New
Bookmarks
Year 2002 Quarter 3: July 1-September 30 Additions to Bob
Jensen's Bookmarks
Bob Jensen at Trinity
University
We're moving to the mountains on July 15, 2002 --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/NHcottage/NHcottage.htm
For earlier editions of New Bookmarks, go to http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookurl.htm
Click
here to search Bob Jensen's web site if you have key words to enter --- Search
Site.
This search engine may get you some hits from other professors at Trinity
University included with Bob Jensen's documents, but this may be to your
benefit.
For date and
time, try The Aggie Digital Clock --- http://yugop.com/ver3/stuff/03/fla.html
Time anywhere in the world http://www.worldtimeserver.com/
Bob Jensen's Dance Card
Some of My Planned Workshops and
Presentations --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/resume.htm#Presentations
A
sad song for the anniversary of September 11 --- http://www.link4u.com/littledidsheknow.htm
U.S.
flag lovers should note the animated cartoon at http://www.beetlebailey.com/images/flag.swf
Choose a Date Below for Additions to the Bookmarks File
September 24, 2002 September 10, 2002
August 30, 2002 August 20, 2002
Quotes of the Week
Windows Breaks
Microsoft issued a strong security warning and urged users of all Windows
operating systems to apply a critical patch. http://update.informationweek.com/cgi-bin4/flo?y=eIy80BcUEY04e0Binh0AN
In this great
land called America, no child will be left behind.
President George W. Bush in "The No Child Left Behind
Act."
Department of Education Annual Plan 2002-2003 --- http://www.ed.gov/pubs/annualreport2001/annualplan2003.pdf
This report is much better than many academic researchers might expect. It
deals heavily with data quality problems and grant opportunities.
In education, a Grace Hopper nanosecond is a prop
used by a teacher to help students understand an abstract concept. The teaching
tool got its name from the short lengths of telephone wire that Admiral Grace
Hopper used to give out at lectures. Admiral Hopper used the 11.87 inch-long
wires to illustrate how in one billionth of a second (a nanosecond) an electronic
signal can travel almost twelve inches. In addition to being a gifted
programmer, Admiral Hopper was quite famous during her lifetime for her teaching
skills. Admiral Hopper believed that by providing the learner with a concrete
analogy already in their frame of reference, it was possible to absorb and even
understand an abstract concept that might otherwise be too difficult to
comprehend. Towards the end of her life, when asked which of her many
accomplishments she was most proud of, Admiral Hopper replied, "All the
young people I have trained over the years."
(See below.)
The Problem?
Cap Gemini strayed from its roots while attempting to quickly climb up the IT
services value chain. Probably its biggest mistake of recent times, and
the one that sealed Unwin's fate, was buying Ernst & Young consulting in May
2000, just before the Internet bubble burst.
Douglas Harward, "Back to
Basics," Upside, September 2002, Page 20.
Greatness does
not consist in receiving honours but in deserving them
Aristotele
A proverb is a short sentence based on long
experience
Miguel
de Cervantes
Forwarded by Auntie Bev
A new therapy for diabetes -- in which stem cells play
a crucial part -- promises to eliminate routine insulin injections and ease
symptoms for those with the disease.
http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,55239,00.html
Sometimes our
light goes out but is blown into flame by another human being. Each of us owes
deepest thanks to those who have rekindled this light.
Schweitzer Albert
Microsoft Corp. said that the CNBC on MSN Money
online personal finance service has introduced a college financing center to
help consumers better understand how to prepare for, save for and fund a college
education. To help consumers navigate the world of college financing, the
service a range of content, from articles on 529 plans and higher education tax
breaks to tuition calculators and links to colleges nationwide.
Found in Syllabus News, September 13, 2002. See http://www.money.msn.com/
The only way to keep your health is to eat what you
don't want, drink what you don't like, and do what you'd rather not.
Twain
Mark
"In Corporate America It's Cleanup Time Under pressure, a slew of companies are now changing the way they do business. Will it last?," by Jerry Useem, Fortune, September 16, 2002 --- http://www.fortune.com/indexw.jhtml?channel=artcol.jhtml&doc_id=209348
This is a huge change of heart that has come remarkably fast. Between 1992 and 1999, the number of companies beating First Call estimates by exactly one penny quadrupled--and investors rewarded those companies for what was seen as great reliability. Now, says Baruch Lev, an accounting professor at New York University, "there will be suspicion of exactly meeting estimates, or beating them by a penny"--the presumption being that those companies could be accused of cooking their books. Corporate executives feel the heat. In a poll taken by Kennedy Information, publisher of Shareholder Value magazine, 46% said the wave of scandals had harmed the way investors viewed their companies, while 43% were changing the way they did business.
The most visible change has been a stampede to expense stock options; as of press time, 81 companies had announced they would treat stock options as a cost of doing business. But the cleanup has extended to insider selling, financial disclosure, even CEO pay--all issues that fed the image of corporate corruption. "Hopefully, this will convince my mother that companies are serious and that the numbers can be trusted," says Peggy Foran, vice president for corporate governance at Pfizer.
At Citigroup, under fire for its financing of Enron and WorldCom, CEO Sandy Weill is adopting what Prudential analyst Mike Mayo sarcastically calls "just-in-time corporate governance." Besides doing an about-face on the issue of expensing all stock options, Weill has set up a special governance committee, pledged to avoid any deals involving hidden off-balance-sheet transactions, and reaffirmed a "blood oath" never to sell more than 25% of his Citigroup stock.
I delight in
men over seventy, they always offer one the devotion of a lifetime.
Wilde
Oscar
Question: Why was George Orwell just plain
wrong? (although I worry that terrorism may turn us back toward an
Orwellian track.)
Answer:
I used the following quotation in 1994 at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/215ach06.pdf
No one has been more wrong about computerization than George Orwell in 1984. So far, nearly everything about the actual possibility-space that computers have created indicates they are not the beginning of authority but its end. In the process of connecting everything to everything, computers elevate the power of the small player. They make room for the different, and they reward small innovations. Instead of enforcing uniformity, they promote heterogeneity and autonomy. Instead of sucking the soul from human bodies, turning computer users into an army of dull colons, networked computers --- by reflecting the networked nature of our brains --- encourage the humanism of their users. Because they have taken on the flexibility, adaptability, and self-connecting governance of organic systems, we become more human, not less so, when we use them.
Birkerts, S. (1994). “The electric hive: two views,” Readings, May, 17-25.
Princeton University Tops New Ranking of Educational
Institutions Princeton Again Tops 'US News'
Little changed this year in the top 10 compared to last year. Five institutions
tied for fourth place this year: California Institute of Technology, Duke
University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University, and the
University of Pennsylvania. Dartmouth College was ninth, followed by Columbia
University and Northwestern University, which tied for 10th place.
http://chronicle.com/free/2002/09/2002091302n.htm
Update on the "Best Colleges" Index --- http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/college/rankings/rankindex_brief.php
Trinity University is once again Number 1 in the West --- http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/college/rankings/brief/univmas/umwest/tier1/t1univmas_w_brief.php
It may be the
case that the U.S. News rankings are as conscientiously and fairly constructed
as anything that has yet come along. But I fear that even if meaningful rankings
were possible, they do more harm than good in serving the needs of prospective
students. Rankings contribute to the erroneous notion that a first-rate college
education is something that one is handed upon admission. But a student's
success in acquiring an education depends much less on consumer ratings of the
product being offered than on the effort, dedication and creative energy a
student invests in learning. Rankings both underestimate the amount of work it
takes to get a college education and overestimate the importance of a
university's prestige in that process. In that way, they may do considerable
harm to the educational enterprise itself.
Professor Richard Beeman, The New York Times, September 17, 2002
My September 30, 2002 updates on the accounting auditing, and corporate governance scandals are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraud093002.htm
My
new and updated documents the recent accounting and investment scandals are at the following sites:Bob Jensen's threads on the Enron/Andersen scandals are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraud.htmBob Jensen's SPE threads are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen//theory/00overview/speOverview.htmBob Jensen's threads on accounting theory are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory.htmBob Jensen's Summary of Suggested Reforms --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudProposedReforms.htm
Bob Jensen's Bottom Line Commentary --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudConclusion.htm
The
Virginia Tech Overview: What Can We Learn From Enron? --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraudVirginia.htm
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The New DeloitteLearning Center --- http://www.deloittelearning.com/
The ultimate success or failure of an effective Corporate Governance process rests with Boards of Directors who have an obligation to ensure that their organizations, accountants, audit committees and law firms act in accordance with corporate bylaws, charters, policies and the rules of law.
Deloitte & Touche is pleased to provide this learning resource in order to advance the effectiveness and awareness of Corporate Governance through quality education on topics of great importance to members of corporate boards, audit committees and senior management.
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Jagdish informed me about the following free document from the Pew Internet and American Life Project --- http://www.pewinternet.org/reports/pdfs/PIP_College_Report.pdf
The Internet Goes to College
How students are living in the future with today’s technology
Principal author: Steve Jones, Senior Research Fellow Pew Internet
Project Survey Analysis: Mary Madden,
Research Specialist Research assistants: Lisa N. Clarke Sabryna Cornish Margaret
Gonzales Camille Johnson Jessica N. Lawson Smret Smith Sarah Hendrica Bickerton
Megan Hansen Guenther Lengauer Luciana Oliveria Wendy Prindle James Pyfer
Pew Internet & American Life Project Lee Rainie, Director 1100 Connecticut Avenue, NW – Suite 710 Washington, D.C. 20036 202-296-0019 http://www.pewinternet.org/
Summary of Findings
College students are early adopters and heavy users of the Internet
College students are heavy users of the Internet compared to the general population. Use of the Internet is a part of college students’ daily routine, in part because they have grown up with computers. It is integrated into their daily communication habits and has become a technology as ordinary as the telephone or television.
- One-fifth (20%) of today’s college students began using computers between the ages of 5 and 8. By the time they were 16 to 18 years old all of today’s current college students had begun using computers – and the Internet was a commonplace in the world in which they lived.
- Eighty-six percent of college students have gone online, compared with 59% of the general population.
- College students are frequently looking for email, with 72% checking email at least once a day.
- About half (49%) first began using the Internet in college; half (47%) first began using it at home before they arrived at college.
- The great majority (85%) of college students own their own computer, and two-thirds (66%) use at least two email addresses.
- Seventy-eight percent of college Internet users say that at one time or another they have gone online just to browse for fun, compared to 64% of all Internet users.
- College Internet users are twice as likely to have ever downloaded music files when compared to all Internet users: 60% of college Internet users have done so compared to 28% of the overall population.
- College Internet users are twice as likely to use instant messaging on any given day compared to the average Internet user. On a typical day, 26% of college students use IM; 12% of other Internet users are using IM on an average day.
There are many more conclusions regarding academic and social impact of the Internet on students. Download the rest of the summary and the full report from http://www.pewinternet.org/reports/pdfs/PIP_College_Report.pdf
Hundreds of
Free Classic Books
Page by Page Books --- http://www.PageByPageBooks.com/
Page by Page books is committed to bringing you a wide selection of the best public domain books available, all in an easy to read format.
Most sites with online books have the whole book on one page, forcing you to wait while the whole thing downloads. Even worse, if you don't read the whole book in one sitting, how do you keep track of where you are? Do you really want to have to look through thousands of lines to find where you left off? Some sites are better in that they put one chapter per page. Even this is hard. What if you get interrupted in the middle of the chapter? How do you bookmark it? To fill this void, PageByPageBooks.com was created. Read a little or alot, sneak in a few pages over lunch then read some more after dinner, no matter how much you read at a time, you can bookmark it and come back to exactly the right place.
In this age of expanding distance
education and training, colleges and universities should look toward partnering
within communities. Significant funding is available.
Office of University Partnerships (OUP) --- http://www.oup.org/
A powerful force for community revitalization is gaining momentum across the country: university-community partnerships. In growing numbers, institutions of higher education are collaborating with community groups to apply research, scholarship, and service to real-life problems. They are integrating such partnerships into their curriculum, academic studies, and student activities, making them part of their ongoing mission. America's institutions of higher education have more intellectual talent than any other institutions in our society, and many of them are using these partnerships to tackle the complex socioeconomic issues facing the neighborhoods that surround them, such as poverty, joblessness, crime, and homelessness.
Recognizing the crucial role that America's institutions of higher education can play in rebuilding communities large and small, HUD established the Office of University Partnerships (OUP) in 1994 to encourage and expand the efforts of institutions of higher education that are striving to make a difference in their communities through funding opportunities. Whether the institution has a venerable history of reaching out to lower income neighborhoods or is just beginning to explore the potential of such partnerships, OUP can help increase the scope, effectiveness, and sustainability of its community-building efforts
Bob Jensen's bookmarks on funding alternatives are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2.htm#050421Grants%20and%20Funding
Wow Education Site of the Week
From the Scout Report on September 20, 2002
Biology in Motion [Flash]
http://www.BiologyInMotion.com/
Produced by Dr. Leif Saul, a biology teacher and Web site/ game developer, Biology in Motion has two new interactive education activities. Organize-It introduces an alternative way to test biological understanding by organizing concepts hierarchically. This exercise intends to "remedy some of the shortcomings of the traditional multiple-choice quiz." Users can choose self-tests from a variety of biology topics. Evolution Lab allows users to investigate how natural selection works by watching an animated simulation. Both activities are interesting and effective learning tools. While the Flash features may seem geared toward kids, the content and language are really meant for older students. Helpful tips for using this Web site's activities in the classroom are provided. This site is worth a visit even for those not searching for teaching material. This site is also reviewed in the September 20, 2002 _NSDL Life Sciences Report_.
Wow Technology of the Week
"What's New," Suzanne Kantra Kirschner, Popular Science --- http://www.popsci.com/popsci/science/article/0,12543,351353,00.html
It's the most promising audio advance in years, and it's coming this fall: Hypersonic speakers, from American Technology (headed by the irrepressible Woody Norris, whose radical personal flying machine appeared on our August cover), focus sound in a tight beam, much like a laser focuses light. The technology was first demonstrated to Popular Science five years ago ("Best of What's New," Dec. '97), but high levels of distortion and low volume kept it in R&D labs. When it rolls out in Coke machines and other products over the next few months, audio quality will rival that of compact discs.
The applications are many, from targeted advertising to virtual rear-channel speakers. The key is frequency: The ultrasonic speakers create sound at more than 20,000 cycles per second, a rate high enough to keep in a focused beam and beyond the range of human hearing. As the waves disperse, properties of the air cause them to break into three additional frequencies, one of which you can hear. This sonic frequency gets trapped within the other three, so it stays within the ultrasonic cone to create directional audio.
Step into the beam and you hear the sound as if it were being generated inside your head. Reflect it off a surface and it sounds like it originated there. At 30,000 cycles, the sound can travel 150 yards without any distortion or loss of volume. Here's a look at a few of the first applications.
1. Virtual Home Theater How about 3.1-speaker Dolby Digital sound? With hypersonic, you can eliminate the rear speakers in a 5.1 setup. Instead, you create virtual speakers on the back wall.
2. Targeted Advertising "Get $1 off your next purchase of Wheaties," you might hear at the supermarket. Take a step to the right, and a different voice hawks Crunch Berries.
3. Sound Bullets Jack the sound level up to 145 decibels, or 50 times the human threshold of pain, and an offshoot of hypersonic sound technology becomes a nonlethal weapon.
4. Moving Movie voices For heightened realism, an array of directional speakers could follow actors as they walk across the silver screen, the sound shifting subtly as they turn their heads.
5. Pointed Messages "You're out too far," a lifeguard could yell into his hypersonic megaphone, disturbing none of the bathing beauties nearby.
6. Discreet Speakerphone With its adjustable reach, a hypersonic speakerphone wouldn't disturb your cube neighbors.
Continued at http://www.popsci.com/popsci/science/article/0,12543,351353,00.html
In this great
land called America, no child will be left behind.
President George W. Bush in "The No Child Left Behind
Act."
Department of Education Annual Plan 2002-2003 --- http://www.ed.gov/pubs/annualreport2001/annualplan2003.pdf
This report is much better than many academic researchers might expect. It
deals heavily with data quality problems and grant opportunities..
Napster started in a college kid's dorm room. Now, students at USC face the prospect of campus life without Net access if they're caught swapping MP3s and other files on the school's network --- http://www.wired.com/news/mp3/0,1285,55159,00.html
Bob Jensen's threads on Napster are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/napster.htm
New Tax Breaks for Students
From the IRS --- http://www.irs.gov/irs/news/0,,i1%3D42%26articleId%3D84150,00.html
Worried about the rising cost of tuition? Well, the IRS has good news for students. Some wide-ranging tax law changes for 2002 may provide you with a little extra lunch money. Here is what's on the education menu that could take a bite out of your taxes.
Students are entitled to as much as $5,250 in employer-provided educational assistance -- tax free! This tax benefit was scheduled to end for undergraduate-level courses beginning after 2001, but is now extended indefinitely and includes graduate-level courses as well.
Some people may deduct up to $3,000 of qualified higher education expenses for courses during 2002, even if they don't itemize deductions on Form 1040, Schedule A.
And interest on student loans for higher education may now be deducted whenever paid and regardless of the age of the loan.
Saving up for school? The icing on the cake may be a Coverdell education savings account (ESA) or qualified tuition program (QTP). Changes in the law have made it easier to contribute to these programs and have increased the tax benefits on distributions from these accounts.
Before deciding what's best for you, do all your homework. Read up on income limits, phase outs, qualifying expenses, who can contribute and more. You can look at a quick summary of the 2002 tax law changes on education incentives. Or check out Publication 970, Tax Benefits for Higher Education, to learn about some smart ways to save on your taxes.
Common Faults With Accounting Firms' Web Sites
AccountingWEB US - Sep-16-2002 - By Steve McIntyre-Smith Ph.D, President,
MarketingForAccountants.com There are many, many reasons why so many Web sites
fail to achieve results. Here are some of the top problems found by the
AccountingWeb --- http://www.accountingweb.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=87660
- Beauty and the beast. Having a beautiful looking web site is not why people buy from you. Think for a moment. Why do you go onto the web? For information. We surf to find answers to questions, to find something that will help improve our firm and give us a competitive edge.
The best-looking sites are often not the best sites! Your web site can be a downright ugly one, but if it has "killer" content that your prospects just have to have, guess what? Visitors will usually forgive you. They will appreciate you spending your budget on content. Call it substance over style.
The lesson learned here? Always spend more time/money/resources on content rather than a fancy looking design.
- Not tuned-in to W.W.I.fm. This is the world’s most popular radio station, only in this case, it’s not a radio station. W.W.I.fm stands for WHAT’s IN IT FOR ME. Or in this case, from your own viewpoint, WHAT’s IN IT FOR THEM.
Visitors don’t give a damn about how long your firm has been in business, who your clients are, how well qualified you guys are to meet their needs (this all comes later, much later).
People visit your site because they have a problem that their present adviser may not be satisfying them on, and they want to know if you have the answer.
Starting your site off with pages about we, us, me, me, me will not impress.
Instead, you need to show empathy and understanding, demonstrate your expertise, maybe give away some free advice and tips and show the visitor that your firm has the solution they seek, and, in fact, is the ONLY firm for them.
For the other reasons, go to http://www.accountingweb.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=87660
Founded in 1776, Dartmouth College is truly old school. But its precocious use of technology -- including a vast wireless network -- makes it a prototype for tomorrow's unwired society --- http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/10.10/dartmouth.html
September 18, 2002 message from glan@UWINDSOR.CA
A "Gooogle" search of the word "cybrary" provided this link on effective teaching which might be of interest to some faculty members, pre-tenure ones especially. It is at http://cte.uncwil.edu/et/cybrary.htm . In particular, the "Teaching Goals Inventory " by Thomas Angelo and Patricia Cross (1993) from the University Iowa articles, is an interesting and useful one.
George Lan
University of Windsor
Congratulations to Carolyn Strand, Dick Baker and David Stout
September 16 message from Dasaratha Rama
[dvrama@stx.rr.com]
Regarding the Teaching and Curriculum Section of the American Accounting
Association.
The Teaching & Curriculum Section also instituted a T&C Research Award in 2001-2002. Please join me in congratulating our first winner of the research award Dr. Carolyn A. Strand, Assistant Professor at Seattle Pacific University. Dr. Strand received the award for an outstanding contribution to education research for her article "Using the Team-Learning Model in a Managerial Accounting Class: An Experiment in Cooperative Learning." Dr. Strand received the award and a check for $500 at the T&C Section breakfast on August 15, 2002, in San Antonio, Texas.
The T&C Section presented the first "The Teaching and Curriculum Section Distinguished Achievement Award" for notable contributions to accounting education, research, and practice at the Annual Meeting in San Antonio. Congratulations to our award winners Dr. Richard Baker (Northern Illinois University) and Dr. David Stout (Villanova University). The criteria for selection are significant scholarly output in the area of accounting education and professional activities aimed at enhancing accounting curriculum and delivery, including participation in T&C Section activities and/or other beneficial service to accounting educators.
I have long contended that colleges and universities will move more and more into certificate programs to supplement their degree programs. This is especially the case given the revenue opportunities and low cost of online certificate programs vis-a-vis degree programs. An illustration is given below.
From Syllabus News on September 17, 2002
College Develops Custom Certification Program
The College of Extended Studies at San Diego State University has developed a certification program in telecommunications that is customized for employees of a company that provides voice and data services outsourcing. Under the customized certification program, employees of Profitline Inc. will take university-level courses to further their understanding of telecom services and technology. "Our program in telecommunications examines the most recent developments in this rapidly changing industry, and is designed so that graduates of the program can make their companies more successful and profitable," said William Byxbee, dean of SDSU's College of Extended Studies. ProfitLine chief Rick Valencia said, "providing our employees a customized curriculum from a world-class university will help us attract better talent, improve the knowledge base of our existing team, and enable us to provide even better service to our growing base of enterprise clients."
For more information, visit: http://www.neverstoplearning.net .
Forwarded by Scott Bonacker, CPA [scottbonacker@MOCCPA.COM]
Scott recommends the free GoPeep software at http://www.gopeep.net/index.djc?pg=1022
GoPeep!™ lets you:
- Browse and search within live data.
- Browse any ODBC database without the application, as long as the driver is installed.
- Browse more than 160 different applications and data types (click here for a pop-up listing).
- Identify "mystery data" with "view as hex" functionality.
- Use SQL queries to browse just the data you’d like to view.
- Browse and search within files too large to open in Text Pad.
You can find definitions of ODBC and SQL at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/245gloss.htm
Featuring the results of the third round of the Pew Grant Program in Course Redesign, faculty project leaders will show how to increase quality and reduce costs using information technology. Faculty from four institutions will talk about their models of course redesign, including their decisions regarding student learning objectives, course content, learning resources, course staffing and task analysis, and student and project evaluation. These models provide varied approaches that demonstrate multiple routes to success, tailored to the needs and context of each institution. For further information, please visit http://www.center.rpi.edu/LForum/learnenv.html.
Question:
How is the online MBA Program for PwC consultants doing at the University of
Georgia?
Answer:
Download Denny Beresford's MP3 file at http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/002cpe/02start.htm#2002
(Scroll down just a bit.)
Hi Dan,
Fortunately, JavaScript is much, much easier to learn than Java and DHTML. JavaScript is an easy way to add user interactions on your Web documents. The next step up is DHTML, but DHTML is difficult to program and adds about ten times as much code to your document (ToolBook uses DHTML templates and Microsoft uses DHTML for interactive Excel Web documents). I guess the next step up is Java, but you must devote your life if you want to become a Java programmer.
I would begin with my tutorial illustrations at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HelpersVideos.htm#JavaScript
For a more complete set of tutorials,
go to http://www.pageresource.com/jscript/
Note the tutorial listing at http://www.pageresource.com/jscript/index4.htm
Free book --- http://www.cs.brown.edu/courses/bridge/1998/res/javascript/javascript-tutorial.html
Never trust password protection JavaScripting. These are never as secure as password protections in Java and other more sophisticated codes.
Other suggestions include the following:
http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/98/03/index0a.html
http://www.webteacher.com/javascript/
There are a variety of books that pretty much have the same content. One popular book is Netscape Visual JavaScript For Dummies by Emily A. Vander Veer
Bob
-----Original Message-----
From: Dan Gode [mailto:dgode@stern.nyu.edu]
Sent: Saturday, September 14, 2002 1:48 AM
To: Jensen, Robert Subject: JavascriptBob:
What is the best way to learn javascript?
Dan
September 14 reply from Dan Gode with respect to my comment above about password protection.
Thanks a lot for your detailed help. If you want to have fun, check out http://www.elcomsoft.com
Dan
Innovation of the Week
Nanotechnology, which is advancing faster than researchers originally predicted, could make the world a less-polluted place and help sustain its burgeoning population --- http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,55024,00.html
For scientists who study it, nanotechnology is considered a clean technology, perhaps even the key to solving some current environmental ills.
And the field is advancing rapidly.
The National Science Foundation has been cutting its timetable for the release of nanotech-fueled products from five or 10 years to two or three years, said Mihail Roco, NSF's senior adviser on nanotechnology.
First products likely to emerge are in medicine, Roco said.
Nanotechnology will so thoroughly affect the way science addresses medicine, food, electronics and the environment, that within a decade or so, Roco envisions a $1 trillion yearly market in products that carry nano-components, including all computer chips, half of pharmaceuticals and half of chemical catalysts.
The current state of nanotechnology mirrors the level of development in the field of polymers and plastics in the 1930s, when it was in its infancy, said Kevin Ausman, director of the Rice University Center for Biological and Environmental Nanotechnology. The plastics industry quickly expanded, providing the materials for a large portion of manufactured goods.
With the world's population expected to reach 11 billion by 2050, scientists like Roco believe nanotechnology could allow governments and industry to keep the planet livable, by slashing waste and helping provide sustainable food, water and energy.
NSF's National Nanotechnology Initiative, which leads the U.S. government's efforts in the field, has been researching nanotechnology's potential environmental benefits.
Roco and other proponents say that, for instance, filter systems for drinking or waste water, natural gas pipelines and smokestacks can be designed at the molecular level, to remove even the most minuscule of impurities. For water, that means cleaner drinking. For gas, finer filtration means cleaner burning, with fewer smog-creating impurities.
And industrial plants may be able to use more sensitive emission "scrubbers" that screen even nano-sized flecks of soot from waste gases.
Nanoparticles are also being examined for use as sensors to monitor air or drinking water for the presence of toxins. Farther out, such sensors might be networked to give a full picture of the environment and any encroaching pollutants even chemical or biological weapons.
Pollution-absorbing nanoparticles that can be used to clean up tainted water or soil is another concept under study, Roco said.
And the entire concept of building devices at the molecular level means that products will be smaller. There is less waste in the production process and in the trash, when nano-devices are discarded at the end of their lives, Roco said.
"By understanding the molecular level, the overall trend leads to sustainable development the opposite of increased pollution," Roco said.
This new service from Google Answers is disturbing.
Students can now pay to have their homework answered by experts
Some claim using the Net to do homework
shows that today's kids are resourceful. But a rise in content cribbed straight
from online sources, like Google Answers, has teachers on alert.
"Thin Line Splits Cheating, Smarts," vy Dustin Goot, Wired News,
September 10, 2002 --- http://www.wired.com/news/school/0,1383,54963,00.html
Most teachers wouldn't be surprised to hear that students have bribed friends or siblings to do their homework in exchange for a few bucks.What might surprise them is that Google Answers sometimes takes school kids up on the offer.
Staffed by a cadre of 500-plus freelance researchers, the service takes people's questions -- for example, a calculus problem or a term paper topic -- and provides answers and links to information. Google charges a listing fee of 50 cents and, if someone comes up with a satisfactory response, the user pays that researcher a previously entered bid (minimum: $2).
Although Google Answers has a policy encouraging students to use the service as a study aid rather than a substitution for original work, several cases show that students often ignore this advice.
One student in Quebec, dismayed by a response that offered only background research for a paper on religion, pleads, "Make it into an essay, not just links and quotes. I need this asap PLEASE!!! 2500 words is the minimum."
While researchers are scrupulous enough not to churn out a completed term paper -- despite the Quebec student's $55 bid -- other potential homework questions, such as math or science problems, can be harder to identify. In some cases researchers acknowledge that a question looks like homework -- but they still provide the answer.
The dilemma faced by Google Answers researchers highlights a broader issue that vexes many educators around the country. Namely, where do you draw the line between appropriate and inappropriate uses of the Internet and how do you stamp out clear abuses such as cutting and pasting entire paragraphs into an essay?
The question first entered many educators' consciousness following a Kansas cheating scandal earlier in the year that made national headlines. At Piper High School, near Kansas City, a biology teacher failed 28 of 118 students for plagiarism on an assignment that consisted of collecting and gathering information about local leaves.
However, many students (and their parents) contended that there was nothing improper about the leaf descriptions they submitted, which had been lifted straight from the Internet. Others claimed it was unclear where proper citation was required.
