Electronic Commerce: An Examination of Skills for a Successful Developer

The development of web-based, electronic commerce software has grown significantly in recent years. These software development applications have challenged information technology departments in business organizations to implement mission critical, strategic applications for their organization that in turn creates a significant demand for the technology personnel to support the development process. Therefore, the implementation of these systems requires talented personnel that have received formal training with the proper skills to develop successful applications. This research conducts a pilot survey of industry professionals to determine the necessary skills and training required of an undergraduate computer information systems professional seeking employment for these positions. In order to analyze the survey data, the difference between the respondents\u27 rankings (market importance - student competency) were compared to determine whether students attained a level of competency that was equivalent to the skill\u27s importance in the marketplace. Overall, the results illustrate that information systems graduates do not possess a high level of competency in several web-based development skills considered important by the marketplace. For the twenty-eight skills included in the survey, fourteen of the variables showed significant differences between the means scores as well as a negative value for the differences in the respondents\u27 rankings. Specifically, the respondents believed that Java was the web development skill as having the largest gap between the market importance and the level of competency possessed by a graduating student