- An undergraduate course
in
Computing and IT
and
Engineering, Technology and Design.
Ebusiness technologies: foundations and practice
- On this page
| Course facts | |
|---|---|
| About this course: | |
| Course code | T320 |
| Credits | 30 |
| OU Level | 3 |
| SCQF level | 10 |
| FHEQ level | 6 |
| Course work includes: | |
| 3 Tutor-marked assignments (TMAs) | |
| End-of-module assessment | |
| No residential school | |
Ebusiness is booming as organisations strive to gain efficiencies through improved workflows, resource management, just-in-time provisioning and business relationships. This course explores the driving forces behind such developments, introducing fundamental technologies and protocols upon which new systems and services can be built – including Service Oriented Architectures (SOA), web services, XML and associated security standards. Case studies illustrate a range of business models and the business strategies behind the deployment of web services as well as providing insights into future developments. You'll explore the evolution of ebusiness surrounding ICT developments; use software tools to create schemas and web services; deploy collaborating applications; and consolidate your learning in a final project.
Modules at Level 3 assume that you are suitably prepared for study at this level. If you want to take a single module to satisfy your career development needs or pursue particular interests, you don’t need to start at Level 1 but you do need to have adequately prepared yourself for OU study in some other way. Check with our Student Registration & Enquiry Service to make sure that you are sufficiently prepared.
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What you will study
Internet and web technologies are driving fundamental changes in the way that businesses interact. This course will introduce you to underlying ebusiness models as well as the rapidly changing technologies and approaches to implementation underpinning these changes. The course will help you develop skills to enable you to interpret, select and utilise a shifting set of protocols and standards from the emerging technologies, based on close examination of a small set of core standards and knowledge gained from studying prevailing protocols and development technologies. You will use several development and testing tools, including Eclipse, soapUI and Active Endpoints Designer* during the course.
The course is organised into four blocks; Ebusiness, Basic Protocols, Web Services and Orchestration. Trust and security will be themes running through the course, alongside the social, political, technical and legal issues associated with new developments. Case studies draw together key features from each part, setting the scene for a substantive project where you will use your new skills to implement a web-services solution for a company.
Block 1, Ebusiness, will set the scene for the course by exploring how the internet has changed the way organisations do business. What has changed in terms of their internal structures and processes and their relationships with customers and suppliers? Drawing on established models and frameworks, you’ll develop a portfolio of skills to help you to identify the challenges and assess the benefits of new technology for an organisation, thereby bridging the gap between a business model and set of business requirements and an appropriate technological solution.
Block 2, Basic protocols, introduces the essential protocols and standards (such as HTTP and XML), that underpin the current web-services business paradigm. Key to this is the family of XML standards for describing, processing, and manipulating data exchanges between disparate systems. Design tools will enable you to develop and validate document schemas and construct messages for exchange between services.
Block 3, Web services, examines the technical and business motivations behind the development of web services. A historic perspective provides a context for web services technologies such as SOAP and REST and their emergence from the evolution of existing standards, such as HTTP and XML. Through a combination of case study and practical work you will implement, test, deploy and use web services to gain insight into their operation, strengths and weaknesses.
Block 4, Orchestration: Real web services perform small discrete tasks. Implementing a business process therefore requires multiple web services, which have to be organised temporally and procedurally. In order to orchestrate individual services you’ll learn about the business process execution language (BPEL). You'll use design tools to construct, validate, and test BPEL scripts and to understand approaches to handling failure and exceptions which occur in processes.
After completing the four blocks you will undertake a substantial individual project. This requires that you produce a considered assessment of ebusiness for use by an organisation and also apply the tools used during the course to provide sample technology demonstrations for the organisation.
The duration of this 30-credit course is 30 weeks requiring around 10 study hours per week. These hours are only a guide and you may take more or less time according to your study pace.
* The Open University gratefully acknowledges Active Endpoints, Inc for the use of the ActiveBPEL designer tool.
Entry
This is a Level 3 course. Level 3 courses build on study skills and subject knowledge acquired from studies at Levels 1 and 2. They are intended only for students who have recent experience of higher education in a related subject, preferably with the OU.
You need a familiarity with communication technology, and language and modelling techniques used by technologists, such as you would get from appropriate courses at Level 2 offered by the Faculty of Mathematics, Computing and Technology, or their equivalent. Communication and information technologies (T215) would be particularly useful. Alternatively, an understanding of computer networks and network protocols (e.g. TCP/IP), and an awareness of security issues would provide appropriate relevant background knowledge.
You should be experienced in using a computer for working with documents, spreadsheets and accessing the World Wide Web. You also need good writing and basic mathematical skills so that you can produce a well-structured report and work with basic algebraic equations and carry out numerical calculations.