Tamara Ballou, who is helping implement an honor code at her Falls Church, Virginia, high school, said that it is not uncommon for teachers and students to disagree on what constitutes academic dishonesty.
"We took a long time to define cheating," she said, noting that many kids felt it was acceptable to copy homework from each other or off the Internet if the assignment was perceived as "busy work."
"A lot of kids don't even know what (plagiarism) is," agreed Kevin Huelsman. "They say, 'Yeah, I did the work; I brought it over (from the Internet).'"
Continued at http://www.wired.com/news/school/0,1383,54963,00.html
| See also: | ||
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| • | Where Cheaters Often Prosper | |
| • | Got Cheaters? Ask New Questions | |
| • | Schools, Tech: Still Struggling | |
"Got Cheaters? Ask New Questions," by Dustin Goot, Wired News, September 10, 2002 --- http://www.wired.com/news/school/0,1383,54996,00.html
Jamie McKenzie has spent his whole career trying to get schools "to ask better questions." But now that he preaches better questions as an antidote for rampant Internet plagiarism, a lot more teachers are listening.
In the professional development seminars he gives, McKenzie said, 60 to 80 percent of teachers cite cases of plagiarism in their classrooms. A more formal study, conducted by a professor at Rutgers University, found that more than half of high school kids "have engaged in some level of plagiarism on written assignments using the Internet."
According to McKenzie, however, students aren't solely to blame for this trend. Many assignments teachers give, he said, are conducive to cheating. "It is reckless and irresponsible to continue requiring topical 'go find out about' research projects in this new electronic context," McKenzie wrote in a 1998 article in "From Now On," an online educational journal he edits.
Instead, teachers must distinguish between trivial research and meaningful research, which asks kids to "analyze, interpret, infer or synthesize" material they have read.
Patti Tjomsland said that in Washington's Mark Morris High School, where she serves as a media specialist, the standard book report of the old days does not even exist anymore. Instead, teachers favor compare-and-contrast essays or personal opinion pieces asking students what they would do in a certain situation. Content for these kinds of essays, Tjomsland explained, is not readily available online.
McKenzie hopes that more schools will follow Mark Morris High's example. "A lot of concern (about plagiarism) is translated into more careful scrutiny," he said. "I would like to see the concern translated into better assignments."
Bob Jensen's threads on plagiarism are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/plagiarism.htm
John Howland reminded me of the U.S. Navy ship named the USS Hopper --- http://www.jerrypournelle.com/reports/jerryp/hopper.html
September 12, 2002 message from Dee (Dawn) Davidson [dgd@MARSHALL.USC.EDU]
This item came up today in one of the research sites and because it relates to the joy of teaching, I wanted to pass it along. The link I enjoyed the most is the last one. This story will be published shortly.
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TODAY'S WORD: Grace Hopper nanosecond See our definition with hyperlinks at http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/0,,sid9_gci850361,00.html
In education, a Grace Hopper nanosecond is a prop used by a teacher to help students understand an abstract concept. The teaching tool got its name from the short lengths of telephone wire that Admiral Grace Hopper used to give out at lectures. Admiral Hopper used the 11.87 inch-long wires to illustrate how in one billionth of second (a nanosecond) an electronic signal can travel almost twelve inches. In addition to being a gifted programmer, Admiral Hopper was quite famous during her lifetime for her teaching skills. Admiral Hopper believed that by providing the learner with a concrete analogy already in their frame of reference, it was possible to absorb and even understand an abstract concept that might otherwise be too difficult to comprehend. Towards the end of her life, when asked which of her many accomplishments she was most proud of, Admiral Hopper replied, "All the young people I have trained over the years."
RELATED TERMS:
Grace Hopper http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/0,,sid9_gci213732,00.html
nanosecond http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/0,,sid9_gci212620,00.html
_____________________
SELECTED LINKS:
Grace Hopper is pictured here holding one of her famous nanoseconds. http://www.norfolk.navy.mil/chips/grace_hopper/grace4.jpg
Grace Hopper often cautioned her programming students not to waste a nanosecond. http://www.gracehopper.org/gmh.html
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dee davidson
Accounting Systems Specialist
Marshall School of Business
Leventhal School of Accounting
University of Southern California 213.740.5018
September 17, 2002 message from Fathom
We've added dozens of new courses for educators which we urge you to explore. Many courses follow a fall enrollment schedule, so sign up today.
To view all courses in Fathom's Teacher Center, please visit: http://www.fathom.com/link.jhtml?cid=depm&page=teachers
or go to one of the courses listed below.
Children's Materials: Evaluation and Use This course is a study of library materials for children with an emphasis on literature in its various forms. http://www.fathom.com/course/1406/dep1
Distance Learning Assessment Theory This course includes in-depth modules with various assessment formats that can be used for evaluating students in online courses. http://www.fathom.com/course/1270119/dep1
Intervention Strategies for Struggling Readers This course focuses on implementing research-based assessment strategies for emerging and intermediate readers. http://www.fathom.com/course/61705316/dep1
Courses on Fathom are evaluated by the Educational Media Evaluation Group at Teachers College, Columbia University, and meet the highest standards for instructional quality and design.
From The Wall Street Journal Accounting Educators' Review on September 13, 2002
TITLE: HealthSouth Corp. Executives Had
Hint of Billing Problems
REPORTER: Ann Carrns
DATE: Sep 05, 2002
PAGE: A2
LINK: http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB1031186453640899435.djm,00.html
TOPICS: Accounting Changes and Error Corrections, Advanced Financial Accounting,
Disclosure Requirements, Earning Announcements, Financial Accounting
SUMMARY: HealthSouth Corp. is being required by Medicare to reduce billings for certain physical therapy services they provide. The change will have a substantial impact on the company's profitability.
QUESTIONS:
1.) Describe HealthSouth Corp.'s operations as you understand them from the
article.
2.) Describe the nature of the problem facing HealthSouth Corp.'s executives. What accounting adjustment will result from resolving this matter? Specifically state the journal entry that will have to be made. What accounting standard governs this adjustment? How will this item be displayed and what disclosures about it must be made in the financial statements?
3.) Why does the author title this issue a "billing problem" rather than a revenue recognition issue?
4.) The author questions whether HealthSouth executives should have alerted investors to this problem earlier than they did. Under what venue would they make this disclosure? What standards or regulations govern the requirement to disclose this information to investors?
5.) Management argues that they would not have had to disclose this item to shareholders if it were not material. What defines materiality? Could the issue be material even in the amount affecting current year results is small relative to the company's overall operations? Explain.
6.) Do you think the discussion of Mr. Scrushy's executive stock options is relevant to the issue at hand? Why do you think the author included this information?
Reviewed By: Judy Beckman, University
of Rhode Island
Reviewed By: Benson Wier, Virginia Commonwealth University
Reviewed By: Kimberly Dunn, Florida Atlantic University
Bob Jensen's threads on the Columbia/KPMG and other related medical billing frauds can be found at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraud.htm#HealthcareFraud
From The Wall Street Journal Accounting Educators' Review on September 13, 2002
TITLE: Ford Publicly Disputes Report
That Questions Its Accounting
REPORTER: Norihiko Shirouzu
DATE: Sep 11, 2002
PAGE: D2
LINK: http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB1031694288520975795.djm,00.html
TOPICS: Accounting, Accounting Fraud, Accounting Irregularities, Cash Flow,
Financial Accounting, Financial Analysis, Financial Statement Analysis
SUMMARY: Gary, Lapidus, an analyst with Goldman Sachs Group Inc., issued a report alleging that Ford Motor Co. overstated its cash balance and cash flows. Ford is publicly disputing the allegations.
QUESTIONS:
1.) Describe the issue related to Ford Motor Co. being questioned by Mr. Lapidus?
2.) Does Ford Motor Co. have an obligation to make immediate payments to Ford Credit? If the payments are not made, is the cash balance overstated? Are cash flows overstated? Do there appear to be any problems with the accounting? Support your answer.
3.) If Ford Motor is required to make the payments in the future, how should the obligations be reported in the financial statements? Do the future payments influence net income in the current and/or future periods?
4.) Discuss the logic underlying Mr. Lapidus's criticism of Ford Motor Co. Is delaying cash payments a good economic decision? Does the accounting appear to reflect the underlying economics of the transaction? Support your answer.
Reviewed By: Judy Beckman, University
of Rhode Island
Reviewed By: Benson Wier, Virginia Commonwealth University
Reviewed By: Kimberly Dunn, Florida Atlantic University
China's latest move in its Internet crackdown reroutes people trying to access Google to no-name search engine sites, infuriating many users --- http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,55030,00.html
Top 20 eBooks --- http://www.questia.com/top20ebooks/top20ebooks.html
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Bob Jensen's threads on electronic books are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ebooks.htm
From the Smithsonian
Wonder Books: Rare Books on Early Museums http://www.sil.si.edu/Exhibitions/wonderbound/
Bob Jensen's history and museum bookmarks are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2.htm#History
The Mark Twain House (History, Literature) --- http://www.marktwainhouse.org/
St. Paul's Cathedral (Religion, History, Art, Architecture) --- http://www.stpauls.co.uk/rindex.htm
Will Durant Foundation (History of Civilization) --- http://www.willdurant.com/home.html
The British Museum: World of Money --- http://www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk/worldofmoney/
American Folklore --- http://www.americanfolklore.net/
From Syllabus News on September 9, 2002
Microsoft Opens Online College Financing Center
Microsoft Corp. said the CNBC on MSN Money online personal finance service introduced a college financing center to help consumers prepare for, save for and fund a college education. The company said it launched the service response to the changing rules and policies surrounding college savings plans. It will include content ranging from articles on 529 plans and higher education tax breaks to tuition calculators and links to college scholarship information. "Financing a college education is a major investment, and with recent legislative changes, it has become an even more complicated process," said Karen Redetzki, product manager for the Financial Products Group at Microsoft, who hopes the service will be a one-stop reference for families.
Beyond the "Old School"
From the AICPA --- http://www.aicpa.org/pubs/jofa/sep2002/edu.htm#Competencies—The%20Differential!
What’s in store for the next generation of accountants? To attract students to the profession and provide them with the knowledge and skills necessary for success, practitioners and educators are employing a three-pronged strategy. First, they encourage early college, high school and even younger students to consider accounting careers. Second, they create challenging, mind-stretching curricula. Third, they support efforts to make early career experiences attractive. This special section offers an overview of current activities and opportunities to help. Beyond the “Old School”
By the Numbers | Education Innovations | Teaching the Teacher | It’s Career Day Again—Resource List |
The 2001 report, The Supply of Accounting Graduates and the Demand for Public Accounting Recruits, documents the demographics of the accounting profession. Anyone will find the report useful. It is available online at www.aicpa.org/members/div/career/edu/sagdpar.htm.
The data are based on an AICPA survey of colleges and universities that offer accounting degrees at the bachelor’s, master’s or PhD level and of public accounting firms and sole practitioners affiliated with the Institute.
SUPPLY DATA FROM COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES
In 1999–2000, approximately 37,000 students received bachelor’s degrees in accounting and 8,000 earned master’s degrees. Compared to 1998– 1999, the number of bachelor’s degree recipients decreased 10%; however, the number of master’s degrees awarded increased 19%.
DEMAND DATA FROM PUBLIC ACCOUNTING FIRMS
DEMAND PROJECTIONS BY PUBLIC ACCOUNTING FIRMS
*The survey, which was conducted during the second quarter of 2001, did not reflect either the downturn in the economy during the second half of 2001 or the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Influenced by the Bedford report—the 1986 study of the gap between what accounting students learned in school and what accountants actually did on the job—Kansas State University (KSU) set out in 1990 to transform its accounting curriculum from the traditional “preparer” perspective to one focused on broader learning objectives that included
THE REVISED CURRICULUM
In place today, the curriculum is a five-year program in which students graduate with a bachelor’s degree at the end of four years but are expected to stay and complete a master’s-in-accountancy degree. The five-year approach was chosen because the faculty realized a fifth year was necessary to achieve its objectives and not to comply with the advent of the 150-hour requirement.The curriculum revision was based on two criteria: that students should understand simple topics before more complex topics and content would be based on how students learn, using Bloom’s taxonomy of cognitive skills. (Bloom’s hierarchy begins with knowledge and comprehension, followed by application and analysis, synthesis and evaluation.) In contrast a traditional curriculum schedules courses based on the order topics appear on the balance sheet; the result is that the first course is intermediate accounting, which many consider the most difficult in terms of content. In the revised curriculum, therefore, topics were sequenced so students did not have to apply a higher skill level than their learning background supported. In addition integrated into every course were activities that promoted the skills the profession demands:
The curriculum also uses five levels:
THE RECRUITING PROGRAM
Rather than use the “build it and they will come” approach, KSU said an objective of the new curriculum was to attract and retain the best possible students. As a result, the department developed an extensive program.Two faculty members and the Accounting Advocates, a group of 10 to 12 graduate and undergraduate students, administer it. The Accounting Advocates are an essential component; they act as ambassadors for the department by making presentations to high schools, talking to visiting high school students and meeting with visiting dignitaries. Accounting students apply to be advocates in their junior year and serve throughout their graduate program.
The recruiting program targets high school teachers, counselors and students and undecided college freshmen and sophomores. Every school district in the state receives a recruiting video created by the accounting department. The recruiting program reaches
SUCCESS
Compared to 1989, there are now 35% more accounting majors and the quality of students (as measured by ACT, SAT and GPA) has increased. Enrollment in the master’s program increased 500% over the same time period. This increase occurred in spite of the fact that the GPA required for admission to the accounting major was significantly increased.—Dan Deines, CPA, Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas
The teacher internship program (TIP) educates high school teachers about the accounting profession. Through TIP, state CPA societies connect teachers with firms and businesses in summer internships to provide them with “real world” business and accounting experience. Providing educators with professional business experience that can be incorporated into their classroom curriculum and learning activities results in well-educated students, which benefits business and the workforce as a whole.
The AICPA Foundation provided seed money to help develop a training program for state societies and to assist firms in paying for internships. In the summer of 2001 the Indiana state society piloted the TIP with great success. Heather Bunning, the society’s communications and public relations manager, worked with the IRS and Ernst & Young to provide internships respectively to Paulette Lewis, a high school business-education teacher, and Charlene King, a high school mathematics teacher.
AT THE IRS
Lewis saw many facets of the IRS at the Indianapolis office, including exams, appeals, advocate services, and taxpayer and practitioner education and communication. She learned about resources available to the public and to educators she could use in her classroom. She plans to open a volunteer income tax assistance site at her school to assist taxpayers during filing season. And conversely, Lewis provided the IRS with a fresh perspective on the materials needed by educators. According to IRS manager Ken Williams, the experience was invaluable: “Through Ms. Lewis’ experience, we hope to reach high school students so they view the IRS as a source of information and are better prepared when it comes time for filing returns.”WORKING AT ERNST AND YOUNG
King’s internship was with the tax compliance group at E&Y. She attended both E&Y’s tax analyst training and firmwide orientation programs. In the tax compliance group, King worked on tax returns for individuals, non-U.S. residents, not-for-profit agencies and trusts. She expanded her technical skills and her knowledge of databases and computer software. She also learned of the many job opportunities available in the accounting and tax field. King said she had had a great experience at E&Y and was especially excited to be able to apply math topics using real-world examples for her students.A resource guide was published to assist states or firms interested in implementing the program. To receive it, download a copy from www.aicpa.org/members/div/career/edu/index.htm.
It’s Career Day Again—Resource List
MATERIALS AVAILABLE—CPA iPACK
The AICPA offers the CPA Information Package (CPA iPACK). Its highlights are the “Takin’ Care of Business” video, education handbook and career guides. The 15-minute video features five young, successful CPAs in exciting careers ranging from an FBI special agent to the controller of the New York Jets. Combining animation with real-life profiles, this entertaining video also discusses CPA career opportunities. The handbook contains 15 lesson plans, with objectives and instruction procedures, topic overviews, student-learning activities and solution sets. The iPACK also contains 25 career guides that discuss services CPAs provide and the industries they work in, as well as earnings potential and the requirements for becoming a CPA. Enclosed also is a Presenter’s Guide, with topics of discussion and an order guide for purchasing additional CPA iPACKs or its components, a list of state CPA society contacts, a poster and a questionnaire/ evaluation form.Orders for the iPACK or its individual components can be placed through CPA2Biz at 888-777-7077. The iPACK product number is 872530 and the cost is $20 plus shipping and handling.
TEACHER EDUCATION
To help teachers use the iPACK materials, the AICPA created the high school educator symposium concept. The symposium is an all-day conference (approximately 8:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.) that can be held at various locations, including a state society’s facility, a college campus or a hotel. Teachers specializing in mathematics, economics and business education as well as career advisers, principals and administrators from targeted high schools are invited to attend. Guidance counselors and career advisers from colleges and universities in the area are invited as well. A resource guide is available to assist states or firms interested in implementing the program. To obtain a copy, download it from www.aicpa.org/members/div/career/edu/index.htm.WORKING WITH BETA ALPHA PSI
Student recruiting with Beta Alpha Psi (BAP) is a program that educates and informs high school students of the career opportunities in accounting. Working through the state CPA societies, a CPA teams up with a BAP student to make presentations to high school audiences. The AICPA has prepared a resource guide for this program with guidelines and suggestions for implementing it. To obtain it, download a copy from www.aicpa.org/members/div/career/edu/index.htm."COOL" STUDENT WE SITES:
CPA Exam Update
The AICPA, the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy (NASBA) and Prometric, a technology-based testing company, signed a joint agreement to deliver a computerized Uniform CPA Examination. The last paper-based CPA exam will be delivered in November 2003; a computer-based exam will replace the paper exam starting in early 2004.The AICPA will continue to create and grade the computerized CPA exam; NASBA and the state boards of accountancy will be responsible for its overall administration. Prometric will deliver the exam to candidates through its network of testing centers.
The AICPA launched a Web site dedicated to the CPA exam: www.cpa-exam.org. The site contains information about the exam, with links to the AICPA, NASBA and the state boards of accountancy. The computer-based exam will assess critical skills, with increased emphasis on information technology and general business knowledge, and will broaden the scope in the audit and attest areas.
The AICPA board of examiners approved the structure, length and content specifications for the new format. A copy of the policy document is available at www.cpa-exam.org or from the AICPA examinations team. Contact Geyla Kotlyar at 201-938-3427 or via e-mail at GKotlyar@aicpa.org.
Continued at http://www.aicpa.org/pubs/jofa/sep2002/edu.htm#Competencies—The%20Differential!
National CPA Student Recruitment Campaign
Finding the Best and Brightest—One Firm’s Experience
150-Hour Requirement
Diversity Drive at the AICPA
Competencies—The Differential!
Most College Students Get Low Marks in Money Management, SmartPros, September 4, 2002 --- http://www.smartpros.com/x35199.xml
Sept. 4, 2002 (The News and Observer) — NEW YORK (AP) - If you're getting ready to ship your kid off to college, make sure you pack some financial advice with those bed sheets.
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Students just starting college often have little or no knowledge of the most basic financial planning concepts. Yet failing to instruct college-bound children on personal financial management can lead to serious problems - the most dangerous of which could be mounting credit-card debt.
Resources for students and parents on everything from smart savings strategies to seeking out low interest-rate debt have grown tremendously in recent years. Parents and students today can look to their financial aid officers, youth magazines or online for financial advice.
Lack of financial savvy isn't a new problem among college students. But today's harsher economic climate has increased the need for tight budgeting. Additionally, easy access to credit cards on campuses makes ignorance more dangerous than ever because students easily can ruin their credit history.
According to a July survey by student-loan agency Nellie Mae, 83 percent of college students had credit cards in 2001, up from 67 percent in 1997. While average debt levels dropped in 2001 to $2,327 from $2,748 the year before, more than 27 percent of students had balances that exceeded $3,000, compared with 22 percent in 2000.
Meanwhile, financial awareness among young people may even be deteriorating. The average 12th grader scored 50.3 percent - a failing grade - on a financial literacy test provided by the JumpStart Coalition for Personal Financial Literacy this year. That is down from 51.9 percent in 2000 and 57.3 percent in 1997.
"When I was young, and I ran out of cash, that was it," said Dara Duguay, executive director of JumpStart, a youth-oriented financial education program. "Today, if young adults want to live beyond their means, credit cards provide a very easy way to do that."
Fortunately, resources that provide students with basic financial guidance are abundant and appear to be growing. Students can usually get free advice right on campus from their financial aid officer, from online youth organizations or from their campus credit union.
Parents whose children departed home without any financial savvy can help by sending information. Finding the right resources is vital because sometimes parents don't know the rules, Duguay said.
Financial aid officers, once thought of simply as the finders of loans and grants, often can provide guidance on many aspects of one's financial life, said Dallas Martin, president of the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, a trade group for financial aid workers in Washington.
Paying for school and budgeting, "they tie together," Martin said. As a result, many financial aid officers today offer budgeting lessons and advice on how to increase income, he said.
The weak economy has increased the need for financial guidance.
"There's a lot of pressure this year, more than I've seen in the past," Martin said. Students are watching their college funding decrease as state budgets tighten and parents lose jobs. If the financial aid officer cannot find students additional funding, he or she might be able to land them a job or help them cut back spending.
Campuses today also are much more likely to offer financial guidance during freshman orientations or through free written materials. The National Endowment for Financial Education, a publisher of financial educational materials, has brochures that it delivers through programs such as the United Negro College Fund and the American Indian College Fund. Topics range from basic tutorials about balancing a checkbook to advice on the dangers of online gambling and identity theft, said Brent Neiser, director of collaborative programs.
Continued at http://www.smartpros.com/x35199.xml
Are you a person that attaches little Post-it’s
as reminders? You can do the same thing on your computer files.
Dnoter 3.0 http://www.ruinedsoft.com/dnoter/index.html
Downloading it was quick and easy on my XP system.
You get a little icon called “denoter ruined software” on the bottom right of the screen. When you right click on that icon, you get options to create new notes or to bring up old notes.
The term “ruined” bothered me at first, but nothing seems to be ruined. I suspect “ruined” is an acronym for something or other. The program allows you to add and recall notes. It is important to put meaningful titles on your notes. You can also make them expire at some future day and time.
I find it most useful to make them opaque.
One problem that with my installation is that the Dnoter will not remember notes that I wanted saved when my machine is shut down and then rebooted. It will only remember notes while my machine is left on. I guess this is one of the problems with Dnoter 3.0 still being in Beta. In any case, I uninstalled my Dnoter because of this flaw.
I’m told you can do similar things with MS Notes, but I don’t know how to run MS Notes (which is not the same thing as Notepad).
You can read the following at http://www.ruinedsoft.com/dnoter/index.html
This program allows you to effectively keep track of notes on your desktop as if they were post-it's. The program runs quietly in your system tray and you can start adding notes by double clicking on it. Notes maybe be repositioned, made transparent, resized, colored, locked, and hidden. Very light program (less than 100k). Just download, extract, and run.
The program comes in two flavors. The installer version using SuperPiMP technology was made for those who don't mind a few extra kilobytes of download (35 or so) and is an easy to use installation interface. The exe only version is exactly the same and is just perfect if you know what you're doing with your computer.
Very clean, effective way to keep track of random crap. Your notes are stored in the "notes" directory. They are rich text formatted (after the first line anyway), so you can open them up in Notepad to modify them if you really need.
- version 3.0a is now in distributions files, seems to fix some peoples' windows 2k errors. Make sure to "save all" if you still get errors
- 9 1 2002
- version 3.0
- readme updated
- always on top and
- bring to front menus added
- note menus revised
- text manipulation functions added to note menu
- notes snap to edge of screen when dragging
- right clicking system tray icon works
- fixed menu focusing errors
- got rid of cancel from system tray menu
- disabled show and lock until notes have given them a purpose
- drag notes using right mouse button
- can now right click a note anywhere for properties
Paula Ward says you can do most of these things using MS Notes
I've never tried pasting them to other documents, but there is an attachment feature that may do that. You can change the color, change the size, move them anywhere you want, categorize them, change the view of the notes folder (small icons, large icons, details), sort various ways, etc. As for making them always on top, I'm not sure. I usually open a note, move it to where I need it--next to another window or application. I use many of my notes like little "cheat sheets" so that, e.g., all I have to do is copy from the note and paste the information where needed, instead of re-typing.
I would be lost without them!
Paula
3M company is not very happy with MS Notes --- http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/law/st_org/iptf/headlines/content/1997012302.html
September 21 message from the developer of Denoter --- steven grafton [cms5@umail.ucsb.edu]
Yes, there is a problem with some machines and shutting down directly without exiting dnoter manually first. I think I have found the answer with the next version. You can see a preview of the next version (with this fix) at:
http://www.ruinedsoft.com/dnoter/dnoter4a.exe
To test it, replace the current exe with this one, and run it. If you test this and reply with your findings, I'd be very appreciative.
I haven't really seen, heard of, or used any other note programs (which is why I made this one) so I don't really have the authority to compare my program to others. If your newsletter doesn't come out for another week, I can get around to testing the MS Notes before then and get back to you. If you can wait a few days for a reply I will have no problem with my response being included in your newsletter.
I am planning on releasing a new version in a few days should this fix work for you (it has already worked for others), then you can have an up to date release for the newsletter too. Please reply soon.
Thanks for your time.
Steven.
News from Microsoft --- http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/migrate/unix/default.asp
As the Windows platform continues to evolve to address changing business computing needs, many organizations currently on UNIX platforms are turning to Windows to run their new client and server business applications. They're discovering that moving to the Windows platform does not require abandoning existing investments in UNIX applications and infrastructure.
This section explains why customers should consider migrating to Windows from UNIX. It also provides detailed information for IT professionals and developers on how to move from UNIX systems to Windows XP, Windows 2000, and the upcoming Windows .NET Server and Microsoft .NET Web services platforms.
Princeton University Tops New Ranking of Educational
Institutions Princeton Again Tops 'US News'
Little changed this year in the top 10 compared to last year. Five institutions
tied for fourth place this year: California Institute of Technology, Duke
University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University, and the
University of Pennsylvania. Dartmouth College was ninth, followed by Columbia
University and Northwestern University, which tied for 10th place.
http://chronicle.com/free/2002/09/2002091302n.htm
Update on the "Best Colleges" Index --- http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/college/rankings/rankindex_brief.php
Trinity University is once again Number 1 in the West --- http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/college/rankings/brief/univmas/umwest/tier1/t1univmas_w_brief.php
It may be the
case that the U.S. News rankings are as conscientiously and fairly constructed
as anything that has yet come along. But I fear that even if meaningful rankings
were possible, they do more harm than good in serving the needs of prospective
students. Rankings contribute to the erroneous notion that a first-rate college
education is something that one is handed upon admission. But a student's
success in acquiring an education depends much less on consumer ratings of the
product being offered than on the effort, dedication and creative energy a
student invests in learning. Rankings both underestimate the amount of work it
takes to get a college education and overestimate the importance of a
university's prestige in that process. In that way, they may do considerable
harm to the educational enterprise itself.
Professor Richard Beeman, The New York Times, September 17, 2002
From Syllabus News on September 17, 2002
Study Says Rankings Have Little Impact on College Choice
As the US News & World Report rankings of universities hit newsstands last week, a study of factors that influence college choice concluded that rankings do not play a significant role in student decisions about where to apply and enroll. Instead, the study, done by StudentPoll, a newsletter published by educational consultants Art & Science Group, said other factors, including school web sites, campus visits, parents, and current students and alumni, all have more influence over students' decisions. "That some institutions make major educational policy and investment decisions on the basis of their hoped-for effect on the rankings is misguided, since the rankings have no major consequences for the recruitment of undergraduates," said Richard Hesel, publisher of StudentPoll.
From Syllabus News on September 13, 2002
PT Students in Internet Cheating Ring
The Federation of State Boards of Physical Therapy (FSBPT) said it uncovered widespread Internet cheating by physical therapy students preparing to take the National Physical Therapist Examination (NPTE). The organization said students were conducting illicit sharing of recalled or memorized exam questions via the Internet, and were using, among other sites, the discussion forum of International Educational Resources, Inc. (IER), an exam preparation vendor, to do it. FSBPT said is conducting an investigation, including identifying individual students who have participated in the cheating. For more information, visit: http://www.fsbpt.org
MSN Launches College Financing Center
Microsoft Corp. said that the CNBC on MSN Money online personal finance service has introduced a college financing center to help consumers better understand how to prepare for, save for and fund a college education. To help consumers navigate the world of college financing, the service a range of content, from articles on 529 plans and higher education tax breaks to tuition calculators and links to colleges nationwide.
