Peer Review

Business Planning Tutorials

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Overall Rating:

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Effectiveness:

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Overview:: Business Planning Tutorials is a comprehensive site sponsored by the U.S. Small Business Administration. There is a comprehensive ranges of topics from starting and managing a business in the general sense to very industry specific suggestions and help for licensing and permits. Business Planning Tutorials is part of a much larger website at Business.gov. Business.gov is the official business link to the U.S. Government. It appears to be in the process of moving to SBA.gov
Type of Material:: Resource
Recommended Uses:: Useful for novice business people or more experience business people. There are search tools, interactive maps, and other resources to help people start, register, manage, and obtain loans for businesses.
Technical Requirements:: None.
Identify Major Learning Goals:: Learning goals are not explicitly stated, as this is a resource-based site. The overall goal of the site is to aid entrepreneurs in starting and managing their businesses.
Target Student Population:: Good for college management majors, free enterprise students, or business people.
Prerequisite Knowledge or Skills:: General understanding of the business process

Rating:
Strengths:: Outstanding. The resources are comprehensive, detailed, and presented in a very good order to help with basic business processes. Comprehensive database, especially in the industry specific materials.
Concerns:: Concerns might include whether or not the database is kept current at all times.

Rating:
Strengths:: This site could be used in a business course that requires development of a business plan. There are numerous sources to help students with just about every step of the process. It is extremely comprehensive. Useful data on demongraphics, which could be helpful in pointing out how important knowing the potential target market can be to success.
Concerns:: Knowing the "how to do it" of starting and managing a business is only the first step. Really successful entrepreneurs do not often share their secrets. There are no pre-set assignments, projects associated with this site at present.

Rating:
Strengths:: The site has many headings/subheadings to help the user not get too lost within the sea of information on this site.
Concerns:: The business.gov site appears to be moving to sba.gov so when you start at the business.gov portal, you end up in another domain at sba.gov. This may be confusing for some students.

Other Issues and Comments:: The stereotype of the slow pace of government agencies could impact faith in whether or not the materials are kept current. However, the comprehensive nature of the database is quite impressive. I would recommend watching business.gov and sba.gov to see if they eventually merge into one domain.
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