This assignment relates to your understanding of the key issues in relation to the infrastructure and functional requirements of a digital business and to allow you to demonstrate your ability to research, synthesise and specify the infrastructure and functional requirements of an e-commerce website in a report. 

Assignment 2 and the subsequent Assignment 4 require you to plan and develop an e-commerce strategy including building a prototype website of your choice to facilitate your proposed online business. 

You will be required to design, install, configure and populate your proposed e-commerce site using the Joomla content management system using a URL in cloudaccess.net that will be supplied to you by the Course Leader. 

Assignment 2 specifications 

Assignment 2 is made up of THREE tasks: 

TASK 1 - Assignment 2 Journal 

Maintain a journal of the activities and research that you have engaged in in the completion of this assignment. 

The journal must document the progress that you have made from start to the conclusion of this assignment. 

Use the Journal Template provided in the CIS8100 StudyDesk. 

The journal entries will include, in date order, the following: 

? Date of project/research activity 
? Project/research activity 
? Duration 
? Description/Discussion of the project/research activity 
? Follow up task arising from this activity 
(10 marks) 

TASK 2 - Preliminary analysis of proposed online business and e-commerce strategy 

For Task 2 you are required to conduct a preliminary analysis of your proposed online business (of your own choosing) and develop an e-commerce strategy and prototype web site. 

The report must address the following: 

1. Conduct an environmental analysis of your proposed e-commerce presence, keeping in mind the potential for global e Business and focusing on the following: 
a. Value propositions of your e-commerce strategy 
b. Core competencies that can be enabled/enhanced through an e-commerce presence 
c. Market analysis and trends regarding your proposed e-commerce strategy 
d. Evaluation of your e-commerce strategy in terms of Porter's competitive forces model (http://www.buildmyonlinestore.com/articles/how-defensible-is-your-e-commerce-business-model/). 
2. List and describe how the strategic goals and objectives of your organisation will be addressed in your proposed e-commerce website. 
3. Identify what key stakeholders/customers will want from your proposed e-commerce website, and how this fits with the goals of the e-commerce website and the organization 
4. Briefly describe and justify the e-Commerce business model(s) that will be used in your e-commerce website. 
5. List and briefly describe the potential risks associated with your proposed e-commerce strategy and presence. 
(50 marks) 

NOTE: The word length for this task is about 2500 words, so ensure you cover all the above topics adequately and concisely while taking this constraint into consideration. 

TASK 3 Briefing document of required Joomla! Activities undertaken for Assignment 2 
Prepare and submit a briefing document (about 500 words) on completion of the following activities using your assigned Joomla!2.5 website: 
1. Use the assigned URL supplied to you by your Course Leader to commence the first steps in familiarising yourself with Joomla as a content management system and to develop a preliminary prototype of your proposed e-commerce website. (State the URL in the first part of the report) 
2. Configure the e-commerce site and create a home page (include the name of the your proposed e-commerce business or entity) with a menu and links and describe the steps required to achieve this (include snapshots in your document). 
3. List all the Joomla! components and features you are likely to use for Assignment 4 and why (see a selection of Joomla! features below). 
4. List and briefly describe any links and resources that you have used or are likely to use to research and build your e-commerce website. 

You will not be required to install the Jooma! system on your computer. 
Instead you will be provided access to a pre-installed Joomla! development environment provided by cloudaccess.net via an url link assigned to each student. 
Instructions to access your cloudaccess.net website will be provided on the StudyDesk. 