For more information, visit: http://www.money.msn.com/
Easy Thumbnails http://www.fookes.com/ezthumbs/index.html
At its new Tokyo showroom, Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., maker of the Panasonic brand, is enticing Japan's gadget lovers with two model "houses of tomorrow." --- http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5621-2002Sep11.html
September 19, 2002 message from the FEI Research Foundation
PARTNERSHIPS HAVE BIG PAYOFF FOR FAST-GROWTH COMPANIES
PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (PwC) says that the sharing of resources boosts profit opportunities, innovation and revenues. PwC interviewed CEOs of 411 product and service companies identified in the media (such as Forbes, Fortune, and Inc. magazines) as the fastest growing (in revenues) U.S. businesses over the last five years. PwC labels these companies "Trendsetters."Over the past three years, more than half (56%) of these "Trendsetters" have participated in multiple partnerships with outsiders. Of these partnerships, 37% were formed to improve existing product lines and 29% were formed to develop new ones.
"Trendsetter" CEOs cite three major benefits of partnering: * Increased profit opportunities (88%); * Defense of competitive position (87%); and * Increased sales of existing products (80%).
Partnering takes many forms, but there are three primary ways to partner: * Technical consultations (65%); * Cooperative research (38%); and * Licensing (38%).
Somewhat surprising, "Trendsetter" CEOs attribute nearly a quarter of their current revenue (23%) to products or services developed in partnership with others. Over the next three years, 70% expect to receive even more revenue through partnerships.
There are, however, some risks to partnering. A total of 13% of companies involved in partnering reported losses to their partners, including: * Loss of scientists or other team workers (8%); * Loss of inside trade secrets (4%); and * Loss of proprietary technology (4%).
On the plus side, only 4% rated their loss as very or somewhat serious, and only 1% of those reporting losses said they expect to do less partnering over the next three years.
This article was taken from the August 26, 2002, issue of PwC's "Trendsetter Barometer": http://barometersurveys.com/production/barsurv.nsf/89343582e94adb6185256b84006c8ffe/596ec2b6cbf21daa85256c1e006770de?OpenDocument
For other issues of PwC's "Trendsetter Barometer": http://barometersurveys.com/production/barsurv.nsf/vwNewsDocsTrendsetter?OpenView
HistoryLink (includes audios, essays, etc.) --- http://www.historylink.org
What is HistoryLink?
HistoryLink is an evolving online encyclopedia of Seattle and King County history. It is being written on and for the Internet to establish a new baseline history in anticipation of the 2001-2002 sesquicentennial of the establishment of Seattle and King County, Washington, USA. HistoryLink is also being designed to serve as a model for other communities seeking to preserve and present their histories via the Internet.We should stress that HistoryLink, like the community it describes, is a work in progress. New features and database files are being added on a daily basis. We welcome your comments and suggestions, and we encourage citizens to add their own stories to our "People's History" archive.
HistoryLink is provided as a public service and educational resource. It is produced by History Ink, a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization, with the support of local governments, institutions, businesses, labor unions, foundations, and individual donors. See our sponsor page for a complete list of HistoryLink supporters and for guidance on how you can help.
Click here for a brief automatic slideshow on HistoryLink's goals. Also, we offer a brief illustrated history of the project, and a link to an article on HistoryLink published in the The Seattle Times on July 1, 2001.
Bob Jensen's history bookmarks are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2.htm#History
World Development Report 2003 --- http://econ.worldbank.org/wdr/wdr2003/text-17926/
One of the things I do out of sheer boredom on a long flight, is to open the airline's in-flight magazine and scan the classified advertisements. One can usually obtain a PhD for around $350 in cash and a seven day waiting period. There are other graduate degrees available.
My point is that technology has not changed education fraud much over time, although phony degrees are now easier to advertise and can pop up from Web searches. One of the things I really hate is when the phony "college" name on the diploma is exactly like or similar to your own. There is a diploma bucket shop in the U.K that will give you a phony degree and let you declare the name of the college you want it to be from, e.g., Trinity College or Trinity University. We have had some "graduates" of that diploma mill actually contact our Career Placements Department at the real Trinity University and ask for assistance in getting "post-graduate" jobs.
The good news is that really phone degrees are so commonplace that most legitimate colleges and employers are somewhat wary. But it is easy to be careless! What amazes me is how commonplace it is for persons to practice as "doctors" without having the proper medical degrees and licenses. Now that's scary!
For some reason, Utah is often the address of choice for some of these is Salt Lake City. I think Utah needs to fix up its state laws (perhaps it has since the last time I looked).
For those with phony degrees, I can recommend some promising investment opportunities in Nigeria.
Bob Jensen
Original Message-----
From: Davidson, Dee (Dawn) [mailto:dgd@MARSHALL.USC.EDU]
Sent: Sunday, September 08, 2002 12:29 PM
To: AECM@LISTSERV.LOYOLA.EDU Subject: Phony "Distance Learning" on the WebGood Morning, Bob and others with a stake in Distance Learning.
This article is in Sunday's L.A. Times. It discusses the phony diploma mills that are available through the internet. Phony diplomas and even "schools" that award diplomas for a small fee have been around forever. My excerpt here has 2 points of interest to us:
1. the book by John Bear includes these places with the legitimate schools offering Distance Learning. 2. one of the "illegitimate" places is named Trinity College and could be easily confused with Trinity University.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-diploma8sep08002107.story?coll=la%2Dheadlines%2Dbusiness
'But unlike traditional diploma mills, the online versions exploit the wide reach of the Internet to send millions of e-mail advertisements promising degrees without "tests, classes, books or interviews.... No one is turned down."
The history of so-called universities that sell degrees without any education or true evaluation of experience goes back at least to the 19th century, said John Bear, coauthor of "Bear's Guide to Earning Degrees by Distance Learning," which includes information on diploma mills operating on the Internet.
"Nothing has much changed, except that on the Internet it's so much easier," he said. "You can set up a site in an hour and send out e-mails. Then you just need a printing press."
There may be dozens of these operations, with names such as Earlscroft University, thought to originate in Belgium, and Trinity College and University, with offices in Pakistan and Venezuela.'
dee davidson
Accounting Systems Specialist
Leventhal School of Accounting
Marshall School of Business 213.740.5018 dgd@marshall.usc.edu
Bob Jensen's threads on distance education are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/crossborder.htm
Bob Jensen's threads on fraud are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraud.htm
The WSJ module below offers some great ideas for interdisciplinary student projects and research.
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL INTERDISCIPLINARY NEWSLETTER Volume I Issue 1 September, 2002
ARTICLE 1
Home Sales Increased Last Month By Jon E. Hilsenrath and Patrick Barta 08/27/02
Page A2
ARTICLE URL: http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB1030370584740926515,00.html
ARTICLE 2
Risk of home purchase By (Reporter)
ARTICLE URL: http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB1029591562619326355,00.html
ARTICLE 3
Housing Prices Continue Ascent, Fueling More Fears of a Bubble By Patrick Barta
8/14/2002
ARTICLE URL: http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB1029269911436918675,00.html
ARTICLE 4
New-Home Sales Surge 6.7% As Buyers Lock In Low Rates A WALL STREET JOURNAL
ONLINE NEWS ROUNDUP- Economy Section 08/26/02
ARTICLE URL: http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB1030370584740926515.djm,00.html
ARTICLE 5
Economic Forecast Group ECRI Sees No Housing Bubble By John Mcauley-Dow Jones
Newswires 08/21/02
ARTICLE URL: http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,BT_CO_20020821_004098.djm,00.html
ARTICLE 6
TALES OF THE TAPE: Homebuilders Flourish Despite Economy By Janet Morrissey, Dow
Jones Newswires 08/09/02
ARTICLE URL: http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,BT_CO_20020809_004194.djm,00.html
These brief articles directly address the question posed in this first edition of the Interdisciplinary Review for Fall 2002.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:
1. Accounting.
With banks lending more funds, possibly to households that have overextended
themselves with regard to their mortgage, should banks significantly increase
their bad debt reserves?
2. Economics and Finance.
What is a market bubble? Is there is a housing-market bubble, should people wait
for the bubble to burst before purchasing a new home? Discuss the financial risk
of a home purchase. What are ways to reduce the risk?
3. Economics and Finance.
How do decreases in mortgage rates affect housing prices? How do housing
appraisals affect home prices? Why are some banks set appraisals at below a
buyer-seller negotiated price?
4. Economics.
Over the long term, why do housing prices tend to grow at the same rate as
incomes? Why do housing prices tend to increase at a rate of one or two
percentage points above the rate of overall inflation?
5. Entrepreneurship.
Is the "hype" surrounding the sharp increase in housing values likely
to spawn some rather "questionable business propositions," such as
"get rich in housing" books, seminars, investment funds, and actual
businesses? If so, how does one know how to separate legitimate opportunities
from scams? Explain your answer.
6. Entrepreneurship.
What types of opportunities are created for entrepreneurs when housing values
increase sharply, and what types of opportunities are created when housing
values deflate quickly? Make your answer as thoughtful and substantive as
possible.
7. Information Technology.
Please point to http://online.wsj.com/documents/indicate.htm
. What is this wsj.com site about? Why is it useful?
8. International.
Please point to http://www.nahb.com/international/default.htm
and prepare a brief report on the content and the design of this site.
9. International.
The number of new homes built in Britain fell last year to its lowest peacetime
level since 1924. (Just 162,000 houses and flats were completed, little more
than half the figure for France, a country with a similar population.) Please
speculate on the reasons why the housing market in the US is different from that
of Britain.
10. International.
Currently Hong Kong residents are buying property in China. You can find
information about this by pointing to http://online.wsj.com/article_print/0,,SB1029938541329711875,00.html
11. International.
Prepare brief written summary. What this article tells you about Hong-Kong's
housing market? Is this a bubble or a long-term change?
12. Introduction to Business.
Are escalating housing prices a good thing or a bad thing for the housing
industry? (Think of the housing industry broadly, including new construction,
home repair, and home service providers). Explain your answer.
13. Management.
What impact do you think high housing values, like those found on Long Island
and in Boston, have on a firm's ability to attract new employees? For example,
do you think it's getting progressively harder for Boston-based companies to
attract mid-level mangers to move to the Boston area, where the medium price for
a new home is $397,700? How can a company work around this problem? Explain your
answer.
14. Management.
Do you think that employees, who are anxious about their personal finances, as
the result of the ups and downs in the stock market and housing market, are less
productive at work? If so, what steps can companies take to help employees deal
with these types of anxieties? Make your answer as thoughtful and substantive as
possible.
15. Marketing.
What is housing bubble? Why, if at all is there a concern that it might burst?
16. Marketing.
Is there a housing bubble in your region? Do you agree that the extension of
easy credit is currently helping to fuel housing bubble? Why or why not?
17. Marketing.
Please point to http://www.nahb.com/housing_issues/default.htm
and report on the NAHB's goals and objectives for 2002.
18. Marketing.
According to Mr. Todd Buchholz, former White House economic advisor, housing
will be the leading driver of economic growth over the next decade. Please point
to http://www.nahb.com/housing_issues/safe.htm
and prepare a brief oral report summarizing the reasons why Mr. Buchholz takes
this position.
Bob Jensen's threads on derivatives disclosures can be found by scrolling down at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/acct5341/speakers/133glosf.htm#D-Terms
Matching Researchers With Research Problems (Aaron Konstam informed me of the Innocentive site) --- http://www.innocentive.com/
InnoCentive is an exciting new Web-based community matching top scientists to relevant R&D challenges facing leading companies from around the globe. We provide a powerful online forum enabling major companies to reward scientific innovation through financial incentives.If you're a scientist, registering as an InnoCentive "Solver" provides the opportunity to find challenges that match your interest and receive professional recognition and significant financial rewards for your solutions.
And if you're a company seeking R&D solutions, becoming an InnoCentive "Solution Seeker" will give you immediate access to a pool of leading scientific talent. Learn More
Forwarded by Debbie Bowling
"Microsoft Word flaw allows digitally signed forgeries," by Dan
Richman, MSNBC News, September 13, 2002 ---
Microsoft Corp.'s flagship word-processing software has a security flaw that could allow creating perfect forgeries of digitally signed documents, the company confirmed yesterday.
The flaw in Microsoft Word opens the door to fraud, because digital signatures are intended to assure the authenticity and integrity of a file. The vulnerability, revealed on the Internet over two weeks ago but unpublicized until yesterday, could also allow the theft of computer files by "bugging" a document with a hidden code, the company confirmed. "The issue appears to affect all versions of Microsoft Word," said Microsoft security-program manager Lynn Terwoerds in a statement. "The Microsoft Security Response Center is thoroughly investigating this issue." Meanwhile, no fix is available. To minimize risk, Word users should not exchange files with "strange or untrusted third parties," Terwoerds advised. The flaw can be used to produce digitally identical documents that use identical digital signatures -- but have completely different contents. For example, two people, A and B, could agree that A owes B $100. Person A could draft a Word document to that effect, which both parties digitally sign. But by exploiting the flaw, A could produce a digitally signed document saying that B owes A $100. The documents would be indistinguishable even when viewed as hexadecimal code, the cryptic numbers and letters underlying all text that appears in a computer monitor.
Continued at http://www.msnbc.com/local/pisea/86882.asp
Robert Bowers pointed out to me that the U.S. President's Website has become a really good source of news and information --- http://www.whitehouse.gov/
Bob Jensen's bookmarks to news sites can be found at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob3.htm#news
Arnold Schoenberg Center (Music Composition) http://www.schoenberg.at/default_e.htm
IRS ISSUES SUMMER 2002 STATISTICS OF INCOME BULLETIN, Release No: IR-2002-98 --- http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-news/ir-02-98.pdf
The Internal Revenue Service today announced the release of the Summer 2002 issue of the Statistics of Income Bulletin. It includes articles on profits for nonfarm sole proprietorships for Tax Year 2000, non-resident alien estate tax returns for 1999, corporation income tax returns for 1999, the growth of foreign-controlled domestic corporations in 1999, capital gains and losses of individuals for 1998 and United States-source income paid to foreign persons for 1999.
The Bulletin contains an in-depth look at profits for nonfarm sole proprietorships for Tax Year 2000, which grew 3.3 percent to $214.7 billion. In constant dollars, total nonfarm sole proprietorship profits increased 2.4 percent. The real estate and rental leasing sector reported the largest growth at 12.4 percent. However, the professional, scientific and technical services sector had the largest profits of any sector at $48.1 billion, or 22.4 percent of total sole proprietorship profits. The finance and insurance sector showed the largest percentage increase in both receipts and deductions, reporting a 19.4 percent increase in receipts and a 24 percent increase in deductions.
In addition, the Bulletin contains articles with the following information:
- Corporate pre-tax profits grew 10.8 percent in 1999 to $929.0 billion. Corporations that pass through reported income and deductions to shareholders showed a 28.7 percent gain to $393.7 billion. The finance, insurance, real estate, and rental and leasing division had the largest pre-tax profit increase by division, up 24.9 percent to $367.2 billion. Income subject to tax, called the tax base, increased along with positive net income, up 4.6 percent to $693.7 billion. The alternative minimum tax declined 8.2 percent to $3.1 billion.
- Net capital gains for individuals increased by almost 22 percent for Tax Year 1998, up by over $77 billion from Tax Year 1997 amounts to $432.2 billion. Capital gains from sales of corporate stock accounted for approximately 40 percent of total net capital gains. The next largest sources of gains were pass-through entities, representing about 29 percent, and capital gain distributions at nearly 11 percent of total net capital gains. For Tax Year 1998, the total sales price of all assets sold was approximately $2.3 trillion. About 63 percent of all stock transactions were short-term for 1998, compared to about 60 percent for 1997.
- Foreign-controlled domestic corporations (FCDCs) grew in 1999, reporting $2.2 trillion in total receipts, an increase of $277.0 billion over 1998. While total receipts reported on all U.S. corporation income tax returns increased by 9.1 percent over the previous year, receipts of domestic corporations controlled by foreign persons increased by 14.7 percent. As a result, the share of total corporate receipts accounted for by FCDCs rose to 11.5 percent. Japan reported total receipts of $454 billion, 21.0 percent of the FCDC total. Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Canada accounted for 50.2 percent of the total. The collective net income (less deficit) reported by foreign-controlled domestic corporations rose to $60.2 billion, a 48.3 percent increase from the $40.6 billion for 1998.
- U.S. estate tax returns (Form 706NA) were filed for 126 nonresident alien decedents in 1999 and 113 in 2000. Their total gross estates rose from approximately $60.7 million in 1999 to $132.4 million in 2000. For both years, the highest percentage of estates was in the $100,000-to-under-$250,000 category.
The estate tax for 1999 was nearly $14.7 million, increasing to almost $30.8 million in 2000.
- Charitable remainder annuity trusts held over $9.7 billion in total assets (book value) at the end of Reporting Year 1999, a 12.2-percent increase from Reporting Year 1998. Charitable remainder unitrusts reported end-of-year total assets (book value) in excess of $67.2 billion, a 23.8 percent increase from Reporting Year 1998.
Finally, the Bulletin shows that U.S.-source income paid to foreign persons increased
more than 27 percent over 1998 figures to $158.8 billion in 1999. Payments to residents of
Japan and the United Kingdom were responsible for nearly 44 percent of the $34 billion
increase. Overall, residents of those countries received 35 percent of all U.S.-source income
paid to foreign persons and paid 32.8 percent of all tax withheld. Interest and dividend
payments continued to lead the way as the most significant types of U.S.-source income.The Bulletin also includes historical data on income, deductions and tax reported on
returns filed by individuals, corporations, and unincorporated businesses, with selected data
presented for estates. Statistics are also presented on tax collections, including excise taxes
by type, and refunds for recent years.
From Business Week Insider on September 11, 2002
FOR MBAs, SOUL-SEARCHING 101
In the wake of corporate scandals, B-schools are emphasizing ethics and responsibility. It's a sea change in business educationFor the first time anyone can remember, the incoming MBA class at the University of Michigan Business School had an assignment before students even arrived in Ann Arbor. The homework: to write a case study on the most challenging ethical dilemma each person had ever faced. All but 3 of the 438 members of the Class of 2004 submitted something, from the technical consultant who discovered that a manager had pushed through a defective product to the analyst who was forced to write a lucrative consulting proposal -- copied from one stolen from a competitor.
"We really wanted them to think -- we wanted to push ethics to the front from Day One," says Noel M. Tichy, a Michigan professor and architect of the four-day orientation.
It's a new lesson plan for business schools across the country, where corporate scandals and a waning MBA job market have touched off a wave of self-reflection and reform. Opinion polls now place businesspeople in lower esteem than politicians. Just two years ago, campuses were aflutter with talk of the next big e-idea and over-the-top starting salaries. Now, as the school year begins, ethics, values, corporate responsibility, and integrity are the new watchwords (see BW Online, 9/6/02, "Beyond Fast Bucks at B-School" -- http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/sep2002/nf2002096_9626.htm
FOR THE FULL VERSION, VISIT: http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/sep2002/nf2002096_9480.htm
HostIndex.com - the web's LARGEST hosting directory. HostIndex.com allows a detailed FREE search of more than 3000+ web hosting companies --- http://www.hostindex.com/
Kill those popup adds while surfing on the Web --- http://www.cableaid.com/PopUpBuster/
What's new at London's famous Old Vic Theatre?
"9/11 Book Born Online Hits Stage," by M.J. Rose, Wired News, September 10, 2002 --- http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,55022,00.html
When the curtain opens at London's famous Old Vic Theatre on Wednesday evening, most people in the audience won't realize they're watching what might be the world's first play conceived on the Internet.Last year, e-publishing, print-on-demand and e-mail gave rise to a collection of essays by journalists and non-journalists on the Sept. 11 tragedy called 09/11 8:48 AM; Documenting America's Greatest Tragedy, co-edited by Ethan Casey and Jay Rosen, chairman of the journalism department at New York University.
The Old Vic performance -- a one-act play directed by veteran actor and director Murray Woodfield -- has been adapted from the personal testimonies of Rosen, Conor O'Clery, Peter Wong, Karmann Ghia, Kate Bolick, Dawn Shurmaitis and Andrew Ross.
Woodfield said he was gratified to be involved in the memorial performance.
"The fact that writers online ended up on the London stage probably means that this has got to be one of the first plays ever created solely via the Internet," he said. "Any way you look at it -- this is a unique event."
Proceeds from the event will go to The New York Firefighters 9-11 Disaster Relief Fund.
- - -
E-nabeling readers: Students with visual impairments or learning disabilities can listen to more than 97,000 digitally recorded books on CD.
The largest collection of its kind, the catalog offered by nonprofit Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic (RFB&D) includes 6,000 new titles -- from Harry Potter to Systems of Psychotherapy: a Transtheoretical Analysis.
RFB&D is the nation's largest educational library for students who are blind or visually impaired, or who have learning disabilities such as dyslexia.
The digitally recorded textbooks allow instant access to any page, chapter or subheading. Unlike books recorded on analog cassette, the digital versions don't force users to fast-forward through and count embedded beeps to find what they're looking for.
Continued at http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,55022,00.html
Bob Jensen's threads on electronic books are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ebooks.htm
Clean up Your Hard Drive --- http://www.winternals.com/es/solutions/defragmanager.asp
Introducing Defrag Manager 2.0: The Enterprise System Performance Solution
Defrag Manager is a powerful, cost-effective solution for improving performance on systems throughout your enterprise. Defrag Manager defragments all networked Windows XP, 2000, and NT4 systems with zero client software installation and zero end-user interaction.
ArtPrice.com --- http://web.artprice.com/En/Webmasters/webmasters.aspx
Bob Jensen's bookmarks on art and art history are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2.htm#History
See CNET Shopper Price Drops, where you can track daily price decreases on your favorite products from our Premier and Preferred vendors. The price drops are updated twice daily for these products and have been monitored for the past 30 days. Browse the biggest Price Drops in each category below, or click "More..." to browse the complete list --- http://lycos.cnet.com/shopping/0-1257-350-0.html?tag=pt.lycos.banner.pricedrops
"Access to Intelligence The New OLAP APIs," by George Spofford, Intelligent Enterprise, September 17, 2002, pp. 46-51 --- http://www.intelligententerprise.com/020917/515feat2_1.shtml
Historically data mining and online analytic processing (OLAP) have been solely human activities. In other words, it is humans who specify analytic models, build them, and then consume the results. But with the emergence of the Web services computing model, which involves the creation of new, lightweight plumbing for connecting disparate systems, the landscape is changing: Analytics can now be more easily interwoven with other computing interactions. (See the sidebar, "Not Just for Humans Anymore.") In other words, humans are no longer the sole specifiers or consumers of analytic services. The possibilities, as you might imagine, are fascinating.
Until recently, the options for connecting analytic engines have been limited. Developers have been able to use a variety of vendor APIs, or Microsoft's OLE DB for OLAP (or ODBO), which is supported by some servers besides Microsoft's. But ODBO is only available on Win32, rendering it less than universally accepted for Web services or enterprise mid-tier applications. The Java version of the OLAP Council's MD-API was never accepted by server or client vendors, so non-Win32 application servers haven't had any multivendor APIs at all.
However, new choices are emerging. In this article, I'll discuss two up-and-coming APIs for accessing OLAP-related information. One, XML for Analysis (XML/A), is already at version 1.0 and will be entering version 1.1 in the near future. The other, Java OLAP Interface (JOLAP), is currently working its way through the Java Community Process, having been in public review stage from June 20 to July 19, 2002.
One benefit of each of these APIs that deserves mentioning up front is their support for non-Win32-based mid-tier applications, whether you wish to consider such apps "Web services" or not; however, they are both suitable for other purposes. For client-side applications, each API also provides at least the benefit of enabling access to a previously unavailable choice of server types. Along the way, I'll discuss what the APIs provide, and how a range of vendors view the APIs with regard to their own interests.
The XML for Analysis Approach
XML/A is a simple object access protocol (SOAP)-based API derived from, and encompassing, Microsoft's ODBO. It includes SOAP and the entirety of ODBO as its main related specifications and adds SOAP actions and XML schemas for the ODBO data structures, with a few enhancements.
Continued at http://www.intelligententerprise.com/020917/515feat2_1.shtml
Bob Jensen's OLAP threads including a link to the great FEDscope (U.S. Office of Personnel Management) that uses OLAP can be found at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/XBRLandOLAP.htm#OLAPextended
Forwarded by Miklos Vasarhelyi [miklosv@andromeda.rutgers.edu]
"How to Tie Pay to Goals Instead of the Stock Price," by Daniel Altman, The New York Times, September 8, 2002
In a short memoir of his time at Yale University, James Tobin, the late Nobel-winning economist, separated professors there into two camps: the institutional types and the free agents. The institutional types were committed to building Yale's economics department and stayed loyal to the university. The free agents looked for better job offers and moved often. The free agents might have been brilliant scholars, but the institutional types, Professor Tobin observed, were more valuable to Yale. There may well be a parallel in corporate America. In recent years, fatter and fatter pay packages, laden with stock options and other rewards like low-interest loans, have helped turn many executives into free agents. Yet because it was the way to sure gains, the free agents often played to Wall Street and turned their stock and options into quick, easy money rather than ensuring their companies' long-term prospects. Finding and retaining executives who are committed to helping a company grow over the long run might stop the cycle of skyrocketing pay and dwindling tenure. It might also help to curb the anything-goes ethics that led to the type of excesses seen at companies like Enron and WorldCom. The question is this: How can companies reward executives in a way that provides proper incentives for good performance and encourages high-performance institutional types? While corporate boards struggle to answer that question, professional experts on executive pay, as well as academics who study incentives, offer some guidance. Many recommend granting stock, especially with restrictions on its future sale, instead of granting options. Some suggest promoting loyalty and performance by tailoring executives' packages to their personal tastes within reason. Virtually all the experts recommend an emphasis on long-term rewards for long-term success. Pay packages "will be more goal-oriented than purely market-oriented," said Steven E. Gross, who leads the United States employment compensation practice at Mercer Human Resource Consulting. Rather than depending on stock prices alone, rewards could include grants of cash or stock for concrete achievements over a period of years, he said. The trend that culminated last year, when executives of failing companies cashed in huge stock grants and options, actually began two decades ago, during the leveraged-buyout wave of the 1980's. Firms like Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, as buyers of undervalued businesses, looked for ways to link the outsiders they installed as executives to their new companies' futures, according to a recent paper by Brian J. Hall, a professor at Harvard Business School. Institutional investors also pushed executives to take ownership stakes, thinking that the executives would work to increase the return on their investments, Professor Hall wrote. As an added incentive, the tax and accounting treatment of stock options made them cheaper to dole out than cash or stock. But such pay plans, Mr. Gross said, have little downside for executives. "I'm encouraging you to take risks to raise the stock price," he said, taking the role of a corporate board. "What happens if you fail? Nothing."
In the 1990's, the trend gathered speed. Pay packages became sweeter as the market for executive talent became tighter. The success of outsider chief executives led companies to realize that they might achieve impressive results by bypassing their internal talent pools, said Robert H. Frank, a professor of economics and management at Cornell University. By 1993, top executives were moving among the country's biggest companies with increasing regularity. In that year, Eastman Kodak, I.B.M., Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Sunbeam-Oster and Westinghouse Electric all found new chiefs from outside their own executive suites. Professor Frank compared the budding market for executives to the advent of free agency in baseball in the 1970's. Once teams could compete to lure talent, some players' salaries broke through the traditionally flat pay scale. "It just became a free-agent market once there was this seismic shift to the view that people outside your company might be able to help your company," Professor Frank said.
Continued in the article.
The America Project (Sounds of America, Audio) --- http://www.theamericaproject.org/
Sight and Sound Top Ten Poll 2002 --- http://www.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/topten/
Wearable computers allow Pentagon reconstruction supervisors to log their activities and share info while on the move --- http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,54988,00.html
There are implications of wearable computers for cost accounting. Years ago I proposed that technicians in a medical testing laboratory provide work sampling reports at randomly-signaled times in order to account for their time spent on the varieties of tests performed. Wearable computers will make that type of reporting easier and more efficient. This is especially the case now that users need only speak into the computer.
Before the days of wearable computers, a doctoral student and I outlined the work sampling statistical formulas for time reporting of employees based upon a study of my wife working in the Palo Alto Veterans Hospital medical laboratory. See "Statistical Analysis in Cost Measurement and Control," (with Carl T. Thomsen), The Accounting Review, Vol. XLIII, No. 1, January 1968.
Bob Jensen's threads on "Bob Jensen's Threads on Invisible Computing, Ubiquitous Computing, and Microsoft.Net" are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ubiquit.htm
Nerd Watch Museum --- http://www.pocketcalculatorshow.com/bios.html#Jays_Watches
Software giant Microsoft is upgrading its Windows XP operating system to make it compliant with US Government rulings on fair competition. The latest update to the operating system contains software tools that allow many of its components to be hidden (BBC News, September 9, 2002) --- http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/2245945.stm
Makes our savings losses look
puny!
Bill Gates still has the fattest bank account in the United States. Despite a
loss of $11 billion last year, he's No. 1 on the Forbes 400 list --- http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,55151,00.html
Blogcritics (Culture and Criticism) --- http://www.blogcritics.com/
Space Imaging: One Year Viewed From Space (Photography, Science, Astronomy) --- http://www.spaceimaging.com/gallery/9-11/default.htm
Urban Sprawl With Core Shrinkage
Sprawl City --- http://www.sprawlcity.org/
Julie's Tacky Treasures --- http://www.tackytreasures.com/
Examples:
Why not ask the company for the moon and the stars? It worked for Jack Welch at GE.
