UNIVERSITY OF SUNderland

Department OF COMPUTING, Engineering AND TECHNOLOGY

|MODULE CODE: |CITM03 |
|MODULE TITLE: |Electronic Commerce |
|MODULE ASSESSOR: |Albert Bokma |
|ASSESSMENT: |1 of 2 |
|TITLE OF ASSESSMENT: |The Challenges of Cloud Computing for Enterprises |
|MODERATED: |February 2011 |
| |(pending) |

PLEASE READ ALL INSTRUCTIONS AND INFORMATION CAREFULLY.
This assignment contributes 50% to your final module mark.

Please ensure that you retain a duplicate of your assignment. We are required to send samples of student work to the external examiners for moderation purposes. It will also safeguard in the unlikely event of your work going astray.

THE FOLLOWING LEARNING OUTCOMES WILL BE ASSESSED:

| |Knowledge of: |
|K1 |Knowledge of the development trends and standards in the Web and e commerce |( |
|K2 |Critical awareness of strategies for e-commerce (including B2B and B2C scenarios for e-commerce solutions) |( |
| |and the ability to | |
|S1 |Undertake directed independent research in either technical or business aspects of e-commerce, |( |
|S2 |Undertake e-commerce systems analysis and develop high-level candidate designs. | |

IMPORTANT INFORMATION
You are required to submit your work within the bounds of the University Infringement of Assessment Regulations (see your Programme Guide). Plagiarism, paraphrasing and downloading large amounts of information from external sources, will not be tolerated and will be dealt with severely. Although you should make full use of any source material, which would normally be an occasional sentence and/or paragraph (referenced) followed by your own critical analysis/evaluation. You will receive no marks for work that is not your own. Your work may be subject to checks for originality which can include use of an electronic plagiarism detection service.
Where you are asked to submit an individual piece of work, the work must be entirely your own. The safety of your assessments is your responsibility. You must not permit another student access to your work.
Where referencing is required, unless otherwise stated, the Harvard referencing system must be used (see your Programme Guide).

|Submission Date and Time |TBC |
|Submission Location |Online at sunspace.sunderland.ac.uk (or submit.ac.uk in some cases) |

CITM03
Assignment 1 of 2

Research Paper Instructions

The research paper is worth 50% of the module mark

You are to write a research paper on the topic given below and in the format specified. This research paper will take the form or a critical reflection on the available literature on the topic and critical discussion of the issues raised:

The Challenges of Cloud Computing for Commercial Enterprises

The rapid adoption of the internet and improved broadband networking makes it easier to use the internet not just for browsing and website access but also as a computing resource for enterprises with significant data storage and processing needs. Cloud computing has emerged as a concept that makes use of unused computing resources as a means to run applications and process data on remote computers either on an organisations own network and computers or even on a pay-by-use basis by third parties. In this way the processing needs of an organisation can be met without the outlay for large networks or powerful computers, but with the added security risks of releasing sensitive or mission critical data to be processed elsewhere. This includes the risk of corruption or unintended disclosure of information. There are technologies to mitigate these problems. Consequently there is a dilemma for organisations between the benefits of using cheap and readily available resources to meet processing demands and the drawbacks of increased data integrity, security and confidentiality risks.

You are to write a research paper of 4000 words (±20%) that covers the following issues in separate sections:

a) Introduction to explain cloud computing to the non-expert reader

b) Presentation and evaluation of technical approaches reported in the literature for cloud computing

c) Critical evaluation of the risks associated with cloud computing and solutions that have been proposed.

d) Synthesis of lessons to be learnt from sections b) and c) and Recommendations for businesses that are considering using cloud computing for their computing needs.

Your paper must be in a format suitable for publication. The standard of presentation in your paper should match that of papers published by academic journals. You should use the IEEE sample paper format for IEEE conferences or similar as a template.

You should use examples taken from real systems and organisations they represent to illustrate your points and help drive the discussion

You must justify what you write by using academic sources (based on academic journals and conference papers) to research and cite and discuss them using the Harvard Referencing System (e.g Johnson et al. (2008) to refer to a publication in the body of the paper and use a minimum 8 academic papers, whose full details (to include authors, title, where published, place, year, relevant ISBN or ISSN number)). Any non-academic literature should be kept to a minimum.

