About the Course | Audio Transcript

Hello. I’m Professor Michael Rappa speaking with you from North Carolina State University in Raleigh, North Carolina. And I’m here to talk with you today about my course, Managing the Digital Enterprise. So let me begin by talking a little bit about how the course got started. Managing the Digital Enterprise was created back in 1999, and has been a project in constant evolution since that time.

The course is uniquely designed, in the sense that all of the content is delivered to students via the website at digitalenterprise.org. And so as a student in the course, it’s very important for you to fully understand how the website works, and to be able to navigate it easily, so that you’re able to complete your studies. If you are able to, and you can turn your attention to the website, we can sort of just walk through some of the basic navigational elements.

What you’ll see when you visit the site is that it is divided up into 15 discussion topics, or modules. And each of these modules represents something of importance to individuals who are involved in digital enterprises. And we’ll be spending a week on each of these topics.

As you have a chance to go through this site on your own, you’ll see that the topics cover a wide range. The course is, in essence, a survey of the various kinds of challenges and opportunities that are presented to managers in digital enterprise. And as a survey, we’re going to cover a fairly extensive terrain of readings and materials. And it’s important to understand that we’re not going to necessarily dig very deeply in any one of these topics. The goal is to cover as much territory as we can.

Now if you take a look at each individual module, you’ll basically see what will be a fairly typical layout, and structure, and content for the modules as we go through them. And if you want, you can turn to one of them now, such as the first one, the introduction module. And what you’ll see when you navigate a module is that in the center of the page, there’s a kind of description. Sometimes it’s long. Sometimes it’s short. Something which I’ve written myself that just gives you a very brief introduction to what the week’s topic is about.

Now if you turn your attention to a right-hand side of a module, you’ll see that there is a column called Things to Read. And in the Things to Read column are any number of a handful of items, which are readings that I will draw from as assignments in that given week. And basically what you see are links to articles which exist somewhere else out on the web, which if you just click on a link, you’ll either download a PDF file, or you’ll arrive at a website where the reading is located. And each week, I’ll basically assign a couple of items from this section, Things to Read, for you to focus your attention on in that particular week.

You’ll also see in that right-hand column, toward the top, a link that says Review Exercises. And I’ll have more to say about exactly what those exercises are about, and you’ll find a podcast on that page to inform you more of what we’ll be doing there.

Now if you look at the left-hand side of the page, on the top of the column, you’ll see that there’s a section called Join the Discussion, which provides a link to the forum. The forum is a very important part of the student’s experience in this course. It gives you an opportunity to interact with other students and myself, and raise questions, and answer other people’s questions, and make important observations about your reading in the week. And I will have more to say about how the forum works in a separate podcast, which you’ll find on that part of the site.

Turning back to the right-hand side of the page again, and following down the column of the module, you’ll see that there is another section called Case Studies. And usually each module will have one or two case studies of digital enterprises or organizations which are important to the world of digital enterprises. And we’ll be selecting from those cases as a point of discussion each week. And so if you follow one of those links, you’ll see what is a kind of very focused set of links and discussion, various kinds of items to read that relate to that particular enterprise.

Now some of the case studies are, no doubt, organizations that you are familiar with: Yahoo, eBay, Google, Amazon. But others are certainly smaller and more obscure, but organizations which may be having an important mark on the world of digital enterprises in the future. Even if you are very familiar with one of the organizations or more that we’re looking at – perhaps Ebay or Yahoo – I think that the case study is really an opportunity for you to develop a much deeper understanding about what that organization is about.

I’m sure, for example, virtually everyone has had some degree of familiarity with an organization like Yahoo. But you probably haven’t had an opportunity yet to study Yahoo’s extensive organization, and its strategies, and the variety of technologies, and areas of business that it’s extending its reach to. So the case study really provides an opportunity to dig more deeply, and to really truly understand what that organization is all about.

Moving a little further down the column, you’ll see a section called In the News. And these are contemporary items which I hand select in my own reading of the news each week, and each month. And I’m selecting here items which have some direct relevance to the discussion topic itself. And those items change from time to time.

I’ll add things over the course of the semester. And it’s just a matter of providing some additional information about what’s happening in the world of digital enterprises. These items aren’t required to read, but I think you’ll find them interesting and useful, and they’ll only take a matter of a few minutes, to kind of see what’s going on in the world. Certainly if you have time, you should make yourself available to checking them out from time to time.

A little further down the column, you’ll see a section called On the Airwaves. And this is essentially news items, contemporary news items, but broadcast via the radio over the internet. And so if you would like to, or prefer to, listen to news items as they relate to the weekly topic, you’ll see a couple of items, typically, each week. Some of the broadcasts may be slightly older, but they have some historical or archival value to them.