Forwarded by Dick Haar
Reaching the end of a job interview, the Human Resources Person asked a young Engineer fresh out of MIT, "And what starting salary were you looking for?"
The Engineer said, "In the neighborhood of $125,000 a year, depending on the benefits package."
The interviewer said, "Well, what would you say to a package of 5 weeks vacation, 14 paid holidays, full medical and dental, a company matching retirement fund for 50% of your salary, and a company car leased every 2 years-say, a red Corvette?"
The Engineer sat up straight and said, "Wow! Are you kidding?"
And the interviewer replied, "Yeah, but you started it"
Forwarded by Auntie Bev
Subject: Computers versus Cars
For all of us who feel only the deepest love and affection for the way computers have enhanced our lives, read on. At a recent computer expo (COMDEX), Bill Gates reportedly compared the computer industry with the auto industry and stated, "If GM had kept up with the technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving $25.00 cars that got 1,000 miles to the gallon."
In response to Bill's comments, General Motors issued a press release stating:
If GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics:
1. For no reason whatsoever, your car would crash twice a day.
2. Every time they repainted the lines on the road, you would have to buy a new car.
3. Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason. You would have to pull over to the side of the road, close all of the windows, shut off the car, restart it, and reopen the windows before you could continue. For some reason you would simply accept this.
4. Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn would cause your car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would have to reinstall the engine.
5. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was reliable, five times as fast and twice as easy to drive -- but would run on only five percent of the roads.
6. The oil, water temperature, and alternator warning lights would all be replaced by a single "This Car Has Performed An Illegal Operation " warning light.
7. The airbag system would ask "Are you sure?" before deploying.
8. Occasionally, for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned the key and grabbed hold of the radio antenna.
9. Every time a new car was introduced car buyers would have to learn how to drive all over again, because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car.
10. You'd have to press the "Start" button to turn the engine off.
Forwarded by Auntie Bev
The following are actual Church signs:
1. CHURCH PARKING - FOR MEMBERS ONLY! Trespassers will be baptized!
2. "No God - No Peace. Know God - Know Peace."
3. "Free Trip to Heaven. Details Inside!"
4. "Try our Sundays. They are better than Baskin-Robbins."
5. An ad for one Church has a picture of two hands holding stone tablets on which the Ten Commandments are inscribed and a headline that reads, -"For Fast Relief, Take Two Tablets."
6. "People are like tea bags - you have to put them in hot water before you know how strong they are."
7. "Come in and pray today. Beat the Christmas rush."
8. "Fight truth decay - study the Bible daily."
9. "How will you spend eternity - Smoking or Non-Smoking."
10. "Dusty Bibles lead to Dirty Lives."
11. "Come work for the Lord. The work is hard, the hours are long and the pay is low. But the retirement benefits are out of this world."
12. "It is unlikely there'll be a reduction in the wages of sin."
13. "If you're headed in the wrong direction, God allows U-turns."
14. "If you don't like the way you were born, try being born again."
15. "Looking at the way some people live, they ought to obtain eternal fire Insurance soon."
16. "A ch__ch is a church when (U R) in it.
17. "In the dark? Follow the Son."
18. "Running low on faith? Stop in for a fill-up."
Before the Interstates, when everyone
drove the old 2 lane roads, Burma Shave signs would be posted all over
the countryside in farmers' fields. They were
small red signs with white letters. Five signs, about 100 feet apart,
each containing 1 line of a
4 line couplet....... and the obligatory 5th sign advertising Burma Shave, a
popular shaving cream. Here are a few of the actual signs:
DON'T LOSE YOUR HEAD
TO GAIN A MINUTE
YOU NEED YOUR HEAD
YOUR BRAINS ARE IN IT
*** Burma Shave***
DROVE TOO LONG
DRIVER SNOOZING
WHAT HAPPENED NEXT
IS NOT AMUSING
***Burma Shave***
BROTHER SPEEDER
LET'S REHEARSE
ALL TOGETHER
GOOD MORNING NURSE
***Burma Shave***
CAUTIOUS RIDER
TO HER RECKLESS DEAR
LET'S HAVE LESS BULL
AND MORE STEER
***Burma Shave***
SPEED WAS HIGH
WEATHER WAS NOT
TIRES WERE THIN
X MARKS THE SPOT
***Burma Shave***
THE MIDNIGHT RIDE
OF PAUL FOR BEER
LED TO A WARMER
HEMISPHERE
***Burma Shave***
AROUND THE CURVE
LICKETY-SPLIT
ITS A BEAUTIFUL CAR
WASN'T IT?
***Burma shave***
NO MATTER THE PRICE
NO MATTER HOW NEW
THE BEST SAFETY DEVICE
IN THE CAR IS YOU
*** Burma Shave***
A GUY WHO DRIVES
A CAR WIDE OPEN
IS NOT THINKIN'
HE'S JUST HOPIN'
***Burma Shave***
AT INTERSECTIONS
LOOK EACH WAY
A HARP SOUNDS NICE
BUT ITS HARD TO PLAY
***Burma Shave***
BOTH HANDS ON THE WHEEL
EYES ON THE ROAD
THAT'S THE SKILLFUL
DRIVER'S CODE
***Burma Shave***
THE ONE WHO DRIVES WHEN
HE'S BEEN DRINKING
DEPENDS ON YOU
TO DO HIS THINKING
***Burma Shave***
CAR IN DITCH
DRIVER IN TREE
THE MOON WAS FULL
AND SO WAS HE.
***Burma Shave***
And my all time favorite
PASSING SCHOOL ZONE
TAKE IT SLOW
LET OUR LITTLE
SHAVERS GROW
***Burma Shave*
September 23 additions from Craig Polhemus [Joedpo@AOL.COM]
Bob Jensen lists some Burma Shave slogans. Here are two more that I recall (probably from rural Pennsylvania):
ANGELS WHO GUARD YOU
WHILE YOU DRIVE
USUALLY RETIRE
AT SIXTY-FIVE
*** Burma Shave***
HENRY THE EIGHTH
SURE HAD TROUBLE
SHORT-TERM WIVES
LONG-TERM STUBBLE
*** Burma Shave***
September 23 message from Fred Salzer [fsalzer@sempre.com]
DO NOT PASS ON CURVE OR HILL
IF COP DOESN'T GET YOU
THE MORTICIAN WILL
***Burma Shave***From 1949 along Route 66 as I best I can remember.
Thanks for the memories!!!
Fred
On September 24, George Lan provided the link http://seniors-site.com/funstuff/burma.html
Forwarded by Auntie Bev
Forwarded by Auntie Bev
George Carlin's View on Aging Do you realize that the only time in our lives when we like to get old is when we're kids?
If you're less than 10 years old,
you're so excited about aging that you think in fractions.
"How old are you?"
"I'm four and a half!"
You're never thirty-six and a half.
You're four and a half, going on five! That's the key. You get into
your teens, now they can't hold you back. You jump to the next
number, or even a few ahead.
"How old are you?"
"I'm gonna be 16!" You could be 13, but hey, you're gonna be 16!
And then the greatest day of your life . . . you become 21. Even the words sound like a ceremony . . . YOU BECOME 21 . . . YESSSS!!! But then you turn 30. Oooohh, what happened there? Makes you sound like bad milk. He TURNED --- we had to throw him out. There's no fun now, you're just a sour-dumpling. What's wrong? What's changed?
You BECOME 21 -- you TURN 30 --- then you're PUSHING 40.
Whoa! Put on the brakes -- it's all slipping away. Before you know it, you REACH 50 . . . and your dreams are gone.
But wait!!! You MAKE it to 60. You didn't think you would! So you BECOME 21, TURN 30, PUSH 40, REACH 50 and MAKE it to the "BIG 60". You've built up so much speed that you HIT 70! After that it's a day-by-day thing; you HIT Wednesday! You get into your 80s and every day is a complete cycle; you HIT lunch; you TURN 4:30; you REACH bedtime.
And it doesn't end there. Into the 90s, you start going backwards; "I was JUST 92."
Then a strange thing happens. If you make it over 100, you become a little kid again. "I'm 100 and a half!"
May you all make it to a healthy 100 and a half!!
HOW TO STAY YOUNG
1. Throw out nonessential numbers. This includes age, weight and height! Let the doctor worry about them. That is why you pay him/her.
2. Keep only cheerful friends. The grouches pull you down.
3. Keep learning. Learn more
about the computer, crafts, gardening whatever. Never let the brain idle.
"An idle mind is the devil's
workshop.
"And the devil's name is
Alzheimer's.
4. Enjoy the simple things.
5. Laugh often, long and loud. Laugh until you gasp for breath.
6. The tears happen. Endure, grieve, and move on. The only person who is with us our entire life, is ourselves. Be ALIVE while you are alive.
7. Surround yourself with what you love, whether it's family, pets, keepsakes, music, plants, hobbies, whatever. Your home is your refuge.
8. Cherish your health: If it is good, preserve it. If it is unstable, improve it. If it is beyond what you can improve, get help.
9. Don't take guilt trips. Take a trip to the mall, to the next county, to a foreign country, but NOT to where the guilt is.
10. Tell the people you love that you love them, at every opportunity. AND ALWAYS REMEMBER:
Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.
Forwarded by Auntie Bev
Actually there's hope for us old guys!
Forwarded by Dr. Digiovanni
An 80 year old man went to the doctor for a checkup and the
doctor was amazed at what good shape the guy was in. The
doctor asked, "To what do you attribute your good health?"
The old timer said, "I'm a golfer and that's why I'm in such good
shape. I'm up well before daylight and out golfing up and down the
fairways."
The doctor said, "Well, I'm sure that helps, but there's got to
be more to it. How old was your dad when he died?" The
old timer said, "Who said my dad's dead?"
The doctor said, "You mean you're 80 years old and your dad's
still alive? How old is he?"
The old timer said, "He's 100 yrs old and, in fact, he golfed
with me this morning, and that's why he's still alive... he's a
golfer."
The doctor said, "Well, that's great, but I'm sure there's more
to it. How about your dad's dad? How old was he when he died?"
The old timer said, "Who said my grandpa's dead?"
The doctor sai d, "You mean you're 80 years old and your
grandfather's still living! How old is he?"
The old timer said, "He's 118 yrs old."
The doctor was getting frustrated at this point and said, "I
guess he went golfing with you this morning too?"
The old timer said, "No... Grandpa couldn't go this morning
because he got married."
The Doctor said in amazement, "Got married!! Why would a
118-year-old guy want to get married?"
The old timer said, "Who said he wanted to?
Forwarded by Auntie Bev
These really will make you smile!
http://student.luc.ac.be/~9916699/picsoftheyear.html
That 1,000 Marbles thing --- http://www.eakles.com/marbles.htm
What's happening to Bob Jensen? --- http://www.angelfire.com/ga3/sweetgeorgiapeach1/forgetter.html
My forgetter's getting better
But my rememberer is broke
Continued
at http://www.angelfire.com/ga3/sweetgeorgiapeach1/forgetter.html
And that's the way it was on September 24, 2002 with a little help from my friends.
In
March 2000, Forbes named AccountantsWorld.com as the Best Website on the
Web --- http://accountantsworld.com/.
Some top accountancy links --- http://accountantsworld.com/category.asp?id=Accounting
For accounting news, I prefer AccountingWeb at http://www.accountingweb.com/
Another leading accounting site is AccountingEducation.com at http://www.accountingeducation.com/
Paul Pacter maintains the best international accounting standards and news Website at http://www.iasplus.com/
How stuff works --- http://www.howstuffworks.com/
Bob
Jensen's video helpers for MS Excel, MS Access, and other helper videos are at http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/video/
Accompanying documentation can be found at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/default1.htm
and http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HelpersVideos.htm
Professor
Robert E. Jensen (Bob) http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen
Jesse H. Jones Distinguished Professor of Business Administration
Trinity University, San Antonio, TX 78212-7200
Voice: 210-999-7347 Fax: 210-999-8134 Email: rjensen@trinity.edu
Quotes of the Week
Contrary to
his public denials, the chief executive of the scandal-ridden United Way in the
Washington area was aware of improper financial practices, was involved in them
and disregarded those who tried to stop them, one of the charity's top
executives has written in a memorandum. Norman O. Taylor, the beleaguered chief
executive of the United Way of the National Capital Area, has repeatedly said he
was unaware that expense accounts had been abused, that donations had been
inflated to make the agency appear more efficient and that only 52 percent of
the gifts from some donors had been passed on to social services charities.
David Cay Johnston, The New York Times, September 3, 2002
The slew of
companies caught red-handed in this year of corporate sleaze face potentially
colossal legal claims, but they may enjoy pleasant reprieves next year -- huge
tax breaks from Uncle Sam. Corporations that pay large sums to atone for their
sins usually can write off the money on their tax returns, substantially
softening the financial blow. This year's crop of alleged financial fabricators
-- including Enron Corp. and WorldCom Inc. -- likely will try to structure any
settlements so that they are tax deductible under Internal Revenue Service
rulings, including one issued four months ago. Tax experts say the IRS allows
such deductions because companies can write off any "ordinary and
necessary" expense. Settling lawsuits long has been viewed as a cost of
doing business -- whether they involve truck accidents or highflying accounting
schemes. Even settlements with government regulators can be deducted in many
circumstances, experts say. Merrill Lynch & Co., for instance, reached a
$100 million settlement with the New York attorney general's office in May
related to an investigation of whether the company promoted stocks that it
expected to underperform in order to please corporate clients. Several tax
experts say Merrill's payment is probably tax deductible because it was
characterized in the agreement as a civil settlement and not as a fine. It
couldn't be determined whether the brokerage firm specifically requested such
wording. Merrill Lynch declined to comment. A spokeswoman for the attorney
general said, "We negotiated a settlement and we don't comment on
negotiations. Nor do we write the tax laws." Merrill has said in Securities
and Exchange Commission filings that it has an effective tax rate of about 30%,
which means it could save $30 million on its federal tax bill as a result of the
settlement.
John D. McKinnon, The Wall Street Journal, September 3, 2002
| I've
got a few words of advice to the faculty. Be kind to your "A"
students, because in 20 years, they will come back be your colleagues.
Be kind to your "B" students, because in 20 years, they will
send their children back to be your students. But especially be kind to
your "C" students, because in 20 years, they will come back
and donate libraries and science labs and classroom buildings and ... Charles Kuralt (as quoted in an email message from David Fordham) http://www.rememberingcharleskuralt.com/editorial.htm And to this we might add: "Be kind to your D and F students. All most of them need is more time to grow up." Bob Jensen's Commentary But what happens to the lowly "C" students who cannot get jobs with the big firms? Many of them start up their own ventures, and a small percentage of those ventures are incredibly successful such that some of some "C" students are the multimillionaires who now hire the "A" students to do their audits, accounting, and taxes. Remember the saying that: "Success is trouble turned inside out." It’s a little like having to kiss the frog instead of the homecoming king or queen. The frog may be the one with the trust fund for venture capital. Perhaps there are more "C" students in some universities, but that is not the case in many top universities. The last statistic that I saw claimed that 85% of the grades given to Harvard's undergraduates were "A" grades. The new President at Harvard is trying to reverse this grade inflation, but I hear that his appeals are falling on deaf ears. What proportion of grades given out in the Tuck School are "C" grades? What proportion of "C" grades are given to Dartmouth undergraduates? The Stanford GSB once tried to enforce the Van Horne Rule (when Jim was the Associate Dean) limiting the number of "A" grades in each course to about 15%, but I think the Van Horne Rule never really flew and has long since been forgotten. Just some thoughts inspired by a Kuralt quotation. Bob Jensen
|
We have
convictions only if we have studied nothing thoroughly.
Emil
Cioran
Don't use big
words. They mean so little.
Wilde
Oscar
Internet Radio
Has Been Targeted For Termination
http://www.krtu.org/
For the past
couple of years, the stock market has been a far better way to lose money than
to make it. Nonetheless, educators and stock sites persist in teaching kids the
fine art of investing.
"Take the Money and Teach," by Joanna Glasner, Wired News,
September 5, 2002 --- http://www.wired.com/news/school/0,1383,54813,00.html
Scientists are
developing a smart tattoo that could tell diabetics when their glucose levels
are dangerously low.
BBC News, September 1, 2002 --- http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/2225404.stm
August 30, 2002 email message from John L. Hubisz [hubisz@mindspring.com]
There is a subtle, but important, distinction that needs to be made.
The "Scientific Method" is not to be confused with the method(s) of scientists.
Scientists use imagination, skill luck etc to do their work. Sometimes they are inspired by dreams, beauty, wishful thinking even "crazy ideas". These are all aspects of the methods of scientists.
The "Scientific Method" is the way science decides what is correct. It may take a while for individual scientists to get around to using this method and indeed, some never do. However, the net result is that experimental verification is the heart of science.
It is important to make this distinction. Otherwise the crucial role that the formal "Scientific Method" has is often lost in the interesting stories of how Einstein was motivated by beauty or Feynman was sure of his theory.
My September 10, 2002 updates on the accounting auditing, and corporate governance scandals are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraud091002.htm
Memorial sounds of 9/11
The Sonic Memorial Project from National Public Radio
http://www.sonicmemorial.org/radiorow/radiorow.html
The September 11th
Memorial Weblog Where People Share Their Thoughts --- http://www.cjgroup.biz/911blog/
Bob Jensen's threads on Weblogs/Blogs are at http://www.trinity.edu/~rjensen/245glosf.htm#Weblog
A year after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, researchers are building digital archives to capture snapshots of what some are calling the "first major event of the Internet age." --- http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,54729,00.html
Replays from Daring Educators on the Leading Edge of Education Technologies
Free
Audio and Presentation Files of Three Days of Workshops on Education
Technologies ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/CPEshows/CPEmenu.htm
Bob Jensen's Recent CPE/CEP Technology Workshops at the American Accounting Association Annual Meetings
During the past decade, I have organized at least one all-day technology in education workshop at each of the American Accounting Association annual meetings. In the early years, these were not videotaped. The past three workshops were videotaped. Both the presentation materials and the MP3 audio files of the various speakers can be downloaded from the following links:
San Antonio on August
13, 2002
CPE/CEP Workshop Number 1 --- http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/002cpe/02start.htm
Free audio and presentation files of the following speakers:
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/002cpe/02start.htm
- Dennis Beresford, University of Georgia
- Amy Dunbar, University of Connecticut
- Nancy Keeshan, the Global MBA and Cross-Continent MBA Programs of Duke University
- Susan Spencer, San Antonio College
- Bob Jensen, Trinity University
Atlanta on August 11,
2001
CPE/CEP Workshop Number 1 --- http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/001cpe/01start.htm
Free audio and presentation files of the following speakers:
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/001cpe/01start.htm
- Don Carter, Chartered Accountancy (CA) School of Business
- Michael T. Kirschenheiter, Columbia University
- Robert Walsh, Prentice-Hall and Marist College
- A team of faculty from UNext
- Bob Jensen, Trinity University
Philadelphia on August 12, 2000
CPE/CEP Workshop Number 1 --- http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/000cpe/00start.htm
Free audio and presentation files of the following speakers:
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/000cpe/00start.htm
- Charles Hickman, AACSB and Quisic (formerly University Access)
- Michael T. Kirschenheiter, Columbia University
- Anthony H. Catanach, Villanova University
- Dan N. Stone, University of Illinois
- Bob Jensen, Trinity University
September 4, 2002 message from Richard
Campbell [campbell@RIO.EDU]
Richard has remained a ToolBook loyalist while many of us former ToolBook
enthusiasts gave up on Assymetrix/Click2Learn
This site may be bigger than Bob Jensen's. Has all sorts of links on multimedia.
http://www.inet.com.br/~mhavila/link/
Richard Campbell
This site is a resource reference on authoring and development technology for Internet and Multimedia. There are over 2600 links with descriptions, organized into dozens of categories and frequently updated. The primary sections are summarized in the Index below.
The information here is devoted to professionals in development and infra-structure activities on Internet and Multimedia: developers, authors, programmers, designers and administrators of information systems and IT, as well as graphic artists, content producers, electronic media professionals, technicians and other people involved with or interested in these technologies.
Multimedia
General, Authoring, Hardware, CD, Media, Text, Images, Video, Audio, ActiveX,
Education, Interactivity.
Internet
Web Authoring, HTML, Web Design, Images, Multimtedia, Tools, Programming,
Server-Side, Security, XML, Entities, Protocols, Topics.
Programming
Java, Perl, Delphi, Python, Tcl / Tk, Tools, Software Engineering.
Database
SQL, Informação sobre banco de dados, Oracle, Outros SGBDs comerciais, SGBDs
open source e freeware.
Unix
& Linux
Unix, Linux, Variantes Unix, X Window System, Software.
Bob Jensen's bookmarks are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob.htm
Do you like great pictures of animals accompanied by toe-tapping music?
Check out this one forwarded by Auntie Bev --- http://www.squirtsplace.com/miscfun/LittleBittyCutePets.swf
More Students and Better-Smelling Students in College
From Syllabus News on September 3, 2002
College Enrollments Break Old Records
For the fifth consecutive year, college enrollments are expected to break the previous year's record. According to "Projections of Education Statistics to 2012," released by the U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics, 15.6 million students are expected to enroll in colleges and universities this fall. By 2006, college enrollment is expected to reach 16.3 million, about 700,000 higher than in 2002. By 2012, around 17.7 million students are expected on college campuses, 13 percent more than in 2002. At the same time, full-time college enrollment is expected to increase faster than part-time enrollment, with full-time enrollment projected to rise by 16 percent, and part-time enrollment expected to rise by nine percent between 2002 and 2012. Finally, a record 1.3 million students are expected to receive bachelor's degrees during the 2002-03 academic year.
For more information, visit; http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2002030
Smart Laundry Redux: Web-enabled Washers
On Friday, we reported that Maytag Corp. was holding laundry seminars on various campuses to tout its smart washing machines, high-efficiency units equipped with horizontal-axis tumblers that promise to use 18 fewer gallons of water per load than the average top-loading washer. Not to be outdone, IBM Corp. and USA Technologies said they will Web-enable 9,000 washing machines and dryers at U.S. colleges, eliminating much of the hassle associated with dorm laundry operations. Called e-Suds, the systems replace coin-operated technology with a method that allows students to pay with an ID card or via cell phone. Students will be able to visit a website to find out when a machine is available and select functions, such as soap and fabric softener dispensing. When the wash is done, they'll be notified via an email sent to their pagers or PCs.
"E-Mail Alert: Wash on Spin Cycle," Wired News, August 30, 2002 --- http://www.wired.com/news/school/0,1383,54856,00.html
College campuses have long since wired their dorms and libraries. Now some are going even further: Net-enabled laundry.
IBM hopes a new system of smart, wired washers and dryers will instill a little efficiency in the college dormitory laundry room, letting students keep tabs on their laundry from anywhere they can access the Internet -- their dorm rooms, the library or even a cell phone.
The Armonk, New York-based company plans to install about 9,000 of the machines on 40 campuses, all so far in the Midwest, including Ohio State University and Cedarville University in Cedarville, Ohio.
Students can log onto a Web page to see if there are free machines and receive an e-mail or page when the load is finished. The system can also automatically charge students through their ID cards, though it would still accommodate traditional coins.
Users can't reserve machines, but the system could eliminate back-and-forth to the laundry room.
"Where I went to school, if you left your clothes in the machine, it would end up on the floor," said Dean Douglas, vice president for IBM Global Services. With the new machines, "You could be outside throwing a Frisbee or whatever instead of waiting in that laundry room ... for the load to finish."
IBM's machines got a trial run last spring on nine washers and 10 dryers at Boston College. The school hasn't decided whether to commit to the devices, but Joe Schott, 25, a residence hall director who lives in a dorm there, said the machine made life easier for students.
Cedarville University plans to have units installed in 150 machines by the spring semester.
"This just seemed like an obvious opportunity to leverage our technological investment for our students," Cedarville spokesman Roger Overturf said.
| See also: | ||
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| • | What's Your Major? Cell Phones | |
| • | Field Trip Into the Deep Blue Sea | |
| • | Instant Answers With PDA Pop Quiz | |
Old Behavior in New Bottles
British school children take regular doses of abuse from bullies through short message service -- the medium of choice for big meanies of the digital generation.
"When Text Messaging Turns Ugly," by Daithí Ó hAnluain, Wired News, September 4, 2002 --- http://www.wired.com/news/school/0,1383,54771,00.html
"We are watching you ... we are going to kill you ... we are going to kill your mum."
This message would make anyone uneasy, but British children regularly send messages like this to each other as systematic bullying enters the 21st century through SMS -- the short message service that comes with all mobile phones in Europe.
The government and children's advocacy groups have stepped in to help harangued kids cope. But so far no one's come up with a way to put the bullies in their place.
One in four children in the United Kingdom have been bullied or threatened through their mobile phone or PC, according to a survey commissioned by British children's charity NCH.
Another children's advocacy group, ChildLine, was set up to counsel young people in distress or under pressure from neglect, abuse or the anxieties of growing up. For five years running, bullying has been the biggest single issue the charity deals with -- to the tune of 20,000 calls a year.
"We don’t track threatening SMS messages specifically yet," said Maggie Turner, head of the ChildLine in Partnership with Schools program. "But certainly the indications are it is increasing."
In 2000, 15-year-old Gail Jones overdosed on tablets after receiving 20 abusive messages in half an hour. This year, 12-year-old Jack was worried because a boy at school had accused him of sending text messages to his mobile and threatened to beat him up. Jenny, 11, told her ChildLine counselor that she had received chain letters on her mobile phone, including one that said she'd die if she didn't pass it on.
The NCH survey indicates that mobile phones appear to be the most common medium for bullying, with 16 percent of young people saying they'd received bullying or threatening text messages, followed by 7 percent who had been harassed in Internet chat rooms and 4 percent by e-mail. The charity set up the NCH IT OK website to help tackle the problem.
Continued at http://www.wired.com/news/school/0,1383,54771,00.html
Two Brazilian presidential candidates
trade barbs online and off, in one of the most competitive elections in the
country's history. One candidate's onslaught of insults has brought him back
into contention.
"Mudslinging Goes Online in Brazil," by Carmen J. Gentile, Wired News,
September 5, 2002 --- http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,54937,00.html
Brazilian law states that each candidate is given an allotment of time relative to the size of his party's representation in Congress. The law does not, however, cover the use of slander on the Internet.
Gomes' site shot back at his nemesis following the debate, alleging that Serra is "used to having the federal government and advertising money in his favor to pressure the media and make it an ally of his campaign," referring to his backing by President Cardoso and Brazil's ruling party.
What kind of examples are being set for children in Brazil?
Front pages of 134 newspapers from 24 nations.
Today's Front Pages --- http://www.newseum.org/todaysfrontpages/
Bob Jensen's bookmarks on news sites can be found at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob3.htm#news
I have repeatedly stressed that universities of the future will probably be more into the certification business than the degree program business. Another example comes this week from Penn State's Communication Certificate Program --- http://www.worldcampus.psu.edu/pub/comm/index.shtml
Benefits
- Take COMM courses—anywhere! Now you don’t have to be at University Park—or on any Penn State campus—to start earning credits for your communications degree. The World Campus gives you access to COMM courses no matter where you are.
- Fulfill a GS requirement. Comm 100 through World Campus is a convenient way to earn three credits toward your general education requirements.
- Empower yourself. Whether you’re an advertiser or activist, student or salesperson, Penn State’s Communications Studies Certificate can give you the knowledge you need to use media to your advantage.
- Become more marketable. The Communications Studies Certificate can help you customize your bachelor’s degree. Here are some examples:
- Psychology: Get a better understanding of how people interact with mass media.
- Pre-law: Prepare for law school by learning the law and policy of mass media.
- IST: Learn how the Internet is changing the mass communications paradigm.
- Political Science: See how issues develop and how politicians use the media to their advantage.
- Business: Prepare for an executive career in the expanding media marketplace.
As virtual primary schools steadily attract more students, traditional school districts complain that the online campuses siphon public money from dwindling budgets.
"Online Schools Won't Get Easy 'A'," by John Gartner, Wired News, September 2, 2002 --- http://www.wired.com/news/school/0,1383,54790,00.html
Even after a couple of years on the scene, online schools are still treated like the awkward new kid in class.
But administrators of virtual K-12 schools (where teachers and students interact on the Internet) say expanding enrollment attests to their popularity with parents.
This fall, according to researchers at the Center for Education Reform, students in 13 states can choose to stay home and log on for their lessons instead of waiting for the yellow school bus.
More than 40 full-time virtual schools are enrolling students for this school year, up from fewer than 10 two years ago. Enrollment continues to swell in California, Ohio and Pennsylvania, where more than 5,000 students will attend the Keystone State's nine virtual schools.
