company website

General Instructions
€¢    This is an individual assessment.
€¢    Each student must only submit an e-copy online using BREO’s turnitin link. Please follow the instructions provided in BREO’s Assignment folder. Your work

will NOT be assessed if you failed to submit a copy online before 11.59pm on 21 March 2014.
€¢    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).

Specifications

This assignment requires each student to critically evaluate a website of a company chosen by students. This report will build a critical analysis of your chosen

website against a framework which is a distillation of the critical elements you have synthesised from your evaluation of relevant literature against specific concepts

which you will be asked to investigate. Hence you will be able to comment on specific strengths and weaknesses of your chosen website and hence derive informed

conclusions and recommendations for improving your chosen website.

€¢    First, you must research and select a company which has not been selected or previously analysed by your peers. The chosen company will be allocated to

students on a first come first serve basis by registering your chosen company via a link in BREO for this unit.
€¢    Note: Please do not start work on the company until your company has been approved by tutor. A list of companies that are not allowed for this study will be

provided on BREO.
€¢    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.
€¢    Reference style must follow Harvard Reference Systems, e.g. EJIS style (European Journal of Information Systems). The university library web site has A guide

to academic referencing at http://lrweb.beds.ac.uk/guides/ref
€¢    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.

Focus of your Critical Appraisal:
?    Evaluate the company website in terms of how it has implemented digital information systems
?    Critically review the business model of the website including the online value proposition
?    Identify the target audience/target market and discuss how the website tries to target this audience/these audiences
?    Critically evaluate the customer relationship management of the company website
?    Provide suggestions/recommendations for further improvement of the company’s digital business strategy

Marking Criteria

Assignment 1 will be marked against the criteria of the following:
1.    Application of business theory to construct appropriate frameworks for discussion
2.    Identification of useful concepts and scenarios
3.    Evaluation of e-Business model or approaches chosen by selected company
4.    Depth and breadth of analysis
5.    Clarity and cohesion of findings
6.    Quality and justification of recommendations
7.    Presentation, style, and adequate referencing

Marking Criteria
F    E    D    C    B    A

Application of Business Theory     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 very

good answer demonstrating a comprehensive consideration of the academic issues, configuring your response to enable different arguments to be presented in a logical

order.
Identification of useful concepts and scenarios    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    A good answer demonstrating a

comprehensive consideration of concepts or scenarios that  aid understanding of the websites business in a coherent or detailed way,   enabling different arguments to

be presented in a logical order.
Evaluation of e Business Model / Approaches    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 very good answer demonstrating a

comprehensive consideration of the eBusiness approach of the website. Your  response  enables different arguments to be presented in a logical order.
Depth and Breadth  of Analysis     A random collection of statements based on the student’s 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 précis.

Good use of secondary data sources.    A very  well constructed piece of work which demonstrates the student’s ability to analyse and synthesise complex arguments. It

has a logical flow and all the points made follow from and are supported by the evidence.
Clarity & Cohesion of Findings    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 précis. The work is reasonably

soundly argued and the conclusions are largely convincing.    An excellently constructed piece of work which clearly demonstrates the student’s ability to synthesise

complex arguments and to use the data to come up with novel solutions. It has a logical flow and the conclusions  follow naturally from the evidence presented. No

doubts are  left in the reader’s mind as to their validity.
Quality and justification of Recommendations    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.     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

Clear , cohesive arguments. Literature supports the recommendations which have been developed from the information collected.     A very well constructed piece of work

which clearly demonstrates the student’s ability to synthesise complex arguments and to develop these ideas cohesively into clear recommendations
Presentation and Referencing    Very poor –  unacceptable referencing and presentation.    Referral; inadequate referencing and presentation.      Presentation is

acceptable, but referencing at minimal standard  with few references.    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.    Very good report, very well written presented and referenced no major

flaws.

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 (refer to

for more information). 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 academic offence will be called for a viva according to University’s QA guidelines.