Construction and exploration of the E-commerce specialty in higher vocational ed

Abstract. The rapid development of e-commerce brings opportunities for the electronic commerce specialty in higher vocational colleges. The electronic business specialty in higher vocational colleges should seize the favorable opportunities, accelerate the professional construction and reform, innovate the mode of talent cultivation, and enhance students' employment abilities. In order to promote the reform and the development of the electronic commerce major in higher vocational colleges, the author of this paper conducts active exploration and summary of such several key issues in view of the ability standards of the electronic commerce specialty, the setting of the professional core courses, the construction of the professional practice links, the construction of the teaching staff.

Keywords: Higher vocational colleges; electronic commerce; professional reform; professional construction

The in-depth development of the economic globalization and the rapid change in the information technology bring about the change in the way of business. Every industry and field are also actively carrying out various forms of electronic commerce and electronic government activities, and the rapid development of the e-commerce makes the whole society increasingly urgently require the professional talents of the electronic commerce. The e-commerce specialty in higher occupation colleges should seize the best opportunity for the rapid development of the electronic commerce, accelerate the professional construction and reform, and cultivate the first-line highly-skillful professional talents in the electronic commerce who can really adapt to the needs of the areas, the economy of the industry, and the social development.

The Sixteenth Article of the Ministry of education in 2006 pointed out that the higher occupational education should service the regional economic and social development, taking the employment as the direction, and speed up the reform and the construction of their specialty. Therefore, the electronic commerce specialty in higher vocational colleges should combine their own backgrounds and characteristics, think over their purposes and the patterns of running the schools, and all-around construct and gradually perfect the talent training systems. We should speed up the development and the reform of the specialty, learn from the advanced experience, develop the ability standards of the e-commerce specialty, improve the settings of the core curriculums of the electronic commerce specialty, strengthen the practice links of the e-commerce specialty, continuously expand and improve the teaching staff, and realize the goal of cultivating the outstanding professional talents of e-commerce.

1. Construct the standard systems for

the e-commerce specialty

The relevant departments of the state define the occupation of the e-commerce engineer as: the e-commerce engineer is the personnel using the computer technology, the network technology and other modern information technology to take up the business activities or the relevant work, that is, the high-quality compound talents integrating the IT and the business in a body. The e-commerce engineers must have the comprehensive abilities, that is, not only should they have certain IT technologies, but they also should master the abilities of the business operation. So the higher vocational colleges should be based on the training of the management personnel of the e-commerce application as the objective, and focus on the training of the core abilities of the electronic commerce specialty. The core abilities of the electronic commerce specialty include the abilities of the information technology abilities and the ability of the business management. The abilities of the information technology include: the information organization, information retrieval, static Webpage designing, dynamic Webpage designing, database designing, operating the system application and other abilities. The abilities of the business management include: writing, communication, innovation, management skills, negotiation, marketing and other abilities.

Based on the core competence of the e-commerce specialty, further develop the ability units and some ability components supporting the capacity units, forming a standard system of the professional abilities of the electronic commerce, and take it as the main basis of the construction of the curriculum systems and the assessment of the students.

2. The basic characteristics of the e-commerce specialty in higher vocational colleges

The electronic commerce belongs to the new type, the edge type, the interactive type, the practical type and the comprehensive type of the specialty. With the development of the technologies, the definition and concept of the electronic commerce are changing. The dynamic characteristics of this specialty determine that its professional contents and training methods are dynamic, and the changes are closely related to the development of the information technology. The electronics are the means, while the business is the objective, which is an eternal theme in our understanding of the electronic commerce and the establishment of the e-commerce specialty. The basic characteristics of the e-commerce specialty in higher vocational colleges are:

2-1. The electronic commerce specialty has the comprehensiveness of the disciplines.

The electronic commerce specialty is a new compound major, which relates to the techniques, economics, trades, management and other disciplines, blurring the line of the science and the humanities and social sciences. To highlight the application and the skills is the distinct features and characteristic of the e-commerce specialty in higher vocational colleges.

2-2. There is a full range of requirements of the qualities of the talents in the electronic commerce specialty

The electronic commerce specialized courses can be said to be constituted by three aspects of technology, business and professional characteristics. These courses, on the one hand, or the development of the original curriculum systems, and on the other hand, are the new curriculum with the development and popularization of the network economy and the e-commerce emerge as the times require. Therefore, the students of the electronic commerce specialty should have more foresightedness of the concepts, the wide radiation of the knowledge, the adaptability of the skills and other characteristics.

2-3. The e-commerce professional talents have the multi facet of the knowledge and abilities.

The electronic commerce is a comprehensive specialty with the theory and the practice closely combined with each other, which requires the employees should have the computer technology, network application, economy, trade, management and other aspects of knowledge. Therefore, the e-commerce professional students should not only have the solid foundation of the electronic theories, and the actual operational abilities of the electronic commerce, but also should have the abilities to analyze and solve the real business problems.