Center for Education Reform policy analyst Neal McCluskey said online schools are multiplying because they are effectively "reaching out to all populations that don't fit into cookie-cutter schools." Completing coursework from home and interacting with teachers online enables students to work at their own pace, he said, which can't be done in physical schools.
Because most online schools are only in their first or second year, McCluskey said, it's too early to judge how the students perform compared with their peers at traditional institutions.
Meanwhile, a stream of lawsuits against online schools in Pennsylvania and Ohio has made them feel as welcome as chess club members in the football team's locker room.
Continued at http://www.wired.com/news/school/0,1383,54790,00.html
| See also: | ||
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| • | Online School Faces Expulsion | |
| • | Schools, Tech: Still Struggling | |
| • | Virtual Degrees Virtually Tough | |
Bob Jensen's threads on distance education are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/0000start.htm
September 3, 2002 message from FinanceProfessor [FinanceProfessor@lb.bcentral.com]
Attention returned to Worldcom this week and what it showed was not flattering. In what could be called a smoking email (giving a new definition to flames), Worldcom officials told employees to not cooperate with auditors. (in hindsight that may be a very costly mistake!) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64786-2002Aug26.html
In a related note, Scott Sullivan the former CFO of the struggling telecommunications firm was indicted for trying to hide debt from regulators and auditors.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/2222137.stm
If that wasn’t bad enough, Salomon Brothers admitted to giving WorldCom officials advantages in IPOs in order to court WorldCom’s investment banking business. The total amount the executives made on these deals is uncertain but Ebbers alone is reported to have made $11 million. Ebbers and Salomon are going to have much explaining to do as evidenced already by the SEC demanding records of their past IPOs.
http://www.msnbc.com/news/801581.asp
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/2226966.stm http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-worldcom31aug31.story http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A184-2002Aug26.html http://slate.msn.com/?id=2070225
In capital structure decisions, firms should use market value weights to measure leverage. Remember back in the late 1990s many used that as a means of explaining why firms could continue to borrow. (The argument goes like this: the ratio of debt to market value of equity is what is important. So as the market value of equity goes up, so too can the amount of debt.) Well, now that the stock market has fallen and the debt is still there. This increase in leverage COULD have the consequence of slowing any recovery or worse, making a recession much more severe as bankruptcies cascade across the economy. http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36%257E11%257E801767,00.html
How well can investors forecast growth? Apparently not well at all. That is one conclusion coming from a forthcoming Journal of Finance paper by Chan, Karceski, and Lakonishok. This finding should be more a bit troubling given the importance of growth forecasts in most valuation models (for example, in the constant growth model Price = Dividend in year one /(Required return –growth rate)). Further, the paper empirically finds little evidence of firms that can consistently maintain the same rate of growth. --- http://www.afajof.org/Pdf/forthcoming/chan.pdf
I like Vanguard --- http://flagship4.vanguard.com/VGApp/hnw/VanguardViews?FW_Event=vviewsnewscenter
Won't It Be Frustrating for the Graduates of Elite MBA Programs Who Paid Over $100,000 in Tuition and Flunked the CMBA Examination?
"Controversy awaits MBA certification exam," by Del Jones, USA Today, August 26, 2002 --- http://www.usatoday.com/money/companies/management/2002-08-26-cmba_x.htm
A certification exam for MBAs will be launched in April in an attempt to figure out who among the 112,000 graduates each year has learned the core subjects of a master's degree in business administration.
The CMBA — certified MBA — will be announced Sept. 3 by the International Certification Institute (ICI) and Thomson, a company with $7.2 billion in 2001 revenue and a giant in the growing industry of certification exams and testing administered by computer.
It's certain to stir controversy because it's a potential threat to the nation's top-tier business schools, whose graduates have long been able to demand fatter salaries than those from other schools. Test-takers will know where they rank against all test-takers, as the CMBA will provide an instrument to compare students from the 900 universities offering an MBA.
The $450 exam is being compared to a bar exam for law students. The five-hour exam will have 300 questions covering finance and accounting, economics, operations and marketing and management. Unlike the bar, no regulatory body will require the CMBA, which means the exam's success will rely on employers expecting it of applicants or students deciding it will give them an edge in a job hunt.
Companies spend $8.5 billion a year in salaries for new MBA hires and often "get burned," says Peter Navarro, a business professor at the University of California at Irvine.
Navarro has seen companies pass over the top Cal-Irvine MBA graduate to take last-place students from Stanford. "The top 20 schools won't want this, because they have a brand-name monopoly," Navarro says.
"There is no debate that there are incompetent MBAs," says Louis Lataif, dean of Boston University's highly ranked management school. But top schools can cherry-pick applicants already headed for success. Companies recruit at those schools because "the sorting has been done for them by the admissions committee," he says.
The exam comes at a time when the MBA degree is under attack. Management scholar Jeffrey Pfeffer of Stanford combed through 40 years of research and concluded that those who get an MBA make no more money nor do they advance faster in their careers than executives who don't get the degree.
Pfeffer calls the CMBA an interesting idea if the scores wind up predicting success. But U.S. companies have never cared much about tests and grades, he says.
The market is huge. There are 2.5 million people with MBAs, and MBAs account for 25% of all graduate degrees.
Technological Innovation of the Week
Music composed by running recorded brain waves through a computer program helps insomniacs doze off faster and get more restful sleep. But not all brain music sounds like a symphony (you can listen to an audio sample) --- http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,54842,00.html
I think the music is so boring that you're bound to fall asleep!
Library Site of the Week
Turning the Pages from the British Library --- http://www.bl.uk/collections/treasures/digitisation.html
Use these pages to discover more about the British Library's award winning interactive display system Turning the Pages:
- About Turning the Pages: find out more about this project
- Treasures: information about British Library treasures currently available in Turning the Pages.
- History: a brief history of the Turning the Pages project.
- Turn the pages online in Shockwave, with examples from the Sherborne Missal. (Download the latest version of Shockwave.)
- News: the latest developments in Turning the Pages.
How would you advise somebody to start a training or education site?
Hi Juan,
May I have permission to quote your message in my September 10 newsletter? Your questions are very typical of many that I receive.
Forget ToolBook. It is out of tune with today’s world and will likely fail since it has never made a profit for whatever company owned it.
Even if you want to package your work on a CD, I suggest that you make it so you can also serve it from the Web. Be careful in making links. I suggest placing files in one large folder and then using “relative links” that only name the file. Avoid complete local path and/or http server path links. In HTML you can make a link to a document, audio file, picture file, and video file by simply naming the file if all linked files are in the same folder. If you have trouble with this, I can illustrate it for you later on.
I recommend that you learn the following software:
HTML Authoring Microsoft FrontPage (this is not hard to learn if you already know MS Word). It is generally easy to find video tutorials in your local computer store.
There are a few more bells and whistles in Macromedia Dreamweaver, but I would master MS FrontPage initially. You can also use MS Word --- http://www.archiva.net/mstutorial3web.htm
Video Capturing of Lessons You Explain With a Microphone While Viewing Your Computer Screen Go to my Camtasia tutorial at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HelpersVideos.htm#Video My video tutorial on Camtasia is at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HelpersVideosSummary.htm
Image Capturing and Editing The pros use Adobe Photoshop, but I think you will prefer Paint Shop Pro --- http://www.jasc.com/products/psp/
Eventually, you may want to serve your courses from a server rather than from a CD. I recommend that you consider having e-College serve up your course --- http://www.ecollege.com/
You can use PowerPoint, but I do not recommend this since some users are not familiar with how to run PowerPoint. There are some other reasons that I will not go into at the moment.
That may be all the software you need to work with when starting out. Later on you may want to go into animations using either Flash or PowerPoint XP Edition, but animations are generally difficult to make and tiresome for students.
FrontPage for Dummies will be helpful as a reference and a book to scan before starting out. However, your main helper will be the Help menu choice in FrontPage.
If you already use MS Word, you will find FrontPage relatively easy. One difference is that when you paste pictures into word, they become part of the DOC file. This has huge drawbacks for pictures used in multiple DOC files, because each use of the picture takes up disk space. In FrontPage and other HTML editors, you provide a link to a picture such that one picture can be used in multiple HTM files. The picture takes up disk space only once. Also, FrontPage allows you to easily change the size of a picture. For example, if you have a picture that takes up most of the screen, you can easily change the view of the picture to any size you choose without actually changing the size of the picture. Once again I remind you to use "relative links" to picture files and other files in a folder rather than full-path links.
I also suggest that you purchase a FrontPage video tutorial. I recommend the Learn2 video tapes and CD tutorials at http://store.learn2.com/basket/default.asp
I have some other helpers at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/newfaculty.htm
Robert (Bob) Jensen
Jesse H. Jones Distinguished Professor of Business
Trinity University
San Antonio, TX 78212-7200
Email: rjensen@trinity.edu
Homepage: http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen
-----Original Message-----
From: Juan G. Gonzalez [mailto:grunert@hotmail.com]
Sent: Friday, August 30, 2002 11:56 AM
To: Jensen, Robert Subject: E-Learning in Latin AmericaMr. Jensen,
I am a retired FBI Special Agent. During my last 3 years with the Bureau, I served as the program manager for a US Department of Justice program known as the International Criminal Investigative Training Assistance Program (ICITAP). ICITAP provides technical and training assistance to the police in several developing countries. I served as program manager of the El Salvador, Central America ICITAP program.
I was always amazed at the insistence of ICITAP Headquarters in Washington that assistance to the police be delivered with the "give them a fish" mentality instead of "teaching them to fish." Today the same mentality continues to rule, especially in the US Department of State, which provides the funding for the ICITAP Programs around the world.
My son recently took an e-learning course as part of his postgraduate degree at Roosevelt University, Chicago. In taking the course, he introduced me to ToolBook II Instructor. I immediately realized that delivering e-training courses to the police where ICITAP has programs would be beneficial for both ICITAP and training participants. I say this because, if I understand e-learning correctly, e-learning places the responsibility for learning squarely on the student rather than on the instructor.
In navigating through the Internet, I came upon your e-learning web site. After reading only part of your site's content, I begin to question if I should invest any time trying to learn the ToolBook II Instructor, especially since I have not found it easy to learn. You present other options that seem better suited for someone who, at age 58, does not have the patience nor the smarts to learn something as complicated as TookBook II Instructor.
I wish to learn e-learning software that will help me to develop police Internet-deliverable or CD-deliverable training courses that ICITAP or any other US Government agency involved in such ventures can use to effectively and efficiently train police in developing countries in a variety of subjects, including administration, planning, investigation, community oriented policing, intelligence gathering. etc.
Do you have any suggestions regarding how I could "locally" prepare myself for this challenge?
Juan Gonzalez Grunert
Vice-President
Universal Asset Group, Inc.
PO Box 691147
San Antonio, TX 78269-1147
Home Tel. # (210 479-9768
Cellular Phone # (210) 316-7281
Email: grunert@hotmail.com
Reply from Juan
Mr. Jensen,
Thank you for your quick response and for the specific advice. I will explore the software and sites that you recommend. I have no problem with you quoting my message in your September newsletter. I hope that if I have further questions you will not mind me contacting you again. Thank you.
Juan Gonzalez Grunert
HANDBOOK OF ONLINE LEARNING: INNOVATIONS IN HIGHER EDUCATION AND CORPORATE TRAINING Edited by Kjell-Erik Rudestam and Judith Schoenholtz-Read Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2002 ISBN: 0761924027 (hbk.); 0761924035 (pbk.)
From http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0761924035/qid%3D1030482142/sr%3D2-1/ref%3Dsr%5F2%5F1/002-8650629-2144831#product-details
Editorial Reviews Book Description Technology-mediated instruction has taken the university and the corporate sector by storm. As more instructors teach online for a dispersed learning community in both academic and business environments, there’s a need for resources that will help them adapt to this new sort of "classroom." Educators who come out of traditional academic institutions tend to use traditional methods when offering courses online (e.g., lectures, textbooks and readings, examinations) rather than attend to small-group processes and principles of what the editors of this volume call "andragogy." This handbook goes beyond the mechanics of how to create and direct an online learning experience to consider such a new approach to pedagogy in doing so. Their primary purpose is to clarify the conceptual issues that underlie effective online teaching and to offer practical guidance to educators and corporate trainers who plan to teach in a virtual environment. Their central tenet: the adoption of computer networks as the teaching vehicle of the future demands a reexamination of our core beliefs about pedagogy and how students learn. The transfer of a classroom curriculum into cyberspace is deceptively simple, but doing so without an appreciation of the nuances and implications of learning online ignores not only the potential of this medium but the inevitable realities of entering it. Rather than fear the challenges that new technology brings to systems of learning, the editors hope to help instructors embrace it by rethinking how knowledge is acquired and how educational processes may be optimally designed in a new age of teaching and learning.From the Publisher
Part I provides an overview and includes discussion of the unique structural aspects of the electronic learning environment, pedagogical issues, curriculum design, psychological and group dynamics, and ethical issues.
Part II examines practical issues associated with implementing courses online, both in the traditional university setting and in professional/corporate training environments.
The book draws heavily on personal case examples.
Bob Jensen's choice of key references in this area are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/crossborder.htm
"Please Learn From My Mistakes," by David G. Brown, Syllabus, August 2002 --- http://www.syllabus.com/syllabusmagazine/article.asp?id=6592
I have come to the sad realization that many of the innovations designed to keep my course fresh have failed. My memories of failures are so poignant that it may be constructive to share them here. They can serve as warnings to others.
Unstructured chat room discussions don’t work. Chats lack depth. Someone new is always interrupting the online conversation with his or her own topic just when the discussion is getting interesting.
Ungraded assignments are usually ignored. I used to ask two students to search the Web for two or three sites that provided alternative ways to learn the “topic of the day.” They shared information on these sites in annotated bibliographies. An end-of-the-course evaluation, however, revealed that their classmates never went to these sites.
My current practice is to require each student to e-mail me with an evaluative comment regarding the sites. They know that their comments will factor into the participation portion of their course grades. A recent end-of-the-course evaluation now shows that the students regard the alternate Web sites as important and useful components of the course.
Personal e-mails can overwhelm. One semester, I asked all of my students to send me an e-mail answer to an assigned question each time we reached the end of a textbook chapter. The responsibility for reading and evaluating all those submissions just about ruined my family life. Now I have Student A e-mail a proposed answer to Students B and C. Students A, B, and C must settle on a single answer. They teach one another, and I have only one-third as much grading to do.
Students need to know in advance what their responsibilities are if the computer network goes down on the eve of an important deadline. Networks do go down. Students will panic, unless there are instructions in the syllabus that anticipate forgiveness or outline their alternatives.
Another semester, several weeks before the final, I accidentally deleted all my students’ grades from the electronic grade book. Fortunately, the syllabus stressed that each student is expected to keep a copy of every assignment submitted and also of every grade-related message sent to him or her. With help from the class and substantial effort, I was able to reconstruct the gradebook. Now I print out a backup copy of grades about every two weeks.
I’ve come to realize that students accessing materials from course Web sites using a dial-up modem from a shared apartment off campus cannot, or will not, wait for long downloads. I had the bright—and well-received—idea of personalizing the list of course assignments. For each of our 34 assignment days I added thumbnail photos of the students responsible for presenting their special reports. Although student reaction to this personalization was quite positive, I noticed that they were consulting the list of assignments less frequently. A focus group session revealed that the list was now taking longer than a minute to open. Consulting the list was an increased burden.
My students bring their laptops to class everyday. Even so, I’ve learned that it’s wise to exchange e-mail messages before class when anything out of the ordinary is to occur. If, for example, my plan for the day requires that every student have their computer, I send the class an e-mail message.
I suspect that others have made mistakes from which we can all learn. If you have a brief story you’d like me to share in a future column, please e-mail me. Let me know if it’s OK to mention your name or if you’d prefer to remain anonymous.
Bob Jensen's threads on the dark side are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/theworry.htm
Online Faculty Workloads
The CIT Infobits May 2002 article "Online Teaching and the 24-Hour Professor" ( http://www.unc.edu/cit/infobits/bitmay02.html#1 ) described how the Internet is changing professors' workdays and workloads. John Messing, Director of the Research Centre for Innovation in Telelearning Environments at Charles Sturt University, continues this topic in "Can Academics Afford to Use E-mail?" (E-JOURNAL OF INSTRUCTIONAL SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, vol. 5, no. 2, August 2002). Messing reports on a study that began as "an attempt to quantify what many educators have suspected . . . that the workload associated with the use of online tools is considerably higher than with conventional technologies. In the process of trying to make sense of the data, it became clear that there are a number of issues such as increased expectations on the part of students and the disproportionate load that administrative use of e-mail places on academics that are rarely, if ever, considered as part of the debate."
The study analyzed the author's administrative and course-related email messages from 1991-2001. Some of his observations:
Regarding course-related email: "While the number of students in [his Graduate Diploma of Applied Science] course has doubled, the volume of communication has increased 11 fold. . . ."
Regarding administrative email: "It might take a secretary 10 to 15 minutes to duplicate and distribute meeting papers to 20 people [via email]. If it takes each recipient just 5 minutes to read, extract, print and collect the meeting papers, that represents a total of 100 minutes. The secretary saves 10 minutes but the recipients collectively lose 100 minutes."
He concludes, "Just how much extra time an individual is prepared to sacrifice in order to also receive the benefits of the use of such tools is debatable. From a personal perspective, the limit has been reached. With well over 3000 e-mails to contend with in one semester, the system has become a scourge rather than a blessing."
The article is available online at http://www.usq.edu.au/electpub/e-jist/docs/Vol6No_1/messing_frame.html (HTML format) and http://www.usq.edu.au/electpub/e-jist/docs/Vol6No_1/Messing%20-%20Final.pdf (PDF format).
e-Journal of Instructional Science and Technology (e-JIST) is published by the Distance Education Centre, University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba, Queensland 4350, Australia; Web: http://www.usq.edu.au/dec/ Current and back issues of e-JIST are available at no cost at http://www.usq.edu.au/electpub/e-jist/
Bob Jensen's threads on the dark side are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/theworry.htm
Warren Buffett (WB) is the most famous securities investor in the world.
August 30 message from clabitan@juno.com
Bob,
WB has 61 years of business thinking experience. So, I selected business ideas from all his annual letters.
The Warren Buffett Business Factors, free internet book. (Selected articles from the Letters of Warren E. Buffett to the Shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway Inc.)
or in word doc: http://www.frips.com/b.doc
Selected and Arranged by Cesar Labitan, Jr. MD
219-322-6281
clabitan@juno.com
MBAE student Purdue University
Calumet School of Management Hammond, Indiana 2002
Most academics who have Websites simply put their material on a server and let the world beat a path to their door. Commercial firms, on the other hand, work harder and spend more to attract users. The goal is to improve the chances of being found by search engines.
"Search Engine Results You Can Control," Tessa Wegert, ClickZ.com, August 29, 2002 --- http://www.clickz.com/media/media_buy/article.php/1453811
Assorted submission rules and policies, erratic protocol for updating databases, and varied techniques for optimizing a Web site to increase your client's chances of getting listed can all be overwhelming -- even for the most up-to-date SEO specialist. Yet, SEO remains a common method of increasing site traffic and exposure online. You've probably encountered plenty of advertisers who like the idea of getting their businesses listed on the top search engines on the Web. But how many of them are willing to wait for results?
Here's where media buying comes into play. Achieving rankings of any kind on popular search engines takes time, and top search results aren't a certainty -- but there are certainly ways to get your eager clients listed, and these methods can achieve a similar traffic -- and brand-building -- effect.
Where search engines are concerned, and when the objective is to garner immediate results, paid listings are a great alternative to submitting a Web site for listing the old-fashioned way. These placements have come to be considered part of "search engine marketing," the term SEO expert and ClickZ columnist Danny Sullivan often uses to embrace all methods of marketing involving search engine sites and directories.
The main difference between this and the more traditional method (which involves submitting your client's site and awaiting eventual rankings) is paid listings can be bought, giving you much more control over your results. Paid listings may not be the real deal -- and that surely affects their validity and value in the eyes of some Internet users -- but they'll give you the power to assure your client that his company name and product description will appear when keywords relevant to his site are typed into a search engine. It can take months to obtain a ranking using straightforward SEO, and the competition for gaining a significant standing under a popular keyword can be fierce. Paid listings allow the advertiser to position herself next to, and even above, her competitor's results.
When agency clients express an interest in advertising via paid listings on search engines, most buyers immediately recommend pay-per-search placements on properties such as Overture and Google. A slightly different approach utilizes a placement that is widely known as the "keyword text link." Most every major search engine offers these paid placements in a "sponsored links" or "sponsor matches" section, often on a CPM basis. The links are generally highlighted or visibly separated from the "genuine" results, indicating these listings were purchased.
Now that Overture and Google combined provide paid search results for the bulk of the other major search engines, arguing the benefits of a keyword text link over a pay-per-search placement can be challenging. With pay-per-search listings, you can get vast exposure while paying only when an Internet user clicks on your search result
Continued at http://www.clickz.com/media/media_buy/article.php/1453811
Bob Jensen's search helpers are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/searchh.htm
September 4, 2002 message from the AICPA's Jodi Ryan jryan@aicpa.org
New CPA exam website - Many of you may already be aware that the CPA exam has launched its own website, Http://www.cpa-exam.org . Please encourage students and fellow faculty to visit the site for the latest information on the exam.
Student recruitment campaign - The AICPA is entering its second year of the StartHereGoPlaces.com campaign. We ask that you promote this website to your students to find out more about the accounting profession. A business simulation game (bizzfun) on the site has been highly rated by students.
Takin' Care of Business materials -Our Takin' Care of Business materials are available for purchase from CPA2BIZ. A file describing the materials is attached to this e-mail.
In Our Opinion newsletter - Attached to this e-mail is a copy of the July 2002 issue of, In Our Opinion, the newsletter of the AICPA's Audit and Attest Standards Team. Please feel free to share it with anyone who might be interested in it.
Ordering additional brochures and highlighters - If you need more brochures and highlighters for distribution to your students, please call our member satisfaction hotline at (888) 777-7077 and ask for product #872561 (brochures) and product #872562 (highlighter pens). Allow at least two weeks for processing and delivery
Please feel free to call our On-Campus Champion hotline at (212) 596-6105 if you have any questions. Thank you again for your support of this valuable program. We hope it will benefit you, your students and the future of the profession.
Best regards,
Jodi Ryan
Manager- Recruiting Programs jryan@aicpa.org
September 3, 2002 message from mitchell.levy@ecnow.com
The research I'm conducting on Web services for the class at SJSU and for the book I'm co-authoring is going well. I'm still looking for good business case studies, please contact me if you have any. Also, here are the resources I've compiled to date: http://ecnow.com/webservices. I need to expand on the tools section. Let me know if you have any suggestion for this page.
In this issue, we explore eBay through the eyes of the Value Framework(tm).
Some fascinating observations and some steps that need to occur to ensure success.
- http://vms3.info/Sep2002/feature.article.htm
We also take a look at some top level news stories via the lenses of the
Value Framework(tm). Get caught up for the month of April.
- http://vms3.info/Sep2002/management.perspective.htm
Mitchell Levy
Executive Producer, VMS3.info
Creator of the Value Framework(tm) <http://ecnow.com/value>
Author, E-Volve-or-Die.com <http://e-volve-or-die.com>
President & CEO, ECnow.com <http://ecnow.com>
Founder and Coordinator, SJSU-PD ECM Certificate Program
http://ecmtraining.com/sjsu
Chair, Co-Founder and Partner, CEOnetworking <http://ceonetworking.com>
Bob Jensen's threads on electronic commerce are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ecommerce.htm
"Firewall Follies: The Net Effect," by Simson Garfinkel, Technology Review (MIT), September 2002 --- http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/garfinkel0902.asp
The complacency firewalls breed is ultimately more damaging than the computer pirates they keep out.
Do you use the Internet at work? I see lots of hands. You may not realize it, but your access to the Net is most likely mediated by some kind of firewall. Companies are spending thousands, even hundreds of thousands, of dollars on these systems—and trust them to protect their networks from snoopers and intruders.
That’s a problem, because firewalls often provide a mere illusion of protection. They don’t make business systems significantly more secure. And by focusing attention on defending the perimeter, rather than on defending information assets within an organization, firewalls foster lax internal security practices that magnify the damage that insiders can inflict. What firewalls do accomplish, however, is this: they make the Internet more cumbersome to use. I recently visited a friend’s firm in New York and wanted to check my e-mail, so I plugged my laptop into a network jack in an unused office. Access denied: my PC wasn’t set up to work with the company’s firewall. So instead of reading my e-mail, I occupied myself by sniffing the traffic on the office network and probing for a way out. (Had I been inclined, I could have read everybody else’s e-mail—or done real damage.)
Firewalls are simple in concept. A typical firewall consists of a special-purpose computer that has two network plugs. One plug goes to the Internet; the other connects to a company’s office network. The firewall is programmed with rules that determine what traffic is allowed to pass and what is to be blocked. For example, a firewall might be set up to allow managers in human resources to browse the Internet, or to access their desktop PCs from home, while permitting people in the corporate call center only to access their e-mail. The better firewalls log everything that moves across the boundary, giving companies a powerful tool for auditing online activity.
The great appeal of firewalls is that they are supposed to ease the job of corporate security. Instead of feverishly downloading and installing security patches to protect thousands of desktop computers and servers running a menagerie of operating systems, many organizations find it easier to simply trust the firewall to keep the bad guys out. The problem with this approach: bad guys are everywhere. Sure, some are on the outside of the company’s network. But there are corrupt employees on the inside, too. And even well-meaning workers can have laptops that contract viruses during business trips—viruses that then infect the office network. This is why so many companies supposedly fortified with firewalls succumbed to attacks from computer viruses and worms like Nimda and Code Red.
The existence of firewalls has also allowed companies to neglect their internal security measures and to accept lower-quality software from their vendors. Instead of hardening their systems, many vendors now advise their customers to install their equipment “behind the firewall.” This has long been standard practice for software suppliers delivering systems based on Microsoft Windows. Now it is becoming common for network-based management systems that are showing up in things like photocopiers, HVAC equipment and even elevators.
Continued at http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/garfinkel0902.asp
Bob Jensen's threads on firewalls are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ecommerce/assurance.htm
August 30, 2002 message from Carolyn Kotlas [kotlas@email.unc.edu]
STUDENT PERSONALITIES AND INSTRUCTION DELIVERY
In "Personality Type and Online Versus In-Class Course Satisfaction" (EDUCAUSE QUARTERLY, no. 3, 2002, pp. 71-2), University of South Alabama faculty Richard Daughenbaugh, Lynda Daughenbaugh, Daniel Surry, and Mohammed Islam report on a study they conducted of 146 college students enrolled in either online or residential introductory computer courses. Each student answered two questionnaires, one to assess personality type and another to measure course satisfaction. "Evaluation of personality type and course satisfaction data indicated that certain personality types preferred online rather than in-class courses. More extroverted students and those who were more sensitive than intuitive preferred the way the information was presented, and the way they were evaluated, in online courses." The authors present three recommendations based on their research: personality types and their different learning styles should be addressed in online instruction, student interaction should be increased in online courses, and more research should be done in this area.
The article is available online (in PDF format) at http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/eqm02312.pdf
The complete report, "Does Personality Type Effect Online Versus In-Class Course Satisfaction?" is online (in PDF format) at http://www.southalabama.edu/coe/bset/daughenbaugh/Personality%20Types.pdf
EDUCAUSE Quarterly, a peer-reviewed journal published by EDUCAUSE, covers planning, developing, managing, using, and evaluating information resources and technology in higher education. For more information, contact EDUCAUSE, 1150 18th Street, NW, Suite 1010, Washington, DC 20036 USA; tel: 202-872-4200; fax: 202-872-4318; email: info@educause.edu; Web: http://www.educause.edu/pub/eq/
For another view of the characteristics of students in relation to technology, especially young learners, see Edna Aphek's "Children of the Information Age: A Reversal of Roles" (UBIQUITY, vol. 3, issue 28, August 27-September 2, 2002; http://www.acm.org/ubiquity/views/e_aphek_3.html). Aphek is an education researcher with a special interest in learning environments for children and older adults.
Ubiquity: An ACM IT Magazine and Forum, a Web resource from the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM), provides a moderated, interactive community for IT professionals and others to discuss important issues. To contact Ubiquity: email: ubiquity@acm.org; Web: http://www.acm.org/ubiquity/ For more information on the ACM, contact: ACM, One Astor Plaza, 1515 Broadway, New York, NY, 10036, USA; tel: 212-869-7440; Web: http://www.acm.org/
Bob Jensen's threads on assessment are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/assess.htm
"The e-book market is littered with the wreckage of failed ventures."