If you have any doubt about the suitability of the course, please contact our Student Registration & Enquiry Service.
Preparatory work
You should revise the material on communication technology in any Level 2 courses you have already taken (e.g. Block 2 in the discontinued course T209). T529, the ICT CD-ROM distributed with a number of ICT courses, is also a useful source of revision material.
Regulations
As a student of The Open University, you should be aware of the content of the Module Regulations and the Student Regulations which are available on our Essential documents website.
If you have a disability
The text for this course will be delivered electronically. This will probably be as Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) files, rather than web pages. Some Adobe PDF components may not be available or fully accessible using a screen reader and musical notation and mathematical, scientific, and foreign language materials may be particularly difficult to read in this way. Written transcripts of any audio components will be available. Other alternative formats of the study materials may be available in the future. Our Services for disabled students website has the latest information about availability.
The course will also require you to use some sophisticated software tools, such as Eclipse. If you use special hardware or software you must, well before the course begins, find out whether it will work with the course software.
If you have particular study requirements please tell us as soon as possible, as some of our support services may take several weeks to arrange. Visit our Services for disabled students website for more information, including:
- help to determine your study requirements and how to request the support that you need
- Disabled Students' Allowances (DSAs)
- using a computer for OU study
- equipment and other support services that we offer
- examination arrangements
- how to contact us for advice and support both before you register and while you are studying.
Study materials
What's included
This course is presented fully online within the OU's virtual learning environment (VLE), which gives access to the study materials in electronic format, online forums and other online resources. There are no printed texts but you will receive two DVDs, one containing course software and one containing course-related videos.
You will need
You will need an internet connection to access documents and work with a hosting service for testing web service designs. This may mean extra charges to your telephone bill unless you have a package that provides unlimited access to the internet. As the course is delivered online, you will be spending most of your studying time using online materials.
In order to successfully run the course software, we recommend that you have a minimum of 1GB of memory (RAM) on the computer that you will use for your studies.
If you are running Windows7 you will need administrator access in order to run the course software.
Computing requirements
You will need a computer with internet access to study this course. It includes online activities – you can access using a web browser – and some course software provided on disk.
- If you have purchased a new desktop or laptop computer running Windows since 2007 you should have no problems completing the computer-based activities.
- A netbook, tablet or other mobile computing device is not suitable for this course – check our Technical requirements section.
- If you have an Apple Mac or Linux computer – please note that you can only use it for this course by running Windows on it using Boot Camp or a similar dual-boot system.
You can also visit the Technical requirements section for further computing information including the details of the support we provide.
Teaching and assessment
Support from your tutor
You will be allocated to a tutor who will offer support through electronic communication and group tutorials. You will also have the opportunity to discuss your project individually with your tutor.
Contact our Student Registration & Enquiry Service if you want to know more about study with The Open University before you register.
Assessment
The assessment details for this course can be found in the facts box above.
You must use the online eTMA system to submit your tutor-marked assignments (TMAs).
The end-of-module assessment (EMA) is an individual project, which must also be submitted electronically. The project will account for approximately a third of your study time on this course. Each assessment component (TMA and project) consists of practical work and a written report, with the exception of the first TMA which is made up entirely of a written report.
Professional recognition
This course may help you to gain recognition from a professional body. You can view or download our Recognition leaflets 3.3 Professional Engineering Institutions and 3.7 Computing for further information.
Future availability
The details given here are for the course that starts in February 2014. We expect it to be available again in October 2014, when it will be available for the last time.
Students also studied
Students who studied this course also studied at some time:
How to register
To register a place on this course return to the top of the page and use the Click to register button.
Student Reviews
“I found the material covered in T320 very enjoyable. Everything was well presented & explained. As this was my first ...”
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“I found T320 to be a mixture of interesting, demanding and frustrating. The first few TMAs are interesting and the ...”
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Distance learning
The Open University is the world’s leading provider of flexible, high quality distance learning. Unlike other universities we are not campus based. You will study in a flexible way that works for you whether you’re at home, at work or on the move. As an OU student you’ll be supported throughout your studies – your tutor or study adviser will guide and advise you, offer detailed feedback on your assignments, and help with any study issues. Tuition might be in face-to-face groups, via online tutorials, or by phone.
For more information read Distance learning explained.
Undergraduate
| Course facts | |
|---|---|
| About this course: | |
| Course code | T320 |
| Credits | 30 |
| OU Level | 3 |
| SCQF level | 10 |
| FHEQ level | 6 |
| Course work includes: | |
| 3 Tutor-marked assignments (TMAs) | |
| End-of-module assessment | |
| No residential school | |
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