As your paper progresses you should introduce topics, then present what the literature has to say using referenced quotes or referenced summaries of relevant publications. You also need to discuss the references and contrast references where appropriate and come to a conclusion as to what can be learnt from them. There should be properly referenced presentation of materials from the literature and your own discussion of them in roughly equal measures. One without the other is of very limited use!

You should use the Athens service or equivalent to identify and access suitable academic publications. You should as a guide use in the order of 8-10 proper academic papers as the basis for your paper.
Before you submit your assignment you must also submit your report to the Turnitin service provided that will check the originality of your submission.
Good academic writing uses literature to present evidence, experience and points of view and discusses the literature and where the author draws out concrete conclusions. For a good balance you should aim to spend about 50% of the space devoted to presenting materials from the literature and 50% to your contrasting the literature with each other and discussing it and reaching conclusions substantiated by evidence.

Staying within the bounds of University of Sunderland regulations, you should make full use of any/all sources of material available to you. Plagiarism, paraphrasing, or collusion, will not be tolerated, and will be dealt with under University regulations.

When you submit your assignment it will be checked automatically by the JISC service for originality of your submission. Markers will look at the reports especially when they go beyond 20% and assess whether you have properly referenced any sections that show as having come from other sources and refer cases to the infringement panel if there is substantial evidence of substantial chunks of text with missing or misleading referencing.

Research Paper Marking Scheme
Criterion |outstanding
90% |very good
65% |expected
55% |passable
40% |insufficient
30% |very poor
15% |Total | |TopicCoverage
15pts
how well topic set is covered |13.5pts excellent coverage of topics in breadth and depth - very professional |9.75pts comprehensive coverage and with considerable depth |8.25pts topics covered well and to some degree of depth |6pts on the whole acceptable though with scope for improvement |4.5pts there are distinct deficiencies in the coverage of topics |2.25pts very patchy coverage and lacking in depth altogether |15 | |Discussion
15pts
quality of the discussion in the paper |13.5pts very professional level of discussion showing considerable rigour |9.75pts very good discussions and on the whole well founded |8.25pts evidence of good discussions though could be extended or improved |6pts there is evidence of discussions but patchy and not always well founded |4.5pts hardly any discussion and/or flawed or unsubstantiated |2.25pts discussion missing or inadequate |15 | |Content
20pts
quality of content that addresses the issues with rigour |18pts professional quality content that is very well developed and organised |13pts very good content with good and thorough rigour and coverage |11pts good and well developed content with clear progression though could be more thorough in places |8pts acceptable level of coverage of issues though could be improved |6pts there are some clear deficiencies in coverage of issues and thoroughness |3pts content patchy, lacking purpose and direction and/or definitely flawed |20 | |Referencing
15pts
how well the materials from the literature are referenced in the body |13.5pts immaculate referencing and accurate reporting at a fine grained level |9.75pts very good and consistent referencing showing skill |8.25pts referencing and reporting on the whole good, even if there are minor flaws in places |6pts acceptable referencing formally correct in most places even if there is scope for improvement |4.5pts there are definite flaws in the correct referencing in form and/or correct reporting |2.25pts literature incorrectly and/or hardly referenced or largely missing |15 | |Lit. Search
15pts
range and quality of reference list |13.5pts excellent list of references in terms of quality and range |9.75pts very good list of references in terms of quality and range |8.25pts good list of largely quality academic references though could be improved |6pts list of references is mixed in terms of quality with majority being of good quality |4.5pts list of references patchy with considerable amount of non-academic items |2.25pts very short list of rather poor standard unreviewed literature |15 | |Presentation
20pts
quality of formatting and structuring |18pts spotless presentation in formatting and structure of professional quality |13pts very good and consistent presentation which is well developed |11pts on the whole good presentation even if some minor aspects could be improved |8pts acceptable presentation and structure on the whole though further work would benefit |6pts shows definite flaws in presenting a consistently formatted and structured piece of work |3pts in very rough draft form and lacking consistently in formatting and structuring |20 | |Total | | | | | | |100 | |

You will also receive an explanatory narrative highlighting particular strengths and weaknesses and the rationale for the final mark.