The next section you’ll see is called Look it Up. And in that section are links to key terminology that relates to the discussion topic. And those links go directly to Wikipedia, which is an open online encyclopedia built by a community of volunteer contributors, and which generally has very good sections on terms related to the digital world. It’s important that if you see a term that you’re unfamiliar with, that you spend the time to follow the link, and look it up, and learn about that concept. So certainly take a look each week and spend a little time, to the extent that you need to, to really have a good solid understanding of what that concept is.

Now I’m going to turn your attention back to the left-hand side of the module. If you move back toward the top, you’ll see a section called Video Lectures. And in this section, I include a number of different kinds of video broadcasts that come either from N.C. State, which we produce ourselves, or from other places on the internet. Principally right now, we point to video coming out of MIT, as well as CNET News, which does a number of interesting interviews of people important to the internet and digital world. These videos are anywhere from 15 minutes to hour-long lectures. They are broadcast in different formats, such as Real Video, or sometimes QuickTime. And so it’s important that you understand a bit about the configuration of your computer, and your ability to view streaming video. To the extent that you’re not able to view video, and that those lectures are being broadcast from N.C. State itself, we can make available to you CD versions of those talks, so that you can run them locally on your computer.

You’ll see in that section, there can be any number of one to a few lectures. Sometimes those lectures are from some of the world’s leading experts related to the digital world, and so they have enormous value, even if they are not broadcast recently. They certainly have historical value to them. And so I strongly encourage you to spend the time to view any videos, to the extent that you can. I don’t normally require watching the videos, in terms of testing students on the content that they’re watching, unless I explicitly indicate that to you. And so they’re there as a resource. I hope that you’ll have a chance from time to time, maybe each week, to select a video, and have a chance to watch it. And unless I otherwise indicate though, that’s an optional resource

The next section I’d like to turn your attention to is called Hungry Minds. Now the students who take Managing the Digital Enterprise really run a spectrum, in terms of their experience and understanding of this particular topic. And so in the required readings that I give students each week, I try to find a level which is going to address the great majority of students, and advance their knowledge forward. However, to the extent that you may already have a lot of experience in this subject, that you may be fairly knowledgeable on the things that we’re reading each week, the Hungry Mind section is there to give you an opportunity to explore further. And so there are additional links to various kinds of readings. Some of those readings are just delivering more information. Other readings are kind of at the advanced level. Research papers. Things that perhaps doctoral students or people working at an advanced level might enjoy reading. And so to the extent that you find yourself wanting more, and wanting to go further, then you should turn to the Hungry Mind section, and choose among any of the readings there to further your understanding.

The last section I’d like to draw your attention to is called Places to Visit. And these are links to various kinds of organizations that are pertinent to the topic that’s being discussed that week. The purpose here is just to make you aware of these organizations, to the extent that you may or may not know anything about them, you might decide to follow a link and learn a bit more about the organization. They are very handy resources. And so you should just make note of them, and follow them to the extent that you find it important and worthwhile.

Okay. So that’s a basic tour around what a module will typically look like each week. Again, they’re laid out pretty much the same, although the sections may be shorter, or longer, or in maybe a slightly different order. But it’s all basically there. And that’s how you navigate a particular module.

Now an important part of the course, as I have already mentioned, is the Discussion Forum. And it’s in the forum each week, and my section of the forum, which is called Instructor’s Notices, that you will find the things to do in the upcoming week. And so when you have an opportunity now, I will suggest to you to turn your attention by clicking on the forum link, or simply going to digitalenterprise.org/forum, and looking for my notices section, to see what the things to do are this week. I’ll provide an additional podcast that gives you a sense of how the forum works.

If you’ll return now to the About the Course page, you’ll find, toward the bottom of the page, a link to the weekly timetable. This course runs on a fairly consistent clock each week, in terms of the things that you’ll need to do in order to complete the course successfully. So if you’ll follow that link, you’ll get a sense of what this process looks like.

Essentially it starts every Wednesday, when I post in the forum in the Instructor’s Notices section, the items I would like you to do for the week, the readings and other kinds of things that you’ll be required to do. And you’ll see over the course of subsequent days, on Thursday and Friday, over the weekend, and then into the early part of the following week, the kind of process that you’ll need to follow in order to get done.

The main things are accomplishing your reading assignments, participating in the forum from time to time, and then completing the review exercise in WebAssign. These review exercises are just ten multiple-choice questions based on the week’s reading assignments, something that will take you a very short time to complete. I’ll have another podcast that discusses how to use WebAssign, and what to expect in terms of their review exercises. So take a close look at that weekly timetable, and also make special note of the times, the deadlines over the course of the week that you’ll need to meet.

Well that’s all for now. This is Professor Michael Rappa sending you my best regards, and wishing you all the best in your studies.

(Music)

[End of Audio]

Unedited transcript of audio podcast produced on August 26, 2005. Audio source file: http://digitalenterprise.org/podcasts/about.mp3

Michael Rappa is the Alan T. Dickson Distinguished University Professor of Technology Management at North Carolina State University.

For more information, please visit: digitalenterprise.org