Now @criticiba: Not sure if it is the system or the students. In a nutshell, I have higher expectations from students of IBA to go beyond their mindframe and be more creative – and as students are doing their internships now, they would probably realize how it really works out there than be in academic fame of mind.

At the same time, it can be extremely *unfair* too. Most people reading the first 20 comments will take away a feeling that the most of the class hated this course. Whereas these comments were mostly spam by a couple of people and the issues were mostly ‘lame’ as ‘S’ puts it.

I will let you guys sort out how you feel about the class and if more faculty should adopt these unique ways of teaching

*All hail e-commerce*

Anyways, I wouldnt shed anymore light on the subject than has already been done. Ofcourse, that means I totally agree with Mr/Miss S.

Ah, the beauty of Anonymous comments.

projects – i should have erred on the side of caution and hold your hands more tightly. but do note, this will not happen in real life. Group doing paypal project implemented the most complicated solution extremely well. So you also have to appreciate that some wings do fly well. But feedback well taken. Period.

as for adding a lab component, that is an excellent suggestion. perhaps someone can write up a 1 page petition, get it signed by 75% or more students, and me, and then submit to IBA committee on curriculum.

More case studies – I think we did 3-4 and also had 3 guest lectures. But will definitely look more into it.

Firstly, the Project. E-Commerce is a project intensive course and still has no labs assigned to it. In our 4th semester, we had an Information Systems Development project with 30% weight age. Every regular class was followed by a lab session. It was also a 4 credit hour course.

I think we should talk to IBA to make E-Commerce a 4-Credit hour course or at least assign some lab sessions considering the magnitude of the project.

Also it would be great if Farzal could create a project time line with deliverables distributed along the semester. This really helps students to pace them selves and reduces the burden at the end. Also as the teacher monitors project progress during the semester he’ll get acquainted with group projects, individual performances and deal with issues as they arise.

Also I understand Farzal’s philosophy of “giving us wings so we can fly” but a little more guidance technology wise in the project would have been very useful. For example, I coded in VB Script which got very messy as the number of pages increased. I later got to know that there were other better options.

Furthermore it would have been wonderful if Farzal could have been around campus for the debugging bit. It would save us from groping in the dark for days. We went from pillar to post to make our pages run properly, the teacher could’ve solved these issues in a jiffy.

I think the links Farzal gave towards the end of the semester were very useful and the Google reading material was excellent. It would be great if he could do this with all the lectures. When we search ourselves we limit ourselves to Wikipedia, we don’t try to access those cool HBS studies or the in depth links he gave us on start ups.

This way we’ll have relevant reading material on every topic.

One of the things I liked best was the lack of a book because the teacher didn’t limit us to bookish knowledge. He made us explore and discover things for our selves. This also ensured that our knowledge was up to date, more than any book could ever be. However then he also expected us to rote learn the slides, can’t that part be reduced some how?

I think it is only fair to tell the good parts too So here goes…

Farzal has a very interesting teaching style, hardly “yapping” and never headache-inducing contrary to what was said on criticiba. The two topics we still haven’t fully understood in E-commerce are BSP and Saas, both taught by other people.

The course content that he has designed is superb-versatile, eye opening and current. The Google guest lecture he lined up was mind-blowing.

Perhaps it’s students who can only learn things out of books who can’t adjust themselves with Farzal.

One of the exemplary qualities of Farzal as a teacher is that he’s always there for his students in any means of communication that they prefer and that he replies promptly. Perhaps not so much in the last few days but still :p

Another is that he asks for feedback and accepts criticism in a very constructive way. Most teachers would take revenge after what has been said in criticiba!

More case studies would be nice. Perhaps we could have one on ebay or paypal ala Webvan.

http://ecommerce.pkeducation.com/blog/

response to criticism of final exam being prepared based on observations made during grading of final. come back on Friday. It revolves around giving 1.5 page (30 lines+) response to a 3 point (hence 3 lines response) question

BTW, do read project submission guidelines.
http://ecommerce.pkeducation.com/blog/2008/05/19/85/