Research paper and oral presentation:
You are required to conduct a research and write a research paper related to information systems. You may consider the following subject areas for your research paper, however, you are not limited to these subjects:
1 Overall e-commerce strategies
2 E-commerce for a particular industry: a. service; b. manufacturing; c. non-profit
3 E-commerce for a functional area in an organization: a. production and operations; b. materials and supplies; c. inventory control; d. just-in-time manufacturing; e. quality control; f. productivity control; g. supply chain management, etc.
4 E-commerce for integration of all business functions.
5 E-commerce in real world operations.
6. M-commerce, or mobile commerce.
These are only the topics, and you may wish to discuss with me if you think there is (are) other subjects related to subjects of the course you would like to do research. Your selection of the topics should be based on your preference, experience, and your knowledge in the area. Your paper should be practically applicable. Your research paper should include the following:
1. Introduction (identify problems and purpose)
2. Review of Literature
a. Assessment of Need and Problems
b. Data and Information Requirement
3. Methodology and Analysis
4. Conclusion and Recommendations
5. References, End Notes, and Appendix
Your research paper should be no more than 15 single spaced type written pages, including a cover page (with the title, your name). Computer program, user’s manual, questionnaire, graphs, and data sheets (if you have) must be attached electronically in separate files to your research project. Do not use MS Word to create any graph since it may be distorted. If you do need graphs, insert jpg files into the text. The data input should be in excel file with the columns for the survey questions and the rows for each of the respondents (cases). The content of your paper must be in Microsoft Word format and plain text, with one inch for all margins, and 12 new time roman font, and page number in the bottom center using footer with 0.5 inch width. All the data sheets and graphs must be in Microsoft Excel format. No footnotes or endnotes are permitted. If you do feel that you need to use footnotes or endnotes, you must follow the following format:
i.e. Thomas Edison was considered one of the great scientists in the past one hundred years [1].
Then they can be put in the end of the paper as endnotes:
Smithsonian Museum achieves, Vol. 345, No. 678, 2000, pp. 333-334.
All the footnotes or endnotes should be put in the end of the paper under References, Endnotes, Footnotes, and Appendix. These guidelines will be strictly followed, or a 10% deduction will apply.
Keep in mind that your research must be original. An original research is not a case study, not the ones that can be found in any published domain, i.e. websites, books, periodicals, etc., not descriptions inserted your comments or your views or opinions. There are two ways for original research:
1. Focus on your work environment and through your own observations, so it is first hand;
2. Conduct a survey. Please see my published sample article.
Conducting original research is a great challenge and you can enhance your analytical skills, while a secondary research is simply a repetition of others’ work, like someone eats a regurgitated meal, you will not learn much by conducting a secondary research, or cut and paste other’s work.
