ACCT
5341 Syllabus
Bob Jensen at Trinity University
In late March and April, the heavy weekly preparation for ACCT 5341 classes will decline substantially so you can have time to do your very best on this project. You should, however, be well into the project when Progress Reports commence in February.
In addition to writing a project, you will be asked to review the project of another student. Both your project and your review will be graded.
Please remember the difference between research versus scholarship. Research, the extension of new knowledge, is never as easy as scholarship focused upon existing knowledge. Research is a flicker of light where the leading edge of literature drops off into a black unknown. A clever idea is far more enlightening than an encyclopedic mind at the dark edge. My hope is that some of you will have a clever idea. Without a clever idea, you will have to resort to only scholarship. I can't tell you where to find clever ideas. All I can do is help set the stage for your fertile imagination.
Completed Student Project are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/acct5341/projects/sp2000/000index.htm
I am requesting that students in my ACCT 5341 put their term project at a web site. Some of you have had to post materials to a web site previously in my course. Others will be learning how to create a web site in Dr. Reinig's e-Commerce course. There are reasons why certain materials should not be put at a web site. However, for the project in question I see no reason not putting the project for this course on the web. Students in my Computers in Business course put various assignments on the web. In accounting courses, however, you may get more resistance. You may also want to listen to Charles Christian’s audio comments about student projects on the web. His audio comments are located at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ideasmes.htm#Christian
There are many reasons for requesting that you put your project on the web. The main reason is that for those of you that have never put a document in a web site, it is high time that you did so before graduating with a masters degree in May. This is the era where web projects are replacing hard copy in academe and industry. Apart from that, however, the web site version will hopefully be a better project in my course.
You might take a look at some projects of former students at J:\projects\acct5341\1998sp and at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/acct5341/projects/sp2000/000index.htm. You should be able to click on the default.htm file to find a link to the projects. Projects of most of the students have been lost when TUCC wiped them off the student web server after graduation.
You are to place the project files in a special ACCT 5341 folder called ACCT 5341 in your space on the TUCC student web server. You are also required to turn your completed project files on two sets of floppy discs. However, your project will be graded from the web (except where Excel or Access files must be graded separately).
Let’s examine a few of the many reasons why you project should be on the web server. Consider by way of illustration, the project of Audrey Kinter in Spring of 1998.
In hard copy, Audrey's project must be mailed or attached to an email from persons who take the trouble to try to track her down. On the web, her work is easily accessible by anyone in the world unless blocked with a password, hidden URL, or intranet restrictions. Business firms are finding web publications much more effective and efficient than hard copy.
Unless printed in color, graphics and pictures are not nearly as effective as color screens on the web. This may be especially important in your project if you have a complicated Excel chart. Color can be used to make a chart more effective for readers. Even when printed in color, printing multiple copies becomes exceedingly expensive relative to "unlimited" copies of web versions.
A complex chart or table in hard copy can be broken down into simpler components using hypertext controls to hide and show these components. The components can be accompanied by explanations in text or audio.
One of the key advantages of a web project is the ability to link to sites of interest on a given topic. For example, Audrey’s project entailed using online exchange rate web sites. It is much easier to have live links to those web sites while reading her project.
Some long blocks of text, graphic images, audio, and video files cannot be legally copied and redistributed without written permission. In HTML, however, it is possible to make live links in your documents to the web sites containing those copyrighted materials.
On the web, Audrey’s project becomes a living thing that can be modified and updated whenever she is inclined to make modifications. In hard copy, it is much more difficult to revise and then redistribute to past users of her project.
If Audrey had interviews with experts while doing research on her project, she could add the audio or video of those interviews to her project. This may be much more effective in capturing the nuances of expert opinion than the transcription of those interviews into text. I will be glad to show you how to add audio to your project. It is really quite easy once you have a recording of the interview.
You will find that web publishing is really quite easy and much more effective in many ways than hard copy. And hard copy of a current version can always be obtained by the menu choice (File, Print) in your browser. Most importantly, web publishing is really a piece of cake after only a few hours of practice.
You must get approval of a project topic in advance. Each student is to turn in a project that is not a partnership or other joint effort. No two students will be allowed to focus on identical types of derivative or other financial instruments.
The final projects must be at your web site by 8:00 a.m. on April 18. Late penalties are assigned at 5% per day for each day late. Your project must be available at your web site. If you have Excel or Access files, please submit these files on two floppy disks (one disk is for me and the other is for the student who will be randomly assigned to review your project.)
You are to write a case and a case solution on the broad topic of "Measuring Value and Risk." Examples of possible tracks to follow are shown below:
Accounting for
Expectations: Accounting for forward-looking information, which includes these quantitative and
qualitative disclosures outside the financial statements. For
example, you might focus on new technologies for providing data in
disaggregated databases for real time analysis by investors.)
You may also find the following message from Phil Livingston, President of the FEI of interest when selecting a project topic:
CASE STUDIES ON MANAGING THE VALUE OF INTANGIBLES
Financial reporting in the Industrial Age was a bricks-and-mortar affair, based on valuing assets like plants, equipment and property. That was then. Today it's knowledge assets like R&D, software, human capital, etc. that produce wealth. In a research study sponsored by FERF, leading companies discuss strategies for managing and measuring intangibles. The first three case studies (Apple Computer, Corning, Sun Microsystems) are available online at: http://www.ferf.org/download/value.pdf OR http://www.ferf.org/cur_projects.html .
Half (50%) of your grade on the project depend upon my evaluation (along with one student reviewer) of the creativity of your ideas. Another 25% is based upon scholarship (referencing, links, discussions of what others have done, and evidence of your knowledge of your subject. The other 25% of the grade will depend upon writing quality, web links, graphics, and general appearance of your project on the web. You are to very carefully read the reasons that I am requiring you to put this project on the web.
After April 18 you are required to evaluate the project of one other student whose project is randomly assigned to you for careful evaluation. Two copies of your typed evaluations are to be submitted. One copy will go to the project author. The other copy will go to Professor Jensen for grading. The evaluations are to be written in the spirit of how a student might improve the project for possible publication in a research journal. The evaluations will be anonymous when reported back to the project authors.
Criteria used in grading the project include the following:
The case is creative in helping students learn about a
difficult issue in accounting theory. In other words, the case is more than
mechanical bookkeeping or a mere review of literature. It contains a
challenge to students for analytical thinking and then demonstrates a
creative analytical solution to the questions posed in the case.
The case is creatively written in a style helps attract
student interest and attention. For example, student are often interested in
cases that relate to the real world (such as using actual pricing
information from the Wall Street journal as illustrated in the CapIT and
MarginWHEW cases), humor (such as the Muppets case), clever settings (e.g.,
a game show), and clever deductions (as in a mystery story), etc.
The case and case
solution demonstrate scholarship
(referencing, links, discussions of what others have done, and evidence of your knowledge
of your subject.) Special attention should be devoted to theory
literature.
In addition to
relevant citations to books and journal articles, the case and case solution
contain interesting links such as links to FASB documents, SEC documents,
IASC documents, and materials on line from financial analysts, corporations,
and professors.
The case appears to have been a valuable learning experience for both the author and should be an interesting learning experience for future readers.
The project evaluation form for reviewing a student's project is provided at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/acct5341/projeval.htm