To complete this task you will need to familiarise yourself with the features of the Joomla! Content Management System by studying one or more of the following online resources, 
(1) Cloudaccess.net Knowledge base for Joomla!2.5 , 
(2) Joomla! explained : your step-by-step guide / Stephen Burge (can be purchased as a Kindle Edition, ebook or in hard copy) 
(3), Official Joomla! Book 2nd Edn Jennifer Marriot & Ein Waring as a Kindle Edition as ebook or in hard copy and 
(4) Joomla! Beginner's Guide 2.5 free e-book. 
(40 marks) 

ASSSIGNMENT 2 

JOOMLA FEATURES 

Setup 
• Using Cloudaccess.net 
• Installing Joomla 
Creating content 
• Adding pages to the front page 
• Creating a Sitemap 
• Adding external and internal links 
• Deleting or hiding content 
Creating Sections and Categories 
• Organising content in to sections and categories 
• Choosing content layout 
• Adding meta data for search engines 
Global configurations 
• Configuring articles parameters 
• Ordering articles 
• Setting global configuration 
Creating Menus 
• Adding navigation menus 
• Creating sub menus 
• Maintaining menus 
• Linking menus 
• Deleting menus Working with Modules 
• Creating sidebar modules 
• Configuring modules 
• Creating login modules 
• Creating breadcrumbs modules 
• Working with other modules 
Using Components 
• Adding contact us page 
• Adding polls 
Users 
• Adding users 
• User permissions 
Using Templates 
• Working with templates 
• Choosing different templates 
• Adjusting templates 
Extending Joomla! 
• Using plug-in 
• Using extensions 
• Go Live 

Submission Requirements 

Your solution 
Your solution should conform to the guidelines laid out in Summers, J & Smith, B 2010, Communication skills handbook, 3rd edn, John Wiley & Sons, Milton, Queensland. 
Cautions 

Originality of submission 

• This assignment must be the expression of your own work. It is acceptable to discuss course content with others to improve your understanding and clarify requirements, but solutions to assignment questions must be done on your own. This also means that it is not sufficient to merely paraphrase the entire assignment content from a textbook or other source. Your assignment answers need be a reflection and synthesis of your research of the associated topics. This should be evident in your annotated bibliography. 

• You need to demonstrate your understanding of associated topics for each assignment. You must not copy from anyone, including tutors and fellow students, nor provide copies of your work to others. Assignments that do not adhere to this requirement will be deemed as being the result of collusion or plagiarism. This may lead to severe academic penalties as outlined in Academic Regulation 5.10 of the USQ Handbook. It is your own responsibility to ensure the integrity of your work. Refer to the Faculty of Business policy for further details. 

• An indiscriminate overuse of incorrectly referenced or cited web pages in your assignment will result in poor marks. 

Late submission of assignment work 

Late assignments will be penalised unless permission has been granted by the course leader BEFORE the assignment due date. Late assignments may be penalised by reducing the allocated mark by 5% per day late. 

Other submission requirements 

1) Formatting 
a. Page size should be A4. Allow for TOP MARGIN - 2.5 cm; BOTTOM MARGIN - 2.5 cm; SIDE MARGINS - 2.5 cm 
b. Major headings should be in upper case, 14 point Times New Roman Bold 
c. Minor headings should be in lower case, 12 point Times New Roman Bold 
d. Body text should be formatted to 12 point, Times New Roman 
e. Use single or one and half line spacing 
f. Assignments should be in one of the following formats: 
i. Microsoft Word (2010) 
ii. Microsoft Word (2007) 
iii. Rich Text Format (RTF) 
iv. Portable Document Format (PDF) 

2) BEFORE submitting your FINAL version of the assignment to the online submission system (EASE) you must upload your draft copies to the online TURNITIN system (see the course StudyDesk for details on accessing and using the TURNITIN system). 
a. TURNITIN produces an Originality Report that shows your overall similarity index. If the index is less than 25 percent, your assignment is considered to be plagiarism-free. If not, you will have to rework your assignment, using the feedback in the Originality Report as a guide, and then resubmit it to TURNITIN for another round of checks until you are satisfied that it meets the requirements. 

3) The file naming guidelines are as follows: 
a. It is important that you use this convention to ensure that assignments can be tracked: Familyname_studentnumber_CIS8100_A2_XXXXXXXXX 
b. Replace 'familyname' with YOUR family or surname 
c. Replace 'studentnumber' with YOUR student number (which starts with '00') 
d. Replace 'XXXXXXXXXX' with 
i. Task 1 
ii. Task 2 
iii. Task 3