.003

yes

p≈0.001

yes

p≈0.00

0

yes

p≈0.00

0

Q3.7

(Med

3.7

= 4); (𝑥̅

3.7

= 4.30); (𝜎

3.7

=

0.101)

---

no

Q3.8

(Med

3.8

= 4.5); (𝑥̅

3.8

= 4.30); (𝜎

3.8

=

0.136)

---

no

Q3.9

(Med

3.9

= 5); (𝑥̅

3.9

= 4.43); (𝜎

3.9

=

0.123)

---

no

Q3.10

(Med

3.10

= 5); (𝑥̅

3.10

= 4.45); (𝜎

3.10

=

0.095)

---

Following the results obtained for the different

necessary skills, the courses that composed the

program were all defined with 6 ECTS:

1

st

Semester - i) Introduction to e-commerce; ii) Web

Content Creation; iii) Innovation in e-commerce and

Lean start-up; iv) Information systems for e-business;

v) Introduction to web programming.

2

nd

Semester - i) Law in the context of e-business; ii)

Research methodologies and scientific

communication; iii) Logistics in the context of e-

business; iv) Web Content Management Systems and

E-Commerce; v) Seminars.

3

rd

Semester - i) Online advertising; ii) E-business

project management.

3

rd

and 4

th

Semester - i) Dissertation / Project /

Internship.

Tables 5, 6 and 7 present the relation between the

soft skills previously presented and these courses. We

verify that all the skills were taken into consideration

in the several courses. We emphasize that all the most

relevant skills identified in this study were strongly

taken into consideration in the Seminars, in order to

strengthen its visibility to the students. The course

“Introduction to E-Commerce”, deals with the

contents related to business models in the digital

world. The course “Web Content Creation” aims at

boosting success in e-business, by efficient using of

language and multimodality. It develops planning,

writing, edition and proofreading strategies and

techniques to optimize digital communication

effectiveness in a business environment (e.g. content

visibility, accessibility and interactivity). The course

“Innovation in E-Commerce and Lean Start-up” aims

at providing to students skills on entrepreneurship and

innovation on new business’ creation. The course

“Information Systems for E-Business” was

conceived, incorporating concepts of information

systems and security concerns on e-business. The

course “Introduction to web programming” provides

basic skills in Web programming: HTML, CSS and

PHP. The course “Law in the context of e-business”

provides learning in legal and fiscal issues related to

ICE-B 2019 - 16th International Conference on e-Business

228

e-business. The course "Research Methodologies and

Scientific Communication" provides a context for

discussion and learning on the importance of study

and research, developing knowledge about several

research methodologies, qualitative and quantitative,

on techniques to develop research and provides

insights on how to develop scientific writing. All

students are invited to publish the results of their

research. The course "Logistics in the context of e-

business" provides learning on the entire value chain

of products or services since e-business is

characterized by having different logistic components

than the ones of the traditional business. The course

"Web Content Management Systems and E-

Commerce" provides learning in content

management systems (CMS), teaching students on

how to select, install a server, configure and exploit

the CMS, as well as on the identification of

requirements for websites in general and e-tailor

types of shops in particular, and on how to express

requirements using specific techniques such as UML

(Unified Modelling Language) (Rumbaugh,

Jacobson and Booch, 2004) or BPMN

8

(Business

Process Model and Notation) (White, 2004)

(Dijkman, Dumas and Ouyang, 2008). It also

provides introductory learning on payment methods

and security in the digital world. The course

“Seminars” aims at the contact with the business

world since it is impossible to treat all the topics in

the classroom. This course brings professionals of the

area of e-business presents a seminar on a specific

topic. This course "Online Advertising" aims at the

development appealing content, using the best digital

marketing techniques. The course "E-business

projects management" aims at the development of

skills in project management in general and in the

implementation of e-business solutions in particular.

6 CONCLUSION AND FUTURE

WORK

This paper reports on the process of building a

curriculum for the master’s degree in e-business that

has started in the academic year of 2018/19 in the

Business School of the Polytechnic of Porto (ISCAP),

Portugal. This school is a higher education

organisation that has more than a hundred years old,

and aims to diversify its educational offer, adapting it

permanently to the changes of society, responding to

the needs of the labour market of its region (North of

Portugal - a NUTS III type of region). E-business is a

paradigm of work that enhances the volume of

business due to the advantages of the digital

technology. This technology has the ability to turn

Table 5: Relation between skills and courses of the 1

st

Semester.

Skills

1.1

1.2

1.3

1.4

1.5

1.6

1.7

1.8

1.9

2.1

2.2

2.3

2.4

2.5

2.6

3.1

3.2

3.3

3.4

3.5

3.6

3.7

3.8

3.9

3.10

Introduction to e-commerce

x

Web Content Creation

x

Innovation in e-commerce

and Lean start-up

x

Information systems for

e-business

x

Introduction to web

programming

x

Table 6: Relation between skills and courses for the 2

nd

Semester.

Skills

1.1

1.2

1.3

1.4

1.5

1.6

1.7

1.8

1.9

2.1

2.2

2.3

2.4

2.5

2.6

3.1

3.2

3.3

3.4

3.5

3.6

3.7

3.8

3.9

3.10

Law in the context of

e-business

x

Research methodologies and

scientific communication

x

Logistics in the context of e-

business

x

Web Content Management

Systems and E-Commerce

x

Seminars

x

8

See http://www.bpmn.org/ - accessed in 13.05.2019

On How to Build a Curriculum of an e-Business Master Course

229

Table 7: Relation between skills and courses of the 3rd and 4th Semesters.

Skills

1.1

1.2

1.3

1.4

1.5

1.6

1.7

1.8

1.9

2.1

2.2

2.3

2.4

2.5

2.6

3.1

3.2

3.3

3.4

3.5

3.6

3.7

3.8

3.9

3.10

Online advertising

x

E-business project

management

x

Dissertation / Project /

Internship

any local business into a global and ubiquitous

business, to emphasize customisation and

personalisation experiences, and to provide working

contexts where multiple business players interact at

the same time.

This work started with the study of the state-of-

the-art of such programs in the high education

organisations of the European Union. From that study

a group of important skills were identified. These

skills were the starting point to the work that

followed. The authors organised an inquiry, doing

interviews to potential employers of the region were

the school is implanted. The script that was built to

serve as a basis to the semi-structured interviews held,

incorporated questions on the important skills of the

future graduate students in the master degree, as well

as other questions concerning the importance of such

a program for the labour market. These interviews

validated the interest of the labour market in such a

program and gave input for new skills that were added

to the previous ones.

With the result of the interviews, the authors

organised a survey, applying a questionnaire to

ISCAP final year students of some after working

hours degrees, and to graduate students who are

already in the labour market. This questionnaire listed

the skills identified in the previous phase. The results

of the questionnaire were the basis to define the

courses and the curricula of each course. All the skills

were incorporated.

The e-business master course is currently being

held at ISCAP. In order to validate this process of

building curriculum for a master program we will set

up a validating process with several dimensions: the

demand of the course; the employability of the

graduated students that followed the course; the

evaluation of the master course by graduated students

that followed the course, and; the results in terms of

projects and research outputs (papers in conferences

or journals). In order to do so we still need to wait for

at least 5 years to have a good sample of graduated

students (approximately 100, 20 per year).

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