August 30, 2002 message from Carolyn Kotlas [kotlas@email.unc.edu]
FUTURE OF E-BOOKS
"The e-book market is littered with the wreckage of failed ventures, and with some justification, one might think that it is approaching total collapse." In "Electronic Books: Reports of Their Death Have Been Exaggerated" (ONLINE, vol. 26, no. 4, July/August 2002), Donald T. Hawkins, editor-in-chief for Information Today, Inc. Information Science Abstracts and Fulltext Sources Online, charts the ups and downs of e-books and the market's successes and fiascos. Although e-book company failures have shaken the confidence of early-adopters, Hawkins believes that e-books still have a future. The article is available online at http://www.onlinemag.net/jul02/hawkins.htm
Online [ISSN: 0146-5422] is published six times per year by Information Today, Inc., 143 Old Marlton Pike, Medford, NJ 08055 USA; tel: 609-654-6266 or 800-300-9868; fax: 609-654-4309; Web: http://www.onlinemag.net/
In the article "Students Complain About Devices for Reading E-Books, Study Finds" (THE CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION, August 26, 2002; http://chronicle.com/free/2002/08/2002082601t.htm), Scott Carlson reports on a study of the usability of e-books and their acceptance by college students. The study was conducted by Richard F. Bellaver, Associate Director, Center for Information & Communication Studies, and Jay Gillette, Director, Human Factors Institute, Ball State University. The researchers concluded, that if future improvements are made in the technology, e-books could be acceptable devices for delivering and storing students' reading materials. The study's report, "The Usability of eBook Technology: Practical Issues of an Application of Electronic Textbooks in a Learning Environment," is available online at http://publish.bsu.edu/cics/ebook_final_result.asp
The Chronicle of Higher Education [ISSN 0009-5982] is published weekly by The Chronicle of Higher Education, Inc., 1255 Twenty-third Street, NW, Washington, DC 20037 USA; tel: 202-466-1000; fax: 202-452-1033;
Bob Jensen's threads on electronic books are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ebooks.htm
But the e-book market is still "clicking" in academe.
I thank Kevin Kobelsky (USC) for the
link below:
"E-textbooks clicking with colleges Most greet e-books with enthusiasm, but
wariness remains, by Marsha Walton, CNN.com, September 1, 2002 --- http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/science/08/30/coolsc.ebooks/index.html
Note that the link above also has audio testimonials From students!
It's 4 a.m., the astronomy homework is due in just a few hours, and there's still confusion about some quirks in those mysterious quasars. What's a fretting college student to do?
If you're in professor Michael Ruiz's astronomy class at the University of North Carolina at Asheville, your answer may be just a few clicks away, in an online forum that every student in the class can access, 24-7.
"If you don't understand something it's nice to be able to ask another student without wandering the halls knocking on doors saying, 'Do you take astronomy? Do you take astronomy?' Just type it in the forum, and ask your question about stars or nebulae," said Margaret Eason, who is taking the class this semester.
The student forum is one of dozens of interactive and multimedia features in the electronic textbook written and produced by astronomy and physics professor Ruiz. Along with his academic credentials, he's an accomplished musician, and a veteran experimenter in all types of technology.
All three of those interests contribute to the interactivity of his online texts, filled with music, movies, experiments, and incentives. He's also created an e-book for his physics of sound class, filled with online videos of his own piano and keyboard performances.
Fast updates, around-the-clock access Ruiz's electronic texts are Internet-based. Students access the class Web site on a with a login and password.
"I'm more effective with a class of 90 today than I was 20 years ago with 30 people and some equipment up front. Let's face it, your best time might be 2 o'clock in the morning, so if you're in here half falling asleep, you can see that demonstration or experiment again at home, and absorb it," he told students in his sound class the first day of this semester.
One major advantage over traditional texts is Ruiz's ability to update information, literally within minutes. And that's crucial, he says, in a field like astronomy, with constant discoveries and debates.
Continued at http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/science/08/30/coolsc.ebooks/index.html
Bob Jensen's threads on electronic books are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ebooks.htm
From InformationWeek Daily on September 6, 2002
Bill Gates has seen the future, and in his investing opinion, it's health care. At least that's what recent public filings by Microsoft may indicate. The software company's chairman has unloaded 9 million Microsoft shares--valued at more than $463 million--since the beginning of August. That includes 2 million shares he sold this week, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission document. As of June, Gates held 660 million Microsoft shares.
At the same time, Gates, widely heralded as a trend-predicting savant, has been loading up on biomedical and health-care stocks. In the second quarter, he bought 2.6 million shares of Prozac-maker Eli Lilly. He also acquired 1.3 million shares of Merck and 1.2 million shares of Pfizer.
Microsoft has been vexed by ongoing antitrust and consumer litigation and a rash of Windows security flaws that has forced the company to issue patches regularly.
A survey by the National Whistleblower Center finds that most whistleblowers are male, and many still lack the legal rights to protect themselves from retaliation by their employers. http://www.accountingweb.com/item/89729
AccountingWEB US - Sep-4-2002 - Despite recent publicity given high profile female whistleblowers, a survey by the National Whistleblower Center finds that most whistleblowers are male and many still lack the legal rights to protect themselves from retaliation by their employers.The survey was based on a random review of 200 cases reported to the National Whistleblower Center in 2002. Key findings:
- 60% of whistleblowers were male, 40% were female.
- 50% alleged they were terminated after they blew the whistle.
- 51% blew the whistle on fraud or criminal practices.
Some but not all whistleblowers were accountants. Others worked in a variety of other occupations ranging from computer programmers and social workers to doctors, teachers, and airline pilots.
To help whistleblowers gain the legal rights needed to protect themselves from retaliation, the National Whistleblower Center supports additional measures ranging from legislative relief to tax relief and prohibitions against unfair pre-employment agreements.
Continued at http://www.accountingweb.com/item/89729
Hi Ivan,
The new product of choice that you will love is called Camtasia. I even provide you with a free video tutorial.
Go to http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/video/HelpersVideosSummary.htm
Or you can go directly to the Camtasia vendor site at http://www.techsmith.com/
Another alternative that is not quite the same, but it is popular by some instructional support centers is the option to make videos out of Macromedia's Flash presentations. However, this option is used mainly for videos of PowerPoint shows and is not as general as Camtasia in terms of making videos of any succession of screen images on your computer's monitor. Also Flash videos require much more skill and training to prepare.
Bob Jensen
-----Original Message-----
From: Anthony Ivan [mailto:Ivan.Anthony.bp@ptsi.siemens.co.id]
Sent: Friday, September 06, 2002 4:30 AM
To: Jensen, Robert Subject: Lotus Screencam EquivalentHi Bob
I am a South African. I am looking for a product that is similar to Lotus Screencam. Screencam does not run on XP so I am not able to complete an important project. I would appreciate any suggestions you may have.
Regards
Ivan Anthony
September 3, 2002 message from George Durler [Durlerge@esumail.emporia.edu]
Regarding the Hassellback Accounting Faculty Directory at http://rarc.rutgers.edu/raw/hasselback/
Bob,
I'm catching up on my AECM mail today and so someone might have already pointed out to you that the on-line Hasselback is very much out of date (1999-2000). My correspondence with Prentice Hall indicates that it is iffy whether they will update this on a regular basis.
George
Dr. M. George Durler
Assistant Professor of Accounting
Campus Box 57 Emporia State University
1200 N. Commercial Emporia, KS 66801
http://www.emporia.edu/~durlerge/
Forwarded by Scott Bonacker, CPA [scottbonacker@moccpa.com]
1. ==== IN FOCUS ====
(contributed by Mark Joseph Edwards, News Editor, mark@ntsecurity.net)
* CAN OTHERS STUMBLE INTO YOUR WIRELESS NETWORK?
In the August 7, 2002, edition of Security UPDATE, I wrote about a new trend called warchalking. As you know, warchalking is the act of marking buildings in the vicinity of wireless networks. The idea is to provide a visual clue indicating the presence of wireless networks so that people can obtain a free Internet connection. Warchalkers use distinctive markings and include information about bandwidth and various connection perimeters.
http://www.secadministrator.com/articles/index.cfm?articleid=26207
The trend is catching on, so much so that, according to VNU Business Publications, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) recently issued an unofficial warning that businesses should check the security of their wireless LAN (WLAN) equipment to ensure that adequate security is in place.
http://www.vnunet.com/news/1134451
Recently, I learned about a new Internet site, NetStumbler.com, that aids users in identifying and locating WLANs around the country. Among other features, the site hosts a national map that shows cities that have open WLANs and a searchable database that helps users query for information about specific locations.
NetStumbler.com also hosts a downloadable program called NetStumbler that lets users investigate a given WLAN's security. Security administrators can use it to test their sites. Anyone can download a copy (291KB) at the first URL below. According to the Web site, "NetStumbler is a Windows tool that allows you to [scan for] 802.11b (and 802.11a, if using Windows XP) wireless LANs. It includes [global positioning satellite (GPS)] integration and a simple, intuitive user interface. Though primarily targeted at owners of wireless LANs, it has been the de facto tool for casual users such as war drivers for over a year." The tool apparently even won a "PC Magazine" award earlier this year (see the second URL below), which named the tool its favorite innovative networking technology in the wireless software category.
http://www.netstumbler.com/download.php?op=getit&lid=22
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,3666,00.aspNetStumbler runs on Windows 2000, Windows 98, and Win95 but doesn't work yet on Windows XP, Windows NT 4.0, or Windows Me. To see what it was like, I downloaded a copy and installed the tool. NetStumbler has a typical GUI, lets you choose a wireless NIC to use for scanning, and has scripting capabilities. After you've scanned an area and discovered WLANs, you can save the NetStumbler output and upload it to the NetStumbler.com Web site, where an application on the Web site converts it to Microsoft MapPoint 2002-compatible output. The process helps you plot WLAN points on a graphical map.
http://www.microsoft.com/mappoint/overview.htm
With resources such as NetStumbler and NetStumbler.com freely available, you should definitely take time to ensure that your WLAN security is adjusted to permit only authorized users access--unless you want to intentionally leave it open and available to anyone. The bottom line is that if you run a wireless network, you must keep it secure. If you don't, expect that someone will identify your network, chalk it up, and possibly submit it to the NetStumbler.com Web site--where everyone can find it quickly. For information about securing your WLANs, read Allen Jones' article, "Securing 802.11 Wireless Networks" (see the first URL below) and Paul Thurrott's article "Securing Your Wireless Networks" (see the second URL below).
http://www.secadministrator.com/articles/index.cfm?articleid=24873
http://www.secadministrator.com/articles/index.cfm?articleid=24521
Bob Jensen's wireless threads are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/245glosf.htm#Wireless1
From a Stanford University GSB Alumni Newsletter on September 3, 2002
ARE GLOBAL LABOR STANDARDS GOOD FOR WORKERS?
Robert Flanagan Economists, politicians, and activists have long debated whether countries that do not adopt international labor standards gain an advantage in trade and investment at the expense of those who do. GSB Professor Robert Flanagan recently tested the arguments through a comparative study of about 100 countries at various stages of development from 1980 to 1999. August 2002 http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/community/bmag/sbsm0208/faculty_research_labor_standards.htmlANALYZING THE ANALYST
Harrison Hong Investors take risks based on information they can trust to be true. But in our post-Enron world, how does the investor know which voices to listen to in the clamor of financial information? And what regulations of securities analysts would restore the climate of trust? One step is to identify a predictable pattern of bias in the work of successful financial analysts and understand how that bias is rewarded. Recent research by Stanford Graduate School of Business faculty member Harrison Hong does just that. August 2002 http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/research/reports/2002/hong.htmlSTANFORD BUSINESS SCHOOL STUDY EXPOSES BLIND SPOT IN MUTUAL FUND INVESTING
Eric Zitzewitz Volatility presents greater risks to market players attempting to stay ahead of the curve. The extent to which such volatility, combined with the standard industry practice of pricing mutual funds just once daily, has allowed arbitrageurs to profit handsomely. And those profits come at the expense of long-term investors-to the tune of $4 billion annually. That estimated $4 billion dilution level is part of a new study by Eric Zitzewitz. August 2002 http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/research/reports/2002/zitzewitz.htmlFUROR OVER MBA STUDY BY STANFORD RESEARCHERS: STANFORD STUDY CONTENDS MBA DEGREES OVERRATED
For many would-be executives and entrepreneurs, an MBA degree is supposed be the ticket to career success. Two researchers, Jeffrey Pfeffer and Christine Fong at Stanford University's Graduate School of Business are turning that notion on its head. Pfeffer is quoted, as is GSB senior associate dean for academic affairs David Kreps: "We are going to continue to pay attention to articles like Pfeffer and Fong and see how we can improve." San Francisco Chronicle, August 27, 2002 http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2002/08/27/BU99160.DTLRELATED LINKS Similar stories appeared in over 77 newspapers across the country. See Baltimore Sun, September 2, 2002 http://www.sunspot.net/business/bal-bz.mba02sep02.story?coll=bal%2Dbusiness%2Dheadlines
NPR's "Morning Edition," Interview with Pfeffer (3:15 min.) (audio players can be downloaded from the left-side navigation menu) Wednesday, August 28, 2002 http://search.npr.org/cf/cmn/cmnpd01fm.cfm?prgID=3&prgDate=08/28/2002
CONTROVERSY AWAITS MBA CERTIFICATION EXAM
According to reporter Del Jones, a certification exam for MBAs will be launched in April in an attempt to figure out who among the 112,000 graduates each year has learned the core subjects of a master's degree in business administration. "The exam comes at a time when the MBA degree is under attack," writes Jones, citing recently published research by GSB faculty member Jeffrey Pfeffer. USA Today, Tuesday, August 27, 2002 http://www.usatoday.com/usatonline/20020827/4394171s.htm
August 30, 2002 message from A. William Richardson [awrichar@SPARTAN.AC.BROCKU.CA]
The following is an article relating to the subject of corruption index that appeared in the Globe and Mail. At the end of the story are some rankings on the 1 - 10 scale that shows that the point in Prof Wright's email is generally but not precisely correct.
The URL is given after the article.
There was a similar article in the National Post and the URL is also listed after the article below.
Bangladesh most corrupt, study says
Survey results will not affect flow of aid and funding from Canada, CIDA says
By STEPHANIE NOLEN
Globe and Mail, Thursday, August 29, 2002 Page A14
http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/PEstory/TGAM/20020829/UCORROQ/Business is bad in Bangladesh: an international survey of corruption in more than 100 countries has declared the impoverished South Asian country the most corrupt place in the world.
The top recipient of Canadian aid, Bangladesh ranks at the bottom of the Transparency International's annual corruption perceptions index for the second year running.
Transparency International, a Berlin-based non-governmental organization, builds the index from a "poll of polls," using 15 different independent surveys, including one by the Economist Intelligence Unit. A country must appear in at least three surveys to be ranked; citizens of a country are never surveyed on their own nation.
Finland was first with a score of 9.7 out of 10, while Bangladesh bottomed out at 1.2 out of 10, 0.4 points behind the next-most corrupt nation, Nigeria. Canada ranked seventh on the list.
Canada gives Bangladesh $50-million a year in bilateral aid, but a spokeswoman for the Canadian International Development Agency said the ranking would not affect aid funding.
"We don't penalize the poor by pulling out of the country," Ginette Lebreton said. "CIDA recognizes that corruption exists in some countries we work with and we support programs that strengthen good governance. Sixteen per cent of our spending is towards democracy, human rights, good governance and public management."
Non-governmental aid agencies suggested yesterday that the index is highly subjective. While corruption tends to be blatant in the least developed countries, it can be no less pervasive in higher income countries such as China and the Persian Gulf states -- just better disguised in more sophisticated business practises.
China, which receives nearly as much Canadian aid as Bangladesh and is often criticized for corruption, is 59th on the list.
"Corruption is damaging to the progress of a society, no question," said Nazeer Ali Ladhani, chief executive officer of the Aga Khan Foundation Canada, a charity with numerous projects in Bangladesh and other countries near the bottom of the index. "But you have to see it through the lens of
poverty: where do you draw the line on what is corruption and how do you judge?"
When poorly paid public servants demand bribes to do their jobs, it is perceived as corruption, he said. But in middle-income countries, bribes can be formally presented as "user fees," which international business accepts.
Seventy per cent of the countries surveyed scored lower than five out of 10. The world's poorest countries were almost all lumped near the bottom of the list.
"Corrupt political elites in the developing world, working hand-in-hand with greedy business people and unscrupulous investors, are putting private gain before the welfare of citizens and the economic development of their countries," Transparency International chairman Peter Eigen said in a statement.
Corruption is perceived to be rampant in Indonesia, Kenya, Angola, Madagascar, Paraguay, Uganda and Haiti. At the other end of the spectrum, the wealthy Scandinavian countries of Finland, Denmark and Sweden, plus New Zealand, all scored above nine.
Esperanza Moreno, deputy director of the Canadian Council on International Cooperation, suggested it was unfair to think of corruption as a plague of developing countries. "It is not only a Third World problem, as we saw recently with the big northern corporations [such as Enron]."
Because this year's index is drawn from data compiled in 2000-01 period, the impact of the major financial scandals that have occurred in the United States is not yet perceptible.
Mr. Eigen said he was disappointed that the list revealed no trend toward lessening corruption, although Russia (71st on the list at 2.7) and a few Eastern European countries have made progress in eliminating practises such as kickbacks, he said. Perceived corruption Transparency International, a coalition against corruption, has released its Corruption Perceptions Index for 2002. The CPI scores relate to perceptions of the degree of corruption as seen by business people and risk analysts and range between 10 (highly clean) and 0 (highly corrupt). Here is a selection from the 102 nations and how they scored. Country
Rank Name CPI score
1 Finland 9.7
7 Canada 9.0
10 United Kingdom 8.7
16 United States 7.7
18.* Germany 7.3
20.* Japan 7.1
31 Italy 5.2
59.* China 3.5
71.* Russia 2.7
101 Nigeria 1.6
102 Bangladesh 1.2
-*Rank shared by more than one country.
http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/PEstory/TGAM/20020829/UCORROQ
http://www.nationalpost.com/search/site/story.asp?id=270FC3B8-7B9B-41FB-BC2A-28DB357FF9EF
Bob Jensen's threads on securities frauds are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraud.htm
The popular IVillage women's website goes beyond its usual free e-mail service and accidentally allows viewers to read other peoples' private messages --- http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,54833,00.html
From The Wall Street Journal Accounting Educators' Review on September 5, 2002
TITLE: Cendant Takes Steps on Pay of CEO and Stock Options
REPORTER: Motoko Rich
DATE: Aug 29, 2002
PAGE: B2 LINK: http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB1030541238406495995.djm,00.html
TOPICS: Accounting, Advanced Financial Accounting, Financial Accounting
Standards Board, Financial Statement Analysis, Managerial Compensation, Standard
Setting, Stock Options
SUMMARY: The article describes the impact of changing Cendant's CEO's stock options incentive pay and other contract provisions. Questions require students to understand accounting for stock options and restricted-stock awards, to define the terms EBITDA and pre-tax income, and to consider the FASB's standards setting agenda and potential Congressional influence.
QUESTIONS:
1.) What are the possible ways in which companies may account for stock options?
Under what accounting standards are these requirements established?
2.) What are restricted-stock awards? How are these compensation packages accounted for?
3.) The Cendant CEO argues that the "hit to a company's income statement" for employee stock options "won't reflect the value of the options to employees...[whereas] the intrinsic value subtracted from the company's earnings [under restricted-stock awards plans] would be mostly equivalent to the intrinsic value that the employee receives." Explain these statements. Do you agree with the CEO's position? Support your answer.
4.) What is the difference between "pretax earnings" and earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization" (EBITDA)? In your answer, first define these two terms.
5.) Cendant's chief executive's pay will be impacted in at least two ways due to the changes that are described in the article, one which certainly will reduce his incentive bonus and one which may reduce or increase it, in contrast to his former contract. Explain how these changes will occur.
6.) Why are corporations now choosing to expense employee stock options? (Hint: you may view the growing list of companies choosing to expense employee stock options on the WSJ web site at http://online.wsj.com/documents/opting_in.htm
7.) Why is Congress considering legislation that may mandate the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) to undertake a project on the topic of accounting for stock options? Does Congress typically set the FASB's agenda? (Hint: you can find guidance in answering this question by going to the FASB's web site at http://www.fasb.org and clicking on "FASB Facts" on the left-hand side of the page.)
Reviewed By: Judy Beckman, University of Rhode Island
Reviewed By: Benson Wier, Virginia Commonwealth University
Reviewed By: Kimberly Dunn, Florida Atlantic University
Research Study of the Week --- It's "Cool"
I have always attributed the declines in accounting enrollments in the United States mostly to the accompanying requirement that candidates for the CPA examination have five rather than four years of college (the so called 150-Hour Requirement). I finally discovered a study that changed my mind somewhat (at least from over 70% down to 38%). The study is by Jeff Boone and Teddy Coe. I don't know Jeff Boone, but I've known Teddy Coe for many years. There is one word to describe Teddy --- "cool." He has been a long-time leader in accounting education with a charming personality and a deep knowledge of opera and accounting. And there is one word to describe the "Quasi-Experiment" cited below --- "cool."
The study provides a great review of the history of the 150-Hour Requirement and it's controversies. Then it reports a very clever research design with excellent statistical analysis. I honestly never thought there would be innovative research that seems to get a handle on whether the main cause of enrollment decline in accounting graduates was the 150-Hour requirement enacted by most states in the U.S. The study essentially concludes that the 150-Hour Requirement is a leading cause, but it is less than 50% of the problem according to Boone and Coe.
"The 150-Hour Requirement and
Changes in the Supply of Accounting Undergraduates: Evidence from a
Quasi-Experiment," by Jeff P. Boone and Teddy L. Coe, Issues in
Accounting Education, Vol. 17, No. 3, August 2002, pp. 258-268 --- http://accounting.rutgers.edu/raw/aaa/pubs.htm
You must be a paid subscriber to download the full article, but a free summary
is available at http://www.newslettersonline.com/user/user.fas/s=604/fp=3/tp=44?T=open_summary,480676&P=summary
ABSTRACT:
The number of accounting graduates has declined sharply following the near universal adoption of the 150-hour requirement for licensing and as a condition for membership in the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA). This decline has led many observers to conclude that the 150-hour requirement was a mistake. Our study investigates the extent to which the 150-hour requirement (rather than other causes) is responsible for the decline in the number of accounting graduates during the 1990s. We document that approximately 38 percent of the decline can be attributed to the requirement. The other 62 percent of the decline remains unexplained. Our study underscores the importance of considering other factors such as noncompetitive compensation, unattractive working conditions, inappropriate student counseling, and inadequate curriculum among others when trying to understand the decline in accounting enrollments.SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS
We document a decline in conferred undergraduate accounting degrees that is associated with implementation of the 150-hour requirement. Results show a monotonic decrease in accounting degrees conferred by treatment states as the 150-implementation date approaches, with the decrease reaching a maximum in the first year after implementation and disappearing entirely by event year +3. The estimated loss in graduating undergraduate accountants is 1,945 students in year 2000, which is 11.38 percent of the number of undergraduate accounting degrees that would have been conferred if the 150-hour requirement were not in effect. Further, this estimated annual loss of 1,945 accounting degrees represents only 38 percent of the 5,074 annual loss in accounting degrees conferred by treatment states during the decade of the 1990s.Since the adoption of the 150-hour rule for licensing in most U.S. jurisdictions and its adoption as a condition for membership in the AICPA, accounting enrollments have declined precipitously. This has lead to considerable debate in the accounting profession as to whether this decline should be laid directly at the door of the 150-hour rule. Albrecht and Sack (2000) even concluded that the rule "is universally seen as a mistake." Our study supports the belief that the 150-hour requirement is an important yet incomplete explanation for the substantial and dramatic decline in accounting graduates. In particular, estimates suggest that the 150-hour requirement accounts for 38 percent of the decline in accounting graduates, with the other 62 percent of the decline unexplained. Efforts to increase accounting enrollments and the supply of professional accountants by eliminating the 150-hour requirement are likely to stimulate only a modest increase in accounting enrollments. If leaders of the academic and professional communities want to address ways in which to ameliorate the decline in accounting enrollments, then issues such as noncompetitive compensation, unattractive working conditions, inappropriate student counseling, and inadequate curriculum among others must be considered. Addressing these issues assumes even greater urgency in light of the possibility that the Enron debacle may further depress already dwindling accounting enrollments.
The 150-hour issue is a timely and important topic to accounting professionals and educators. As Wallace (1996) notes, much research remains to be done before we can evaluate whether the 150-hour requirement represents progress or protection for the accounting profession.
The most significant study published about the decline in accounting graduates is the free Accounting Education: Charting the Course through a Perilous Future, by W. Steve Albrecht and Robert J. Sack (Sarasota, FL: American Accounting Association, Accounting Education Series Monograph No. 16, http://aaahq.org/pubs/AESv16/toc.htm
Richard Campbell [campbell@RIO.EDU]
This is a significant upgrade of Windows Media Player 9 and may be a nail in RealNetwork's coffin.
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/9series/player.asp
Richard Campbell
Note that this is only the Beta version. It was a piece of cake to upgrade.
September 6, 2002 message from Roxio [Roxio_support@adm.cheetahmail.com]
Roxio's homepage is at http://www.roxio.com/
Roxio's VideoWave® 5 Power Edition is the complete video editing and DVD authoring solution for demanding users. Now, for a limited time, you can purchase Videowave 5 Power Edition for only $59.95. That's $40 off the suggested retail price!
Easy Capture: Easily transfer digital or analog** video from your camera to your PC. Powerful Editing: Use professional tools with drag & drop ease. Expert Effects: Create high-end image effects and transitions. DVD Authoring: Burn DVDs to share with friends.
Take advantage of the $10 instant discount and $30 mail-in rebate!
Bob Jensen's summary of resources can be found at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/newfaculty.htm#Resources
September 6, 2002 message from AACSB International - Communications [comm@AACSB.edu]
And now we are your source for Worldwide Jobs in Management Education.
M.E. Jobs - http://www.aacsb.edu/jobs/default.asp - is an ONLINE career marketplace for professionals in management education jobs that provides:
A user-friendly and immediate format Accessibility to job postings from our over 900 member schools Most ads were posted within the last 30 days - no job over 90
Bob Jensen's threads on careers can be found at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob1.htm#010304Careers%20in%20Accountancy
Because he was known as "Silent
Cal," there is no audio at this site.
Calvin Coolidge: 30th President of the United States http://www.calvin-coolidge.org/
From Syllabus News on August 30, 2002
Technical Grads Have Highest Starting Salaries
Despite the economic downturn in the technology sector, students graduating with technical degrees are typically offered the highest starting salaries compared to their peers holding other degrees, according to a new job market survey by the New York Times. Starting salaries in the New York area for graduates with bachelor's technical degrees ranged from $38K to $52K. The range for the next highest group, business degreed grads, was $30K to $35K.
However, job seekers continue to believe that enrollment in a business program will help them secure good jobs. Nearly two in five job seekers interviewed think that recruiters are most likely to hire candidates with a business degree (38 percent). A business program is a top choice among current students (29 percent) and among those who plan to enroll at a college/university during the next year (30 percent).
U. Conn. Adopts Online Alcohol Ed Program: It's a Required Online Course
The University of Connecticut said it mandated alcohol education for its students starting this September. All first-year students will take a three-hour interactive course, AlcoholEdu, developed by Outside The Classroom, Inc., which provides online health education for colleges and universities. The university will also make AlcoholEdu available to other campus groups, including athletic teams, Greek-letter organizations, and disciplinary referrals. "Binge drinking and other high-risk alcohol consumption can be a major problem for young men and women, especially early in their college careers," said John Saddlemire, dean of students at the university. "Research has shown that the strongest motivation for behavior change comes from relevant information delivered to students in effective and non-threatening ways. AlcoholEdu for the first time makes it easy and practical to provide this preemptive education to all our first-year students and other selected groups."
For more information, visit: http://www.outsidetheclassroom.com
The Official Muddy Waters Website (Hear the Music) http://www.muddywaters.com
Jazz Age Chicago: Urban Leisure from 1892 to 1934 http://www.suba.com/~scottn/explore/mainmenu.htm
Create your own music on the Web (free) --- http://www.myriad-online.com/enindex.htm
MAC'S SLIPPING CLASS RANK
Apple is losing ground to more enterprise-friendly Windows PCs in the critical
education market. If that continues, watch out http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/aug2002/tc20020827_9702.htm?c=bwtechaug30&n=link3&t=email
APPLE'S JAGUAR LEAPS AHEAD OF WINDOWS
The good old days are here again: The new version of OS X once more gives Macs
clear superiority in operating systems http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/aug2002/tc20020828_4318.htm?c=bwtechaug30&n=link12&t=email
African Aperture (Beautiful Photography) http://www.africanaperture.com/
JAlbum 2.0 Web Photo Album Generator (free) http://www.datadosen.se/jalbu
Macromedia's ever-popular tool, famous for making it easy to create dynamic sites and Web-based apps, gets a massive overhaul and some new, drool-worthy features --- http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/02/34/index3a.html
Bob Jensen's threads on course authoring and management systems can be found at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/290wp/290wp.htm
"The dark side of XML and privacy, by Jack Vaughan, September 5, 2002 --- AppDevTrends@101communications-news.com
The data-describing power of XML could have a very dark side in the hand of mischievous individuals, says Ron Schmelzer, a senior analyst at industry analyst firm ZapThink, Waltham, Mass. "XML is essentially automating identity theft," said Schmelzer, a speaker at the XML Web Services One Conference in Boston.