3. The training objectives of the e-commerce specialty in higher vocational colleges

There are three main ways for the institutions to cultivate the e-commerce personnel: first, the original computer science, and the specialty of the management information systems have extended to the field of the electronic commerce. This type of specialty is mainly focused on the electronic technology in the business activities, the computer technology, the hardware and software development of the website construction talents as the main training objectives, and are focused on cultivating the "technology oriented" talents for the development and maintenance of the electronic commerce systems. Second, the economic and trade specialty is permitted based on the EDI electronic trading, which mainly emphasize the e-commerce transactions. Therefore, the e-commerce professional talents training should be based on the business, which mainly cultivate the "application type" management talents for the e-commerce business. Third, it is developed from the management specialty, which mainly cultivates the students to use the Internet to achieve the on-line management of the enterprises, that is, the enterprise electronic commerce. The above three types are to cultivate the electronic commerce talents from different aspects, but the focuses are different.

The personnel training goal is the starting point of the construction of the specialty and the subject. The higher occupational education is to cultivate the advanced applied talents as the basic task. The relevant departments of the state define the occupation of the e-commerce engineers as: the professionals using the modern information technology and the computer network for the business activities. The main working contents are the Webpage production, logistics and distribution, electronic payment, data acquisition and processing, online survey, network marketing and so on. According to the occupational knowledge of the practitioners and the requirement of the skills and the work contents and so on, they can be divided into the electronic commerce members, the assistant, electronic commerce engineers, the e-commerce engineers and the advanced e-commerce engineers. Therefore, the personnel training of the electronic commerce specialty in higher vocational education should be to cultivate the senior "application type" personnel for the business management of the electronic commerce as the training objective, and focus on training the high-quality compound talents who have the solid theoretical foundation of the economic management and the modern business management, grasp the advanced information and science theories and technical methods, have the occupational skills to use the network to carry out the business activities, and can take up the modern business management, and the maintenance, management and application of the e-commerce systems.

4. Construct the reasonable curriculum systems of the electronic commerce specialty in higher

professional education

4-1. The problems that the setting of the curriculum systems of the electronic commerce specialty should take into consider

The rapid development of the e-commerce specialty brings some difficulties to the setting of the course systems of the electronic commerce specialty. But if the problem is not resolved well, it is very likely that the professional education of the electronic commerce will come apart with the practice of the electronic commerce. Even the students are far behind the reality before they are out of the school gate. Therefore, we should consider the following aspects of problems in the professional curriculum setting:

4-1-1. The professional curriculum setting should be forward-looking.

In the curriculum setting, we should follow the society-oriented and practice-oriented requirements, can carry out in advance the detailed investigation and the sufficient argumentation. Starting from the cultivation of the students' reasonable knowledge structures and the structures of abilities, we should carefully design the forward-looking specialized curriculum of the electronic commerce.

4-1-2. Increase the intensity of the practice teaching

Each professional course of the electronic commerce should be "substantial", with strong operability. After the completion of a course, we should let the students grasp the overall framework of the course, and the students should be aware of what kind of practice to do, what kind of problems to solve, and what goals to achieve. Each business module in the curriculum must be clear, and transparent, with overall coordination. Therefore, in the settings of the curriculum systems, we should increase the proportion of the practice teaching, to improve the ability of the practical application of the electronic commerce of the students.

4-1-3. Emphasize the combination of the schools and the enterprises, and promote the combination of the production, learning and research.

The schools should create conditions, so that the students are exposed to the real electronic commerce activities as early as possible, to form the resource environment that the enterprises, schools, and the students in the long term cooperate and mutually support each other. Not only should we allow the students to directly participate in the development and management of the actual projects of some IT enterprises, but we can also make the enterprises enter, and invite some people in the IT businesses to give lectures at the schools, laying emphasis on learning in order to practice, drive the teaching by the projects, and inspire students' initiatives and creative inspiration in learning the electronic commerce.

4-2. Construction of the professional curriculum system of the electronic commerce

The construction of the specialty course system of the electronic commerce should be based on the "student centered" modern educational and teaching theory, from the three aspects of knowledge, abilities and qualities, to set up the curriculum system of the e-commerce with all of the students, which adapt to the training objectives and requirements of the specialty.

4-2-1. Construction of "foundation + core + characteristics" curriculum system

The foundation curriculum is mainly based on the advantages of the economic and management discipline, to build the solid knowledge of the economy, management and computer theory of the students. The economic management course includes the macro economy, the micro economics, Introduction of Management, market economics, network marketing, and international trade. The computer courses include the computational basis, principle and application of the database technology, network technology and application, program designing and so on. The core curriculum focuses on the professional knowledge and theories of the electronic business, mainly including the introduction of e-commerce, security and authentication, electronic payment, logistics and distribution, Webpage production, website construction, electronic commerce system development and management. The featured courses are constructed around the application and development of the electronic commerce, and are the featured elective courses with the combination of the businesses and the technologies. The aim is to build up the practical abilities of the students to analyze and solve problems, and we can set up the "customer relationship management", "electronic commerce system development and management" and another characterized professional courses. These courses mainly include the technology curriculums and the business courses. The technology and business courses can be adjusted by the proportion of the class hours, and can also be adjusted according to the demands of the market. The higher vocational colleges mainly cultivate the students of the business application and management, and the suitable proportion of the technology curriculums and the business courses is 2:3.