Digital and Mobile Communication: April 2012

Monday, 23 April 2012

E-Banking

Online banking (or Internet banking or E-banking) allows customers of a financial institution to conduct financial transactions on a secure website operated by the institution, which can be a retail or virtual bank, credit union or building society.
Must have personal Internet access - must register with the institution for the service, and set up some password (under various names) for customer verification.
An Internet banking customer accesses accounts from a browser— software that runs Internet banking programs resident on the bank’s World Wide Web server.
provides account balances and some transactional capabilities to retail customers over the World Wide Web. Internet banks are also known as virtual, cyber, net, interactive, or web banks.

The common features:

viewing account balances
viewing recent transactions
downloading bank statements, for example in PDF format
viewing images of paid cheques
ordering cheque books
Funds transfers between the customer's linked accounts
Paying third parties, including bill
Investment purchase or sale
Loan applications and transactions, such as repayments of enrollments
Financial institution administration
Management of multiple users having varying levels of authority
Transaction approval process

Security (online transaction)

Exchanging sensitive information without the appropriate encryption technology or security measures can make a computer user or identity particularly vulnerable.
Online transactions take place at record speed, oftentimes faster than a standard credit card transaction or check processing.
Online transactions can be monitored, recorded, and key logged by a variety of hackers and third parties without the knowledge or consent of the user

There are several ways to help ensure safe transactions on the Internet:

Stored-value cards (cards that you can buy with specified, loaded dollar amounts)
Smart cards (cards that can act as credit cards, debit cards and/or stored-value cards)
Point-of-sale (POS) devices (PDA or mobile phone)
Digital cash
E-wallets
Online payment services like PayPal

Enterprise Wide Technologies and Methodologies

Collaboration Key - companies set up smart hubs that are not only used by their own customers, but also interact with other companies' sites
Breaking Barriers - allowing constant updates of information related to inventory, product availability and shipping status
Supercharged Kiosks - The customer could even purchase the TV directly from the kiosk for later deliver
IM's New Role - instant messaging likely will be beefed up to handle everyday business processes
Speeding Things Up - the real-time aspect of future e-commerce technologies will allow users to engage in "threaded discussions" as they negotiate contracts and share data
On the Same Page
Wireless e-commerce - also called mobile commerce or m-commerce

E-COMMERCE

E-commerce (or electronic commerce) is used to describe business that is conducted over the Internet using any of the applications that rely on the Internet, such as e-mail, instant messaging, shopping carts, Web services, FTP, and EDI (electronic data interchange), among others.
Electronic commerce can be between two businesses transmitting funds, goods, services and/or data or between a business and a customer.

Includes:

Online business to business transactions
Online business to consumer transactions
Digital delivery of products and services
Online merchandising
Automated telephone transactions eg phone banking

E-commerce can be divided into:

E-tailing or "virtual storefronts" on Web sites with online catalogs, sometimes gathered into a "virtual mall“
The gathering and use of demographic data through Web contacts
EDI, the business-to-business exchange of data
E-mail and fax and their use as media for reaching prospects and established customers (for example, with newsletters)
Business-to-business buying and selling
The security of business transactions

Examples of E-commerce

Online Shopping
Electronic Payments
Online Auctions
Internet Banking
Online Ticketing

For more info:

Types of Ecommerce

Business to Business (B2B)

B2B ecommerce transactions are those where both the transacting parties are businesses, e.g., manufacturers, traders, retailers and the like.

Business to Consumer (B2C)

When businesses sell electronically to end-consumers, it is called B2C ecommerce.

Consumer to Consumer (C2C)

Some of the earliest transactions in the global economic system involved barter - a type of C2C transaction. But C2C transactions were virtually non-existent in recent times until the advent of ecommerce. Auction sites are a good example of C2C ecommerce.

Advantages of E-commerce	Disadvantages of Ecommerce
Overcome Geographical Limitations	Ecommerce Lacks That Personal Touch
Gain New Customers With Search Engine Visibility	Ecommerce Delays Goods
Lower Costs	Anyone Can Set Up an Ecommerce Website
Locate the Product Quicker	Security
Eliminate Travel Time and Cost	Many Goods Cannot Be Purchased Online
Provide Comparison Shopping	Ecommerce Does Not Allow You to Experience the Product Before Purchase
Enable Deals, Bargains, Coupons, and Group Buying
Provide Abundant Information

COLLABORATIVE ONLINE LEARNING

ONLINE FORUM

Definition

An internet forum, or massage board, is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted message. They differ from chat rooms in that message are not shown in real-time, to see new message the forum must be reloaded.

Wikis

Wiki is a piece of server software that allows users to freely create and edit Web page content using any Web browser.
Wiki is a combination of a CGI script and a collection of plain text files that allows users to create Web pages “on the fly.”
Wiki supports hyperlinks and has a simple text syntax for creating new pages and crosslinks between internal pages on the fly.
Wiki is unusual among group communication mechanisms in that it allows the organization of contributions to be edited in addition to the content itself

PODCASTING

A podcast is a series of digital media files (either audio or video) that are released episodically and downloaded through web syndication.
Podcasting is a method of publishing audio files (usually MP3s) to the Web, which are then made available through subscription and automatically downloaded to a personal computer or portable MP3 player.
The mode of delivery differentiates podcasting from other means of accessing media files over the Internet, such as direct download, or streame webcasting.
Commonly used audio file formats are Oggy Vorbis and MP3.

Podcasting could be used for:

news/updates;
guest lectures;
student presentations;
student-produced podcasts;
interviews with guest experts;
tours/fieldwork;
internships/residencies;
feedback/evaluation of student work;
supplementary material such as speeches, music, or other audio recordings; and
short language lessons, or other lessons that help students develop listening and speaking skills.

Second Life

Second Life enhance social presence that can support collaborative online activities and enrich interpersonal understanding among their participants.
In terms of educational practice, this virtual world allows for a reimagining of the classroom as one that meets the new needs of online instruction while providing students with a sense of belonging to a learning community.
For example, Second Life allows for online interactions that mimic the face-to-face conversations of the campus classroom while minimizing the formality that usually prevails in academic discussion forums.
New educational institutions have also emerged that operate exclusively within Second Life, taking advantage of the platform to deliver a high quality service to a world wide audience at low cost.

Education

Second Life is used as a platform for education by many institutions, such as colleges, universities, libraries and government entities.
Instructors and researchers in Second Life favor it because it is more personal than traditional distance learning.
Research has uncovered development, teaching and/or learning activities, which use Second Life in over 80 percent of UK universities.