Digital Business Management

Specifications for Assignment 1

[50% of the overall assessment, 2500 words]

General Information
Note: Your e-copy submissions must contain the full report, i.e. front page, content, and
references. And you must use full Harvard referencing.
You will be marked as fail if you have missed the deadline for online submission.

Your assignment will be scanned by a plagiarism detecting tool (turnitin). Any attempt of
plagiarising your work will be detected and penalised.

Your assignment must be a piece of personal and genuine work. If suspected with
plagiarism, fabrication, impersonation, or any other forms of academic offence, a viva
will be conducted prior to the disciplinary action.

Any student, which fails to follow above specifications will NOT be assessed.

Non-assessed reports will be marked as No Attempt which is a 0 (G).

Specific Instructions
You are expected to do much background reading from textbooks and other academic
journal articles as well as conduct adequately research evidence to support your
review, synthesis and discussion.

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.

Reference style must follow Harvard Reference Systems, e.g. EJIS style (European
Journal of Information Systems).

The report should be word-processed, the length of your critique should be around
2500 words ( 10%). Please state the number of words using Word Count function at
the end of your report.

Assignment 1 will be marked against the criteria of the following:

Application of business theory to construct appropriate frameworks for discussion
Identification of useful concepts and scenarios
Evaluation of e-Business model or approaches chosen by selected company
Depth and breadth of analysis
Clarity and cohesion of findings
Quality and justification of recommendations
Presentation, style, and adequate referencing

Assessment Task
Firstly, you must research and select a company website which has not been
selected or previously analysed by your peers

Note: Please do not start work on the company website until it has been approved by
your tutor. A list of companies that are not allowed for this study will be provided on
BREO.
The chosen company website will be allocated to students on a first come first serve
basis by e-mail registration.

This assignment requires each student to critically evaluate a website of a

company chosen by students.
Critically analyze the digital business strategy that the website pursues
(Only the Digital Business strategy, NOT the company). This needs to
include a definition of strategy.
Consider digital business concepts and approaches to comment on
specific strengths and weaknesses of your chosen website
Provide suggestions and recommendations for further improvement of
the companys digital business strategy with clear justification.

The chosen website is:

http://www.english.ctrip.com/

ria
1%-34% (fail)

35%-39%
(marginal fail)

40%-49%
(satisfactory)

50%-59% (good)

60%-69%
(commendable)

Very little or no use of

published work.

Some attempt to use

secondary data. Very
limited sources with no
evaluation

Heavy reliance on very

limited sources. Little
evidence of any attempt to
collect a broader range of
information. Minimal
evaluation of literature

An adequate use of
available sources. Some
attempt at evaluating
literature

A good range of literature

used. The answer
demonstrates appreciation
of its appropriateness

A failing answer; does not

demonstrate an
understanding of the issues
posed in the question

A referral answer; does not

consider any concepts or
scenarios that might aid
understanding of the
websites business in a
coherent or detailed way,

A poor response; a narrow

view with limited use of
concepts or scenarios that
might aid understanding of
the websites business in a
coherent or detailed way,

An average answer using

some concepts or scenarios
that might aid
understanding of the
websites business in in a
reasonably coherent way

A good answer, structures

the problem in a logical
way using concepts or
scenarios to aid
understanding of the
websites business
demonstrating a reasonable
breadth of understanding of
the issues

7
(

A very
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A good
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underst
website
coheren
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A failing answer does not

demonstrate an
understanding of the issues
posed in the question

A referral answer; does not

evaluate the businesses
approach of the chosen
website in a coherent or
detailed way,

A poor response, a very

narrow view of the
eBusiness approach of the
website, only considering a
limited range of issues

An average answer;
consideration of some of
the e-Business approaches
reviewed in a reasonably
coherent way

A good answer; logical

evaluation of the e Business
approaches demonstrating a
good breadth of
understanding of the issues

A random collection of
statements based on the
students own point of view
with no attempt to use
evidence to support the
arguments.

Some evidence of an
attempt to provide an
answer to the question but
insufficient detail to pass.

A limited number of points

made. Poor use of any
external data to support the
points. Poor analysis

A limited range of
appropriate analysis points
made but more as a list then
as a unified piece of work.
Limited secondary sources s
provided to support the
points made

A well constructed piece of

work. Literature critically
evaluated to produce a
good analysis, not merely a
prcis. Good use of
secondary data sources.

A random collection of
statements based on the
students own point of view
with no obvious attempt to
draw analysis to a
conclusion

Some evidence of an
attempt to provide an
answer to the question but
insufficient detail to pass.
No real attempt to move on
from a few pieces of
information. Poorly argued
and with conclusions that
just do not follow from the
evidence presented

A limited number of points

made with little attempt to
interrelate them to form a
coherent discussion. Poorly
argued with rather
unconvincing conclusions.
Doubts that the conclusions
are valid .Poor use of any
external data to support the
points.

Some appropriate points

made but more as a list then
as a unified piece of work.
Reader presented with
bricks rather than building.
The work is reasonably
argued but the conclusions
are not entirely convincing

A Very well constructed

piece of work. Literature
critically evaluated not
merely a prcis. The work is
reasonably soundly argued
and the conclusions are
largely convincing.

A random collection of
statements based on the
students own point of view
with no attempt to use
evidence to support the
recommendations.

Some evidence of an
attempt to provide an
answer to the question but
insufficient detail to pass.
No real attempt to move on
from a few pieces of
information. Poorly argued
with no real
recommendations

A limited number of points

made with little attempt to
interrelate them to form a
coherent discussion. Poor
use of any external data to
support the
recommendations.

Clear , cohesive arguments.

Literature supports the
recommendations which
have been developed from
the information collected.

Very poor - unacceptable

referencing and
presentation.

Referral; inadequate
referencing and
presentation.

Presentation is acceptable,
but referencing at minimal
standard with few
references.

A range of appropriate
points made but more as a
list then as a unified piece
of work. Reader presented
with bricks rather than
building. Secondary
sources provided to support
the points made, but
generally with significant
lack of clarity of
recommendation
Good presentation with a
acceptable range of
references. Harvard
standard correctly applied

A wide range of references

used. The report is very
well presented and written well done.

Note:Work presented by a student in an assessment is expected to be the student's own, and while quotations
from published sources are usually acceptable, such cases must be clearly identified and the source fully
acknowledged. Academic Offence includes plagiarism, cheating, impersonation, fabrication and collusion. All
the academic offences are not acceptable and will be penalised. The University has set of regulations to govern
how academic offence is treated and you should make yourself familiar with these.
Any suspect of an academic offence will be called for a viva according to Universitys QA guidelines.

A very
demons
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website
enables
to be pr
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A very
piece o
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ability t
synthes
argume
flow an
follow
support
An exc
piece o
demons
ability t
comple
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with no
a logica
conclus
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present
left in t
to their
A very
piece o
demons
ability t
comple
develop
cohesiv
recomm

Very go
written
referenc