By creating what Schmelzer described as a "human-readable, machine-processable, meta data-enhanced, text-based way of reading information that is tagged," XML has given developers a way to tag data fields that may be too efficient. With XML, developers don't really have the ability to tell DBAs to ignore the information. "It's like telling them not to think about polar bears. They're essentially drawing a big red flag" that points to those data fields holding sensitive information.
To resolve this problem, said Schmelzer, some programmers have turned to a strategy of obfuscation -- creating a field called XJ12 as the tag for credit cards, and splitting the credit card number into four fields or even hashing the number.
The Platform for Privacy Preferences is a popular XML-based effort that defines privacy policies in machine-readable formats and generates such policies. According to Schmelzer, attempts at offering customers P3P-based, user-centric services to store and access personal information, such as Microsoft Passport, the Liberty Alliance, CPExchange and Oasis CIQ, at best create as many questions as answers; at worst, they are doomed to failure.
All these plans have one thing in common: They use XML tags to standardize customer information. But, said Schmelzer, "if it's hard to [get agreement on] standardized simple address fields internationally, then think about how hard it will be to tag other, more complex forms of customer information."
Bob Jensen's threads on XML are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/xmlrdf.htm
September 2, 2002 message from James L. Morrison [morrison@mivu.org]
Hi Bob,
Below is a description of the September/October 2002 issue of The Technology Source, a free, refereed e-journal published by the Michigan Virtual University as a service to the educational community at http://ts.mivu.org/
Please forward this announcement to colleagues who are interested in using information technology tools more effectively in their work.
As always, we seek illuminating articles that will assist educators as they face the challenge of using information technology tools in teaching and in managing educational organizations. Please review our call for manuscripts at http://ts.mivu.org/default.asp?show=call and send me a note if you would like to contribute such an article.
Many thanks.
Jim
James L. Morrison
Editor-in-Chief
The Technology Source
http://ts.mivu.org
Home Page: http://horizon.unc.eduIN THIS ISSUE:
Editor James L. Morrison interviews Peter Suber, a leading figure in the “free online scholarship” movement. Suber describes the technological, legal, and philosophical aspects of this exciting movement, and assesses its future development within the academy. See http://ts.mivu.org/default.asp?show=article&id=1025
When instructors need to promote communication and collaboration online, are there better alternatives than threaded discussion boards? In his commentary, William R. Klemm argues that a “shared document” approach offers significant advantages, and illustrates this in his use of a customized software program. See http://ts.mivu.org/default.asp?show=article&id=1015
In an interview with editor James L. Morrison, Carl Berger discusses the potential of integrated software development in instructional technology. Through his concept of the “killer app”—-a software application that assimilates a range of diverse functions—-Berger anticipates a future in which technology becomes further integrated in the daily experience of learners. See http://ts.mivu.org/default.asp?show=article&id=995
Thierry R. H. Bacro illustrates how online technology allowed him to deliver an anatomy course to a broader geographic range of students. By illustrating the online component of this course, Bacro provides an “incisive” account of how distance education can be adopted within highly specialized forms of instruction. See http://ts.mivu.org/default.asp?show=article&id=977
In their case study, Gene Abrams and Jeremy Haefner describe their use of the MathOnline system, through which they were able to combine traditional and online methods of mathematics instruction, and thereby provide a more flexible range of learning options for their students. See http://ts.mivu.org/default.asp?show=article&id=970
When building a distance education program, some institutions may already have a substantial community of students and faculty—-but still lack financial resources. Carol Stroud and Brenda Stutsky show how they addressed this challenge through a sharing of community resources, which allowed them to develop an online course for regional nurses in Manitoba. See http://ts.mivu.org/default.asp?show=article&id=939
Jerome R. Koblo and Casey Turnage offer an overview of current efforts to use technology to enhance faculty development programs in higher education. After considering a range of different approaches, they offer a prospectus for future efforts. See http://ts.mivu.org/default.asp?show=article&id=943
Michael M. Danchak illustrates how he has addressed the problem of creating affective relationships in Web-based instruction. Recognizing the difficulty of establishing instructor personality without face-to-face contact, Danchak suggests several ways in which instructors can reassure students of their presence and concern. See http://ts.mivu.org/default.asp?show=article&id=962
For our Spotlight Site, Stephen Downes reviews LearnScope Virtual Learning Community (VLC), an Australian site that focuses on the use of information technology in education. Through its multiple features, LearnScope VLC lives up to its name by providing a comprehensive online learning community to its participants. See http://ts.mivu.org/default.asp?show=article&id=1035
Bob Jensen's threads on education technologies are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/0000start.htm
Pop-up ads may be annoying, but they're not going away. Some sneaky advertisers are even trying to get around ad-blocking software --- http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,54903,00.html
From Syllabus News on September 6, 2002
How does an institution develop strategies and encourage cooperation across the academic community to meet the technology needs of students, faculty, staff and administrators? You'll learn about successful efforts from Gerard Hanley, Syllabus fall2002 keynote speaker and Senior Director of Academic Technology Support in the Office of the Chancellor at California State University. Affiliated with MERLOT since 1997, Hanley has worked to develop learning communities that foster professional development and cooperation among faculty, staff, students and administrators. Syllabus fall2002, an education technology conference and vendor fair, will be held November 3-5 at the Boston Marriott Newton Hotel in Newton, Mass.
For more information and to register, go to http://www.syllabus.com/fall2002
Online MBA Eases Conflicts For Managers
Lansbridge University and the American Graduate School of Management (AGSM) announced a dual degree program offering joint degrees in Master of Business Administration and Master of Management. The program, which also offers specialties for the automotive and healthcare industries, is designed for working professionals. Students work online in small groups within a class of about 20, and interact daily with faculty and peers. A weekly online synchronous interaction is scheduled for faculty and students. Classes began in August, and will be offered in November, February and May. John McLaughlin, Provost, Lansbridge University, noted that the "online format closely parallels the real world environments in which our students work." AGSM president Richard Oliver, added, "Students from around the world become teammates in classes that explore today's best management practices."
For more information, visit: http://www.lansbridge.com
McGraw-Hill Offers Online Writing Tool
McGraw-Hill unveiled a web-based classroom writing assessment tool that it says will give students an method of practicing their writing skills with immediate feedback. Writing Roadmap will provide teachers analytic information and options for monitoring student and class progress, the company said. The application covers descriptive, narrative, persuasive, and informative styles of writing. Scores are reported on five analytic traits, and users can choose between holistic or summative scores, which can be downloaded into existing student information systems. The system, which uses an automated essay scoring engine from Vantage Learning, allows students to create a portfolio of their essays, which teachers can review via options that provide personalized guidance.
Message from Fathom on September 6, 2002 --- http://www.fathom.com/
FALL COURSES CLOSING SOON
The back-to-school spirit is in the air at Fathom -- hundreds of new semester-length courses are currently open for enrollment. Most of these online courses can be taken for credit, and a not-for-credit option is often available for a lower enrollment fee.BUSINESS AND ECONOMICS
* Mathematics for Management This online course from UCLA Extension provides a fundamental background for administrators in the public and private economic sectors, as well as a solid review of pre-MBA mathematics. Class starts September 25: http://www.fathom.com/course/3133/1140
* How to Open a Restaurant This online course from School University is designed to assist aspiring restaurateurs embarking on the ultimate food fantasy. Learn about site selection, staffing, capital requirements and how to secure investors. Class starts September 16: http://www.fathom.com/course/14701567/1141
* Survey of Personal Financial Planning This online course from UCLA Extension examines the business and professional practicalities of establishing and running/working in a financial counseling practice, including ethics, marketing, fee setting, and staff development. Class starts September 25: http://www.fathom.com/course/3169/1142
BIODIVERSITY LEARNING CENTER
Discover a wealth of information about the relationship between the global economy and the environment in the special learning center "Exploring Biodiversity." With dozens of new features, free seminars and online courses illuminating the complex issues related to biodiversity, this learning center is an invaluable resource for anyone interested in learning about the interconnectedness of earth's diverse ecosystems and populations, and economic strategies to protect limited resources through sustainable development. http://www.fathom.com/link.jhtml?cid=1143&page=special/biodiversitySEPTEMBER 11: BEFORE AND AFTER
One year after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Fathom has expanded and updated this learning center with dozens of new features, seminars and courses on past and present regions in conflict. Explore the latest scholarship and research from experts at leading academic institutions from the Fathom consortium, and learn about the economic impact of terrorism, the international political landscape and the history of religious extremism and political violence. http://www.fathom.com/link.jhtml?cid=1144&page=sep11FREE SEMINAR
*Trading Places: The East India Company and Asia The tale of the East India Company is a fascinating combination of economic, cultural and personal histories, and of individual and imperial ambitions. British Library curator Anthony Farrington outlines the history of the East India Company and its central place in the commercial links between Britain and Asia. The seminar is free; simply follow the checkout process to enroll: http://www.fathom.com/course/21701760/1145
EDUCATION COURSES FROM FATHOM
* Computers for Educators This online course from the University of San Diego is designed to enhance your knowledge of spreadsheets, desktop publishing, multimedia, internet-based research, and much more with strategies and skills you can apply immediately in your classroom. Class starts September 24: http://www.fathom.com/course/12701078/1148
* Language Structure and Usage This online course from UCLA Extension covers the major theories and factors related to language structure and usage, as well as universals and differences, including those in the structure of English. Class starts September 24: http://www.fathom.com/course/1270110/1149
* Teaching and Learning Models for Online Courses Explore a plethora of models that can be used as the structure for online courses, programs, seminars, and other virtual classroom needs. This online course from UCLA Extension starts September 23: http://www.fathom.com/course/3171/1150
ARTS AND HUMANITIES
* Multigenre Writing This nine-week online course from the New School University looks at innovative writing techniques including letters, verse, or elements from history, the sciences, or arts in examples of prose poems, short stories and novels. Class starts September 16: http://www.fathom.com/course/14701523/1134
* Macromedia Flash 5 Animation This online workshop from UCLA Extension provides a comprehensive exploration of Flash, one of the most popular multimedia software applications. Learn how to build multi-layered animations containing interactive buttons, movie clips, and graphics. Starts September 26: http://www.fathom.com/course/3128/1135
* Art Deco Examine Art Deco's expression in architecture, interiors, furniture and the minor decorative arts. Students will analyze the work of notable designers from Ruhlmann to Deskey, and learn about the value of Art Deco objects in the marketplace today. Class starts October 21: http://www.fathom.com/course/56706202/1136
September 4 Message from Fortune
IN YOUR NEW ISSUE OF FORTUNE (September 16, 2002):
* COVER STORY: THE ENFORCER: He nailed Merrill. He's after Citi. Eliot Spitzer is just getting started.
* IT'S CLEANUP TIME: Is Corporate America finally a changing the way it does business?
* 9/11 SPECIAL: Are we safe yet?
* AMERICA'S 40 RICHEST UNDER 40: We envied them once--okay, we still do.
* IS WALL STREET GOOD FOR ANYTHING? Here's how it could be.
* AIRLINES: Why United's crisis is good for flying.
* THE UN-CEO: A.G. Lafley of Procter & Gamble doesn't believe in the vision thing.
* DETROIT'S USED-CAR BLUES: The Big Three are drowning.
* INVESTING: How to be your own hedge fund.
ELIOT SPITZER: THE ENFORCER
New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer has become the most feared man on Wall Street. What he wants is change--top to bottom. http://www.fortune.com/indexw.jhtml?channel=artcol.jhtml&doc_id=209347
See Bob Jensen's "Rotten to the Core" threads at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraud.htm#Cleland
IN CORPORATE AMERICA, IT'S CLEANUP TIME
Under pressure, a slew of companies are now changing the way they do business. Will it last? http://www.fortune.com/indexw.jhtml?channel=artcol.jhtml&doc_id=209348
9/11: UNFINISHED BUSINESS
While much has changed since the terror attacks, much remains to be done. We look at several key challenges--from making America safer and our economy less vulnerable, to the moral tangle of compensating victims. http://www.fortune.com/sitelets/september11/index_september11.html
AMERICA'S 40 RICHEST UNDER 40: EASY COME, EASY GO
We envied them once--okay, we still do. (A net worth of more than $100 million isn't exactly chicken feed.) But many of them have taken an even bigger shellacking in the market this year than we have. Plus, we find out what's become of the grizzled veterans of the dot-com disaster since those dizzying market-cap highs. http://www.fortune.com/lists/40under40/index.html
IS WALL STREET GOOD FOR ANYTHING?
Not lately. But it could be if it lost the cartel mentality, learned some ethics, and remembered the little guy. http://www.fortune.com/indexw.jhtml?channel=artcol.jhtml&doc_id=209355
WHY UNITED'S CRISIS IS GOOD FOR FLYING
Waning hope of a taxpayer rescue is forcing the airline leader in bloated costs to face reality. http://www.fortune.com/indexw.jhtml?channel=artcol.jhtml&doc_id=209357
THE UN-CEO
A.G. Lafley doesn't believe in the vision thing. All he's done is turn around Procter & Gamble in 27 months. http://www.fortune.com/indexw.jhtml?channel=artcol.jhtml&doc_id=209361
DETROIT'S USED-CAR BLUES
Detroit's Big Three tried to beat imports with 0% financing and cut-rate leases. Now they're drowning under a flood of used cars. http://www.fortune.com/indexw.jhtml?channel=artcol.jhtml&doc_id=209371
HOW TO BE YOUR OWN HEDGE FUND
Arm yourself with these basic hedging techniques, and you can protect yourself the way the pros do. http://www.fortune.com/indexw.jhtml?channel=artcol.jhtml&doc_id=209372
My September 10, 2002 updates on the
accounting auditing, and corporate governance scandals are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraud091002.htm
The main purpose of this message is to note the link forwarded by George Krull that provides a great series on Andersen. George is a professor (MSU PhD) who became an executive research partner for many years in Grant Thornton. He has been a long-time dedicated member of the American Accounting Association and is now teaching at Bradley.
However, I thought the old Michigan State University faculty and alumni might appreciate publicizing his entire message. For some of us, those were the good old days of academe --- we thought we knew the answers in those days.
Bob Jensen
-----Original Message-----
From: Krull, George [mailto:gkrull@bumail.bradley.edu]
Sent: Monday, September 02, 2002 12:02 PM
To: Jensen, Robert Subject: The Fall of Andersen Four-part Series in the Chicago TribuneSeptember 2, 2002 12:02 CDT
Bob,
Here is a link to an excellent series that appears in the Chicago Tribune ( http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/showcase/chi-andersen.special ). The series started yesterday and concludes on Wednesday, September 4.
It was good to see you in San Antonio. I was running to a meeting when we chatted for a brief moment. Let me add my congratulations to the many you received for your Outstanding Accounting Educator Award. Your remarks were moving
( http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/AAAaward_files/AAAaward02.htm ).I do remember those great discussions and conversations in the Teak room at the east end of Eppley Center. I was blessed to be a member of a truly great bunch of graduate students at MSU. Those students considered the faculty ( you, Arens, Miller,Salmonson, Edwards, Windal, etc.) as our friends and our professors. That created a very special learning environment, the likes of which I have not experienced many times since.
Best regards,
George
Bob Jensen's threads on the Andersen explosion are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraud.htm
Folks up north are entering the autumn and winter season. If they would connect the dots, it will help to bring on another summer --- http://sugar3.com/sugarcards/cards_sq/HDsum/ykap_SummerTime.swf
Accurate to the Penney But Stupid Nevertheless
On September 4, my wife received a
refund check from a medical provider. The check has two signatures (R.
Milton Johnson and Dale Andersen). I don't know how much it cost the
company to prepare the check, but it did cost 37 cents to mail it to us.
Guess the amount of the check?
Two cents! If you don't believe me, I have tacked the check to the
bulletin board beside my office door.
My barber, Dennis Wilson, purchased a
ring for his wife a number of years ago. He was later contacted by a law
firm inviting him to become part of a class-action lawsuit for usury on the
financing charges connected with his purchase. Over the course of five
years, he received form letters stating that he was still part of an active
nationwide lawsuit.
When the judgment came, guess the amount of his settlement?
27 cents! The lawyers got millions and Dennis, the injured party, got 27
cents.
Unfortunately, accountants now have the image of being accurate to the penny with customers up front while millions of investor resources are falling through the cracks out back.
Reply from David R. Fordham [fordhadr@JMU.EDU]
Bob,
This happened to Paperboard Industries while I was corporate controller. Our payroll clerk wrote a check to the IRS for our weekly payroll deposit. The tax withheld was about $30,000, and when she cut the check on the old check-writing machine (remember those embossing check writers?) she accidentally got the cents off by one penny. One penny mind you! So it was short by a penny. The IRS computer kicked it out, and charged us the $0.01 unpaid taxes, plus the statutory penalty, which as we all know, is 10% of the taxes due, or $3,000 in this case! It took us 9 months, twenty or so phone calls, and a half-dozen letters from our attorney to get that penalty waived. And that doesn’t count the time and effort by the IRS personnel! All over a $0.01 shortage!Ain’t technology wonderful?
David Fordham
James Madison University
Reply from Robert Holmes Glendale College [rcholmes@GLENDALE.CC.CA.US]
Please cash the check. Think of the poor accountants having to include your two cents' worth in their bank reconciliations for months, and then having to make an entry to increase profits by your two cents when they give up on the check. Or perhaps their rules call for them to contact you in person if you have not cashed the check or maybe even going to the bank and putting a stop payment on your check and reissuing one to you.
Reply from Derek
This thread reminds me of an incident some years back. I paid a department store account one day date, and was charged one day's interest on the balance, amounting to 12 cents. I did not use that store again, and I kept getting accounts for the 12 c (at a postage cost of 40c per month). I even got a lawyer's form letter threatening to sue me. I was tempted to go to court and defend myself, but I gave in and paid up when it became apparent that my overdue status had been reported to all the credit bureaux, and a credit card issuer were threatening to pull my card as I was deemed a delinquent debtor.
Derek Speer
The Univerist of Auckland,
Auckland, NEW ZEALAND
Hi Jed,
This looks like a good information site with some added humor, although I'm not certain about such descriptions as "Economists gone Wild! You will see a lot of these sexy beasts this week giving punditry to the numbers released below." --- http://marketcrush.com/Timelines.htm
It was nice to see that they featured my fraud document at http://marketcrush.com/zSPOTSITEr.htm (alongside a feature on "Splinter Free Bath Tissue")
Bob Jensen
Original Message-----
From: Jed Morocco [mailto:JedMorocco@marketcrush.com]
Sent: Saturday, August 31, 2002 10:41 PM
To: Jensen, Robert Subject:
Meant to send this some time ago.Professor,
I have followed your site since the spring of 200. It rules. I wanted to send you this link to the Timelines I did on ENE, Q, WCOM, GX, and the Dow to get your opinion. Know your busy, hope you enjoy.
http://marketcrush.com/Timelines.htm
Jed Morocco
Question
What was it like to live in Clacton in the 60's? What was it like to live where
every weekend the seafront buzzed with the sound of 2-stroke engines?
Answer:
Fashion, music and lifestyle from a woman who was there --- http://www.uppers.org/article.asp?article=424
Question:
How can a person become a trivia expert (at least in front of friends at
parties)?
Answer:
Go to Idiom Site --- http://www.idiomsite.com/
Forwarded by Auntie Bev
Subject Younger than our
classmates
While waiting for my first appointment in the reception room of a new dentist, I
noticed his certificate, which bore his full name. Suddenly, I remembered that a
tall, handsome boy with the same name had been in my high school class some 40
years ago. Upon seeing him, however, I quickly discarded any such thought.
This balding, gray-haired man with the deeply lined face was too old to have
been my classmate.
After he had examined my teeth, I asked him if he had attended the local high
school. "Yes," he replied. "When did you graduate?" I asked.
He answered, "In 1944."
"Why, you were in my class!" I exclaimed.
He looked at me closely and then asked, "What did you teach?"
Forwarded by Auntie Bev
Kid's Prayers
I had been teaching my three-year-old daughter, Caitlin, the Lord's Prayer. For several evenings at bedtime, she would repeat after me the lines from the prayer.
Finally, she decided to go solo. I listened with pride as she carefully enunciated each word, right up to the end of the prayer:
"Lead us not into temptation," she prayed, "but deliver us some E-mail. Amen."
**************************
One Sunday in a Midwest City, a young child was "acting up" during the morning worship hour. The parents did their best to maintain some sense of order in the pew but were losing the battle.
Finally, the father picked the little fellow up and walked sternly up the aisle on his way out.
Just before reaching the safety of the foyer, the little one called loudly to the congregation, "Pray for me! Pray for me!" **************************
And one particular four-year-old prayed, "And forgive us our trash baskets as we forgive those who put trash in our baskets."
**************************
A little boy was overheard praying: "Lord, if you can't make me a better boy, don't worry about it.
I'm having a real good time like I am."
**************************
A Sunday school teacher asked her little children, as they were on the way to church service,
"And why is it necessary to be quiet in church?"
One bright little girl replied, "Because people are sleeping."
**************************
The preacher was wired for sound with a lapel mike, and as he preached, he moved briskly about the platform, jerking the mike cord as he went.
Then he moved to one side, getting wound up in the cord and nearly tripping before jerking it again.
After several circles and jerks, a little girl in the third pew leaned toward her mother and whispered,
"If he gets loose, will he hurt us?"
**************************
A mother was preparing pancakes for her sons, Kevin 5, Ryan, 3.
The boys began to argue over who would get the first pancake.
Their mother saw the opportunity for a moral lesson.
"If Jesus were sitting here, He would say 'Let my brother have the first pancake, I can wait.'"
Kevin turned to his younger brother and said, "Ryan, you be Jesus!"
**************************
A father was at the beach with his children when the four-year old son ran up to him, grabbed his hand, and led him to the shore, where a seagull lay dead in the sand.
"Daddy, what happened to him?" the son asked.
"He died and went to Heaven," the dad replied.
The boy thought a moment and then said,
"Did God throw him back down?"
***************************
A Sunday school class was studying the Ten Commandments. They were ready to discuss the last one. The teacher asked if anyone could tell her what it was.
Susie raised her hand, stood tall, and quoted,
"Thou shall not take the covers off the neighbor's wife."
****************************
At Sunday School they were teaching how God created everything, including human beings. Little Johnny, a child in the kindergarten class, seemed especially intent when they told him how Eve was created out of one of Adam's ribs.
Later in the week his mother noticed him lying as though he was ill, and said, "Johnny what is the matter?"
Little Johnny responded, "I have a pain in my side. I think I'm going to have a wife!"
****************************
"Our father, who does art in heaven, Howard is his name...."
****************************
A little girl was talking to her teacher about whales. The teacher said it was physically impossible for a whale to swallow a human, because even though it was a very large mammal its throat was very small.
The little girl stated that Jonah was swallowed by a whale. The teacher reiterated that a whale could not swallow a human; it was impossible.
The little girl said, "When I get to heaven, I will ask Jonah." The teacher asked, "What if Jonah went to hell?"
The little girl replied, "Then you ask him."
Forwarded by Auntie Bev
Senior
citizens are constantly being criticized for every conceivable deficiency of the
modern world, real or imaginary. We know we take responsibility for all we
have done and do not blame others.
HOWEVER,
upon reflection, we would like to point out that it was NOT
the senior citizens who took:
The melody
out of music,
The pride
out of appearance,
The courtesy
out of driving,
The romance
out of love,
The commitment
out of marriage,
The responsibility
out
of parenthood,
The togetherness
out of the family,
The learning
out of education,
The service
out of patriotism,
The Golden
Rule
from rulers,
The nativity
scene out of cities,
The civility
out of behavior,
The refinement
out of language,
The dedication
out of employment,
The prudence
out of spending,
The ambition
out of achievement, or,
Murphy's Laws Site --- http://www.murphys-laws.com/
All the laws of Murphy:
- Murphy Law Origin :: The history and true story of Murphy law
- Murphy's Laws :: If anything can go wrong, it will
- Love Laws :: All the good ones are taken
- Tech Laws :: New systems generate new problems
- Computer Laws :: Any given program, when running, is obsolete
- Commerce Laws :: To err is human, to forgive is not company policy
- Real Estate Laws :: At least one check will be "lost in the mail" every month
- Teaching Laws :: You never catch on until after the test
- War Laws :: Friendly fire - isn't
- Cops Laws :: Bullet Proof' vests aren't
- MP Laws :: No street-wise unit ever passed inspection
- Sewing Laws :: The scissors cut easiest past the buttonhole
- Murphy Volunteer Bush-fire Brigade Laws :: If it's stupid but it works, it ain't stupid
- Photography Laws :: Auto Focus - won't
- Nurses Laws :: Doctors only ask your name when the patient isn't doing well
- Buses Laws :: If your running late the bus will be too
- Lotto Laws :: You match 4 numbers, but you lost your ticket
- Cowboy Action Shooting (CAS) Laws :: Peep sights don’t.
- Cars Laws :: An oil leak will develop.
- Toddler Laws :: When you forget the stroller they will want to ride.
- EMT Laws :: All bleeding stops... eventually.
- Life by Murphy :: Is your life a good example of Murphy laws?
And that's the way it was on September 10, 2002 with a little help from my friends.
In
March 2000, Forbes named AccountantsWorld.com as the Best Website on the
Web --- http://accountantsworld.com/.
Some top accountancy links --- http://accountantsworld.com/category.asp?id=Accounting
For accounting news, I prefer AccountingWeb at http://www.accountingweb.com/
Another leading accounting site is AccountingEducation.com at http://www.accountingeducation.com/
Paul Pacter maintains the best international accounting standards and news Website at http://www.iasplus.com/
How stuff works --- http://www.howstuffworks.com/
Bob
Jensen's video helpers for MS Excel, MS Access, and other helper videos are at http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/video/
Accompanying documentation can be found at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/default1.htm
and http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HelpersVideos.htm
Professor
Robert E. Jensen (Bob) http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen
Jesse H. Jones Distinguished Professor of Business Administration
Trinity University, San Antonio, TX 78212-7200
Voice: 210-999-7347 Fax: 210-999-8134 Email: rjensen@trinity.edu
Quotes of the Week
The discipline
of colleges and universities is in general contrived, not for the benefit of the
students, but for the interest, or more properly speaking, for the ease of
masters.
Adam Smith, as quoted by Jack Martens in "For the Ease of Masters," Barron's,
August 26, 2002, Page 31.
The article complains that colleges should be more open about the post-graduate
qualifying examinations (GRE, MCAT, LSAT, GMAT, etc.). Instead they hide
behind a conspiracy of secrecy.
Colleges, . .
., should lead the way to full disclosure, not set the bad example of avoiding
accountability and fearing what test results might reveal.
Ibid
If you love
what you do, it will never be a job.
Confucius
The secret of
success is sincerity. Once you can fake that, you've got it made!
Bloch
Arthur
The secret of
happiness is to yield to temptations.
Oscar
Wilde
If you live
long enough, you'll see every victory turn into a defeat.
Simone
de Beauvoir
The main cause
of divorce is marriage [Might we also say this about recent
"marriages" (mergers and acquisitions) in business?]
Groucho
Marx
Consistency
requires you to be as ignorant today as you were a year ago.
Berenson
Bernard
We're born
princes and the civilizing process turns us into frogs.
Berne
Eric
My August 30, 2002 updates on the accounting auditing, and corporate governance scandals are at updates on the accounting scandals at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraud083002.htm
What accounting journal do I especially recommend that you look at in these times of accounting, auditing, and corporate governance scandals?
What article in that journal suggests to me what I will phrase “An Accounting Paradox: When will accounting for an asset destroy the asset?”
Answers to both questions are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraud083002.htm
Anyone with a modem and some spare cash can buy a fake degree over the Internet. But it's often difficult to distinguish between a legitimate distance-learning university and a diploma mill.
"Down by the Diploma Mills Stream," by Kendra Mayfield, Wired News, August 28, 2002 --- http://www.wired.com/news/school/0,1383,54596,00.htm
Welcome to Harrington University (also known as the University of San Moritz, University of Palmers Green and University of Devonshire, among others), where anyone can purchase a bachelor's or master's degree -- no tests or coursework required -- for the bargain price of several thousand dollars. The "university," owned by an American resident in Romania, uses mail-drop addresses in the United Kingdom, printing services in Jerusalem and banking options in Cyprus. The operation has sold 70,000 diplomas in the United States alone, raking in over $100 million, according to diploma mill expert John Bear.
"No country seems willing or able to do anything," said Bear, founder of Degree.net.
While Harrington may be the world's largest diploma mill, it's just one of hundreds of operations on the Web offering degrees that are seemingly legitimate, but often worthless on paper.
The onslaught of spam, online advertising and overnight electronic payment services has made it even more difficult to distinguish between legitimate distance-learning institutions and diploma mills.
"The problem has worsened, owing to the ease of advertising via the Internet and the ability of diploma mills to operate from offshore and still get payment from U.S. users," said Alan Contreras, administrator of Oregon's Office of Degree Authorization.
"Where it used to be some obviously fraudulent operators offering academic degrees in exchange for money and minimal amount of paperwork, it has morphed into a more sophisticated model, where the degree mill offers tutoring and all the trappings of an academic program, but in fact it is still an avenue to getting a degree quickly," said Michael Lambert, executive director of the Distance Education and Training Council.
Not all unaccredited colleges are necessarily degree mills. In the United States, an accrediting agency must be recognized by either the Department of Education or the Council on Higher Education Accreditation.
"Unfortunately, the degree mill operators have seized on the use of the word 'accreditation,' and there are several dozen unrecognized and probably worthless accrediting agencies being used to provide legitimacy," Lambert said. "So there is an accreditation mill problem as well now."
In the United States, individual states must decide whether or not to permit diploma mills to operate within their borders.
States have made some headway in regulating diploma mills over the past few years.
"Although the level of enforcement varies from state to state, I think that there has been great progress made across the board," Lambert said. "States like Louisiana, Hawaii and South Dakota -- all once known as degree-mill havens -- have adopted laws that now require recognized accreditation for any institution in their state wishing to offer a degree."
Oregon and New Jersey disallow use of degrees from institutions that are not accredited by an agency recognized by the U.S. Department of Education or approved by the state's authorization agency.
While Oregon's policy is among the strictest in the nation, other states, like Wyoming and Montana, permit unaccredited universities as long as they have a physical presence in the state.
"The Montana legislature does not seem to care that their state has become the sinkhole for bogus degrees in the U.S.," Contreras said.
Continued at http://www.wired.com/news/school/0,1383,54596,00.htm
Bob Jensen's threads on fraud are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraud.htm
"Tech Keeps Tabs on School Kids," by Julia Scheeres, Wired News, August 26, 2002 --- http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,54604,00.html
Before little Suzy skips out the door swinging her Powerpuff Girls lunchbox, her parents can lock a Wherify GPS-enabled bracelet on her wrist that works like a personal LoJack, pinpointing her exact location as she walks to class. If she's tardy, her parents can jump on the Internet and check her coordinates using aerial or street maps. And if she runs into a strange man asking for help finding a lost kitty, she can press two buttons on the bulky device to dial 911. The bracelet also notifies the cops if someone tries to forcefully remove it.
"We want to be that next level of security," said Wherify founder Timothy Neher. "Right now when your child is missing, all you can do is call the police and wait. Our system tells you where your child is in less than a minute."
Wherify launched its $399 product, which doubles as a pager, at the end of July and has already received over a thousand orders, fueled in part by the recent rash of child abductions, Neher said.
Once Suzy traipses safely through the doors of Hometown Elementary School, she hands her lunchbox to an attendant and steps through a metal detector to make sure she's not packing heat next to the peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
As she jostles her way through crammed corridors to her homeroom, she is followed by a maze of pivoting cameras made by Axis Communications that beam her image over the Internet to the principal's Palm Pilot or the database of an outside security firm.
The electronic eyes, which pan, tilt and zoom, allow school officials to continuously monitor campus activity, eliminating the need for a security guard in many cases, said Axis director of business development Frederick Nilsson. The cameras can be equipped with two-way microphones that allow school staff to interrogate Suzy if she is caught in the hallway without her potty pass.
The primary function of these cameras in schools is to cut down on vandalism and fights, said Roy Balentine, director of educational sales for Camera Watch, which installed and monitors Axis cameras at Canton High School in Canton, Mississippi.
Continued at http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,54604,00.html
The James Bonds of This Century
Accountants Favored Over Lawyers in Dating Poll --- http://www.smartpros.com/x35086.xml
Accountants are still licking their wounds from the recent stream of corporate scandals and Arthur Andersen's collapse. Perhaps this will speed up the healing process ...
A recent poll conducted by Date.com, an online dating community, found that singles would prefer to date an accountant rather than go out with the perennial butt of sarcastic jokes, the trial lawyer.
Furthermore, to show just how far accountants remain from the bottom of the dating pool, they might be happy to learn they are preferred as dates by a better than four-to-one margin over the lowly house burglar.
We should point out that Date.com gave the survey participants just three choices of occupations: house burglar, trial lawyer and accountant.
Put into perspective, perhaps it's not such great news after all!
As was pointed out in a recent cartoon in The New Yorker, women/men are drawn to men/women who live on the edge of danger. That explains the results in the above poll.
In preparation for a forthcoming presentation in Mexico, I tried to answer the following questions:
Questions
What are the most significant changes expected in higher education by the
Year 2025?
What major universities are now experimenting on the leading edge of such
changes?
Answers
The first draft of my answers can be found at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#Future
You can probably guess my Answers 2 and 3, but I bet none of you can guess
Answer 1.
I would appreciate any suggestions you may have that will improve the above document.
Question
How is the education of accountants being changed and reformed?
Answer
"Beyond the “Old School: By the Numbers," Journal of
Accountancy, September 2002 --- http://www.aicpa.org/pubs/jofa/sep2002/edu.htm
The 2001 report, The Supply of Accounting Graduates and the Demand for Public Accounting Recruits, documents the demographics of the accounting profession. Anyone will find the report useful. It is available online at www.aicpa.org/members/div/career/edu/sagdpar.htm .
The data are based on an AICPA survey of colleges and universities that offer accounting degrees at the bachelor’s, master’s or PhD level and of public accounting firms and sole practitioners affiliated with the Institute.
SUPPLY DATA FROM COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES
In 1999–2000, approximately 37,000 students received bachelor’s degrees in accounting and 8,000 earned master’s degrees. Compared to 1998– 1999, the number of bachelor’s degree recipients decreased 10%; however, the number of master’s degrees awarded increased 19%.
Schools in the Southern and Pacific states held steady compared to previous years while schools in the East and North Central regions awarded fewer bachelor’s degrees.
Considerably more females than males received bachelor’s degrees (58% to 42%), about equal percentages received master’s degrees (51% females to 49% males) while more males than females received PhDs (61% to 39%).
Minorities accounted for 20% of accounting bachelor’s and master’s graduates and for 22% of PhDs.
Approximately one-third of 1999–2000 bachelor’s degree recipients took positions with public accounting firms and about one-fourth began their careers in business and industry. A majority of master’s degree recipients (62%) went into public accounting. These proportions parallel 1998–1999 degree recipients.
Enrollments in accounting bachelor’s programs continued to drop (4.5%) from 1998–1999. However, enrollments in master’s programs increased by 10% and in master’s-in-taxation programs by 20%.
The number of candidates sitting for the CPA exam continued to drop. Exam candidates for 2000 totaled 115,493.
DEMAND DATA FROM PUBLIC ACCOUNTING FIRMS
Continued at http://www.aicpa.org/pubs/jofa/sep2002/edu.htm
THE REVISED CURRICULUM
In place today, the curriculum is a five-year program in which students graduate with a bachelor’s degree at the end of four years but are expected to stay and complete a master’s-in-accountancy degree. The five-year approach was chosen because the faculty realized a fifth year was necessary to achieve its objectives and not to comply with the advent of the 150-hour requirement.The curriculum revision was based on two criteria: that students should understand simple topics before more complex topics and content would be based on how students learn, using Bloom’s taxonomy of cognitive skills. (Bloom’s hierarchy begins with knowledge and comprehension, followed by application and analysis, synthesis and evaluation.) In contrast a traditional curriculum schedules courses based on the order topics appear on the balance sheet; the result is that the first course is intermediate accounting, which many consider the most difficult in terms of content. In the revised curriculum, therefore, topics were sequenced so students did not have to apply a higher skill level than their learning background supported. In addition integrated into every course were activities that promoted the skills the profession demands:
Group projects, which promote interpersonal skills.
Written assignments and presentations, which promote communication skills.
Research projects, which promote critical-thinking skills and learning how to think independently.
The curriculum also uses five levels:
Introductory-level courses have a “user” vs. a “preparer” perspective (because most students are not accounting majors), and also, these courses lend themselves to the recruitment effort described later. They focus on how the accounting system captures events and how accounting information is used for planning and evaluating.
Foundation-level courses provide the basis for all subsequent courses. They detail how the accounting system works and the theory and history of accounting standards.
Content-level courses introduce students to how various users employ data from the accounting system to meet their information needs.
Research-level courses are case-based, team-taught courses that cover tax, financial accounting and auditing and teach students how to use research tools to resolve ambiguous problems.
Graduate-level courses provide students with the opportunity to design a course of study with either a tax, financial, managerial or systems emphasis. An in-depth look at the curriculum is available at www.cba.ksu.edu/cba/grads/macc/curriculum.htm.
THE RECRUITING PROGRAM
Rather than use the “build it and they will come” approach, KSU said an objective of the new curriculum was to attract and retain the best possible students. As a result, the department developed an extensive program.Two faculty members and the Accounting Advocates, a group of 10 to 12 graduate and undergraduate students, administer it. The Accounting Advocates are an essential component; they act as ambassadors for the department by making presentations to high schools, talking to visiting high school students and meeting with visiting dignitaries. Accounting students apply to be advocates in their junior year and serve throughout their graduate program.
The recruiting program targets high school teachers, counselors and students and undecided college freshmen and sophomores. Every school district in the state receives a recruiting video created by the accounting department. The recruiting program reaches
High school teachers and counselors. The schools-to-careers conference educates high school teachers about the opportunities an accounting career offers. It is a collaborative effort of the College of Business and the business education department of the College of Education.
High school students. The high school careers conference brings together high school students who are nominated by their teachers to attend. Students visit with young accounting professionals and go through team-building exercises and go to a tailgate party and football game. Students see positive accounting role models, learn about the career flexibility an accounting career has to offer and have fun.
College students. The professional accounting careers exploration dinner offers an opportunity to the best students in the introductory courses to meet with young professionals from public accounting and industry and an advocate to learn about careers.
SUCCESS
Compared to 1989, there are now 35% more accounting majors and the quality of students (as measured by ACT, SAT and GPA) has increased. Enrollment in the master’s program increased 500% over the same time period. This increase occurred in spite of the fact that the GPA required for admission to the accounting major was significantly increased.—Dan Deines, CPA, Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas
Continued at http://www.aicpa.org/pubs/jofa/sep2002/edu.htm
The teacher internship program (TIP) educates high school teachers about the accounting profession. Through TIP, state CPA societies connect teachers with firms and businesses in summer internships to provide them with “real world” business and accounting experience. Providing educators with professional business experience that can be incorporated into their classroom curriculum and learning activities results in well-educated students, which benefits business and the workforce as a whole.
The AICPA Foundation provided seed money to help develop a training program for state societies and to assist firms in paying for internships. In the summer of 2001 the Indiana state society piloted the TIP with great success. Heather Bunning, the society’s communications and public relations manager, worked with the IRS and Ernst & Young to provide internships respectively to Paulette Lewis, a high school business-education teacher, and Charlene King, a high school mathematics teacher.
Continued at http://www.aicpa.org/pubs/jofa/sep2002/edu.htm
"COOL"
STUDENT WE SITES:
www.cpazone.org—Created
by the Pennsylvania state society, the site contains interactive games, career
information and prizes.
www.tomorrowscpa.org—The Maryland
society’s site contains information for students about the accounting
profession.
www.incpas.org/Students/index.htm—Using
a nautical theme, the Indiana society’s Web page helps students “guide their
way” to becoming a CPA.
www.calcpa.org/community/careers/index.html—The
California society’s student Web page contains excellent profiles of young
CPAs. The site also offers to tailor articles based on your needs.
www.futurecpa.org—The Illinois
society’s Web site is full of fun and important information.
CPA2Be.org—Web site of the Kansas state
society, a comprehensive site for students.
Also see http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob1.htm#010304Careers%20in%20Accountancy
Congress continues its
efforts to make college more affordable with a new round of tax incentives.
"Smart Education Tax Moves," by Ron West, Journal of Accountancy,
September 2002 --- http://www.aicpa.org/pubs/jofa/sep2002/west.htm
IN THE 2001 TAX ACT CONGRESS INCLUDED A NUMBER of expanded and improved education tax incentives. The differing limitations, definitions and interactions of these provisions with existing education benefits make it crucial for CPAs to plan carefully to ensure clients receive the maximum tax savings. CONGRESS EXPANDED QUALIFIED TUITION PROGRAMS (QTPs), adding private institutions as eligible sponsors of prepaid tuition type plans. The most important change to QTPs provides a complete tax exemption for distributions made after December 31, 2001 used to pay for qualified higher education expenses (QHEE).
BEGINNING IN 2002 THE ANNUAL PER-CHILD contribution to education IRAs increases to $2,000 from $500. The act also makes these accounts more accessible to individual taxpayers by increasing the phaseout range for contributors who are married filing jointly to $190,000 to $220,000 in 2002. Taxpayers now also can make contributions to education IRAs and QTPs for the same beneficiary in the same year.
UNDER THE NEW LAW ANY AMOUNT SPENT ON QHEE for which the taxpayer claims a Hope or Lifetime Learning Credit is not eligible for tax-free treatment as a QTP or education IRA distribution. Taxpayers can claim the credits in the same year they take tax-free distributions but not on the same expenses. Taxpayers must also reduce QHEE for any tax-free scholarships or employer-provided education assistance.
THE EXCLUSION FROM GROSS INCOME OF UP TO $5,250 of employer-provided education assistance is now permanent. Congress extended the exclusion to include graduate-level courses. Other improved education provisions in the 2001 act include changes to the above-the-line student-loan-interest deduction and a new above-the-line deduction for higher- education expenses.
Ron West, CPA, JD, LLM, is an assistant professor of law and taxation and tax program director in the masters of taxation program at Fairleigh Dickinson University in Madison, New Jersey. His e-mail address is west@fdu.edu.
Plagiarism Alternatives
From Yahoo Picks of the Week on August 26, 2002
Pirated Sites --- http://www.pirated-sites.com/
Ever find yourself on a web site that looks virtually indistinguishable from another? This site showcases such online indiscretions, making "side-by-side comparisons of web sites that are suspected of borrowing, copying or stealing copyright-protected content, design or code without permission." Many web designers have taken unfathomable liberties with their online filching -- some companies even do it twice. Pirated Sites uses a cool pop-up window script that makes it easy to compare web sites large and small. If you think you've run across a site that has been hit by web-style biters, don't hesitate to submit the URLs of the pirate and the victim. And if the moral isn't clear, we'll repeat it: Do Not Steal Websites.
In a trend that should delight amoral
entrepreneurs everywhere, sales of online term papers are picking up as the
school year approaches.
"Where Cheaters Often Prosper,: by Joanna Glasner, Wired News,
August 26, 2002 --- http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,54571,00.html
The history of the Internet is filled with stories about companies that tried to make a positive change in the world and ended up failing miserably.And then there are online term-paper sites. Despite inspiring nothing but scorn from educators, purveyors of collegiate prose are finding life on the dark side of online commerce quite lucrative.
"They're the only ones besides casinos or porn really making money on the Internet," said Kenny Sahr, founder of SchoolSucks.com, a free homework site that makes money posting ads for fee-charging term paper providers. If his advertising customers are any indication, Sahr said, online term-paper mills are weathering the dot-com bust remarkably well.
With the new school year about to begin, research paper companies are gearing up for peak season. It appears academicians' attempts to eradicate these hotbeds of plagiarism have done little to stifle their growth.
SchoolSucks is no exception. Although the 6-year-old site hasn't made him rich, Sahr says it does provide enough money "to pay for my habits" and doesn't require full-time work. He runs the site with a staff of two, each working out of their homes and periodically holding meetings on a beach in Tel Aviv, where the operation is based.
Sahr attributes the site's longevity largely to the fact that it gets its material for free, mostly through submissions from students. This keeps the cost of running the business quite low.
SchoolSucks draws about 10,000 unique visitors on a typical day and has been growing steadily, Sahr said.
Meanwhile, traffic to competing sites isn't slowing either.
"I don't think we've had a year so far where we haven't grown," said Jared Silvermintz, college student and co-founder of Genius Papers. The site, which Silvermintz started as a junior in high school six years ago, charges $20 for a one-year subscription to a soon-to-be-upgraded database that he says will contain more than 40,000 papers
Conatinued at http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,54571,00.html
Bob Jensen's threads on plagiarism are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/plagiarism.htm
August 24, 2002 message from Paula Ward
The Metaplanets link is at http://www.metaplanets.com/
You must download the free Viewpoint Player by Clicking on the Help Menu at the
Metplanets site (its free and very easy)
The 3-D animations are awesome!
Hi, Bob,
Just wanted you to know about a website, "Metaplanets," built by my son, Sean. He just found out that it was featured on BBC's technology show, Click Online.
It's a pretty spectacular site. Enjoy:
Paula
pward@trinity.edu -----
Original Message-----
From: Sean Ward [mailto:planxty@stic.net]
Sent: Sat 8/24/2002 2:58 PM
To: Ward, Paula; 'Paula Kelley Ward' Cc: Subject: metaplanetsA personal project of mine, Metaplanets, was featured in Sevan Bastajian's Click Surf segment of the BBC's top technology show, Click Online, which is broadcast on television throughout the world. The show is hosted by Stephen Cole, one of the best known faces of international television news.
Metaplanets.com allows visitors to interact with streaming 3D models of the planets in our solar system. The 3D animations are based on USGS data gathered from NASA space missions. Despite large file sizes, new streaming media technology allows site visitors to enjoy and interact with its planetary content, even from a dial-up Internet connection.
A synopsis of the segment can be found on the BBCWorld web site.
If you’re interested in seeing the show from August 1, 2002, click on the link for the media player version you prefer below. Metaplanets appears at the 19:50 minute marker.
Sean Ward <sean@netriffic.com>
Netriffic LLC Web Design
Experts Make the Difference!
www.netriffic.com
210.628.7392
Enron had 43 subsidiaries claiming Mauritius was their home base. Where in the heck is Mauritius?
In the Enron and related scandals, all eyes are focused upon how investors got ripped off. All along taxpayers were also getting ripped off in a number of ways, and especially this was the case of corporate income tax. The corporate income tax as a proportion of total government revenues has been shrinking annually due to corporate lobbying efforts to build in loopholes. One of the biggest loopholes is to move corporate headquarters offshore to places like Bermuda. Enron found even a really obscure place to declare as headquarters for 43 subsidiary corporations.
"That's Outrageous: Artful Dodgers," by Tucker Carlson, Reader's Digest, September 2002, pp. 47-48
When you think of Enron, you think of Houston. You probably don't think of Mauritius, a tiny island republic off the east coast of Africa whose chief export is sugarcane. But Enron was a major presence there, at least on paper. By the beginning of 2000, the energy company had no fewer than 43 subsidiaries in Mauritius--quite a presence in a country with a population one-fifth that of metropolitan Houston.
Why was Enron doing so much business on an island in the Indian Ocean? Taxes. Avoiding them. Enron may have failed as an energy company--it went spectacularly bankrupt earlier this year--but its accountants were masters at dodging the IRS. Enron paid no federal income taxes for four out of the past five years.
How did Enron pull this off? In part, by doing what many American companies have done: registering abroad. Individuals pay income taxes on what they earn, no matter where they earn it. Corporations play by different rules. They pay federal income taxes only on money that enters the United States. In other words, if your Mauritius-based company earns $10 million, and that money never comes back to the United States, you don't pay taxes on it. It's a nifty deal if you're a corporation, infuriating if you're an ordinary taxpayer. Over the next ten years, tax-dodging companies are expected to cost the U.S. Treasury $6 billion--money that will have to come out of your pocket and mine.
Don't be surprised if companies stiff Uncle Sam even worse. Countries that 15 years ago hosted far more cruise ships than corporations--Aruba, Barbados, the Bahamas, Bermuda--are now the legal home to a growing share of American industry. The lightly taxed Cayman Islands have become so popular with American companies that it is now the fifth largest financial center in the world.
And it's no longer just about re-incorporating overseas. Companies are also registering patents and trademarks in island hideaways, a clever way to keep royalties tax-free.
All this at a time when the United States is straining its treasury to fight a war against terrorism. Republican Senator Chuck Grassley of Kansas calls foreign tax havens an example of "profit over patriotism." He's right. But it's worse than that. Not only does offshore tax dodging hurt the United States, it often hurts the very shareholders it's supposed to benefit.
Consider the case of The Stanley Works corporation. Earlier this year, Stanley's shareholders voted to relocate the company's headquarters to Bermuda, joining fellow toolmaker Cooper Industries, and a number of other established American companies that have done the same in recent years. Shareholders made their decision largely on predictions by Stanley CEO John M. Trani, who said that a move to Bermuda would save the company $30 million in annual taxes and boost the stock price 11.5 percent during the first year alone.
Trani's projections may be right. And for him, that would be good news. His stock options alone would increase in value by $17.5 million in a single year. Add a higher salary, bonuses, a retirement package, and Trani's profit from the relocation could eventually total $385 million.
Meanwhile, many investors would initially get the shaft, in the form of capital gains taxes they would pay when the company leaves the country. The New York Times calculated that even if Stanley's stock price goes as high as Trani says it will, these shareholders "will barely break even after taxes." As for the government, it would lose $240 million in corporate income taxes from Stanley over the next eight years.
Bottom line: Taxpayers lose, shareholders lose, the CEO makes $385 million. You do the math.
In fact, many did. Stanley's decision to leave the country caused such an uproar, the company put it on hold. Its shareholders will vote again later this year.
The rest of America can vote too--not on whether to flee to the Caribbean, but on whether to change the laws in their own country. That's the patriotic solution to dodging taxes.
Bob Jensen's threads on tax fraud and scandals can be found at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraud.htm#TaxFraud
August 21 reply from Fred Salzer [fsalzer@SEMPRE.COM]
I had never heard of it (Mauritius) before, either. Interesting info at:
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/mp.html
August 21 reply from George Lan (University of Windsor) --- George Lan [glan@UWINDSOR.CA]
I happen to be from Mauritius, a tropical island in the Indian Ocean (a couple of hundred miles off the big island of Madagascar). Mark Twain once said that "God created Mauritius first and made a copy for Paradise." Mauritius is also the land of the legend of Paul and Virginie (written in a book by Bernandin de Saint Pierre) and is famous for a rare English stamp. It's main claim to fame (up tro now) is that it was the land of the dodo bird. (It is extinct because it could not fly--the big birds did not have to fly because there were no humans on the island until the Dutch settlers came and started shooting them for fun). It seems that Enron has gone the way of the dodo!
George Lan
Born in Port-Louis, Mauritius
The Pocket Calculator Show Website (History, Technology) --- http://www.pocketcalculatorshow.com/
Bob Jensen's links to online calculators can be found at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob3.htm#080512Calculators
Microsoft's New Word to Web Tutorials
If you can type in MS Word, you can put your course materials on the Web or into course servers such as Blackboard and WebCT. Microsoft has some new tutorials to show you how to do it effortlessly.
The MS Word to Web Page: An Academic's Guide to Quick Web Page Construction http://www.archiva.net/mstutorial3web.htm
MS Word can create very nice web pages entirely from within the program. (This mini-site, for example, is an MS Word product.) Because MS Word writes its web pages in XML, historians and other practitioners have much more control over the appearance of the text than they might have using an HTML editor. They are, moreover, working in a familiar environment, albeit with a few tools that they might not use on a regular basis. All is not “beer and skittles,” however. Older browsers will not be able to cope with Microsoft’s XML, so instructors should advise their clientele to use IE 5+ and NN 6+. A MS Word syllabus will display in older browsers but may not be very attractive and contain strange characters. Microsoft’s XML implementation also adds a good deal of proprietary code to the web page, resulting in a larger page, a bit longer download time, and purists’s disdain. With these constraints in mind, the goal of this tutorial is to provide the steps toward creating a well-designed, visually interesting, web-based syllabus entirely within MS Word.
Bob Jensen's XML threads can be found at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/xmlrdf.htm
If you want to do anything fancy, it is really not difficult to move your MS Word skills into MS Frontpage or Macromedia Dreamweaver, although Dreamweaver has a few more features and a somewhat more complex learning curve.
Keep in mind that any course materials
placed on the Web can generally be found by anybody in the world even if you
only share the Web address (URL) with a private set of students. If you really
want controlled access to documents networked to students around the world, I
suggest that you avoid a Web server and transfer these documents to a Blackboard
or WebCT server. If your campus does not have a Bb or WebCT server, you can get
the Bb or WebCt vendors to serve up your documents. Bob Jensen's
Blackboard threads are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/blackboard.htm
But since my bias is for sharing
academic works freely with the world, I prefer the Web server.
The spirit for academic sharing is infectious.
Bob Jensen's threads on XML can be found at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/xmlrdf.htm
Can
"intellectual snobbery and elitism" be overcome in the era of emerging
educational technologies?
Although Professor Deibert's field is film studies and television, his comments
by analogy extend to the entire world of academe.
"Academics Should Tune In: Snobbery has relegated a valuable teaching tool to the world . . .," Ronald Deibert (University of Toronto), The Globe and Mail (Newspaper in Canada), August 6, 2002, Page A15 --- http://www.globeandmail.com/
[Excerpt]
Why has academe resisted new media's advances? Part of it has to do with the conservative nature of academics and academic institutions. Universities typically determine merit on the basis of books and articles published and papers delivered at academic conferences. This system of incentives hasn't changed in decades.And then there's intellectual snobbery and elitism: Most professors and graduate students announce with pride that they never watch TV. It's even more stylish to deny ownership of one. It's okay to be a couch potato as long as you have a book, instead of clicker, in your hand.
Academics lament that what one finds on TV is the antithesis of intellectual development. TV is full of sound bites, depthless comedies, superficial "reality TV" shows and sordid voyeurism, all of it commercially shaped and driven. But similar charges could be made against paperback books; is the vapid content of most TV necessarily connected to its form? Don't these laments confuse, to borrow a phrase from Mr. McLuhan, the message with the medium?
Laments about new media date back at least as far as ancient Greece. In Socrates's time, elitists lamented the relatively new medium of writing; the great philosopher feared it would lead to the gradual deterioration of memory.
TV may lack the fixity and precision of the written and printed word, but it provides a powerful combination of imagery, orality, and music -- something Mr. McLuhan clearly recognized. It is precisely because of this powerful combination that so much money and talent is devoted to crafting 30-second commercials that are designed -- whatever their content -- to persuade viewers to buy. Academics leave the content of TV to ad execs and sitcom writers at our peril.
Teaming up with independent filmmaker Mike Downie, I produced a reality-based television series called Activist TV that aired last winter on TVOntario, and am in production of a second series called Into America, scheduled to air this fall with the same broadcaster. Both involve students as the subjects and borrow in style from popular, youth-oriented "reality" programs. For the production of Into America, we traveled through 26 states and visited Ground Zero, talked to congressmen and ambassadors, attended black gospel church services, and went on a six-hour tour of the El Paso-Cuidad Juarez border -- none of which would ever likely happen in a regular class.
The response has been remarkable. After Activist TV aired, I received dozens of e-mails, letters, and phone calls from prospective students and their parents asking if they could enroll in a similar program or who said they were inspired to become activists themselves.
"What's an MBA Really Worth? It will cost more than $100,000 to earn a degree at an elite business school. Just one problem: There's little real evidence that it will enhance your career," by Andy Raskin, Business 2.0, July 2002 --- http://www.business2.com/articles/mag/0,1640,41346,FF.html
The most stinging criticisms, however, are emerging from within the business school establishment. In a draft report published internally this spring, the schools' own accreditation body, the St. Louis-based Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business, roundly criticized its members. Business schools, it said, are hopelessly behind the curve on information technology, have an unhealthy obsession with their standing in magazine rankings, and, worst of all, proffer an out-of-touch, ivory-tower curriculum. "Preparation for the rapid pace of business cannot be obtained from textbooks and cases," the report scolded.
The rest of the article is at http://www.business2.com/articles/mag/0,1640,41346,FF.html
August 28, 2002 message from Roger Debreceny [roger@DEBRECENY.COM]
There is an interview with Jeremy Pfeffer on NPR's Morning Report. See http://search.npr.org/cf/cmn/cmnpd01fm.cfm?PrgDate=08/28/2002&PrgID=3
Bob Jensen's Commentary on
Jeremy Pheffer's Assertions
Never overlook the value of networking that results from a prestigious MBA
degree. If I had not set a goal on getting one of these 12-hour per week college
faculty jobs, would I have gone for a Stanford MBA? You bet! The MBA
degree opens doors to success. And I hate making snob-like comments, but
the greater the prestige of the MBA program, the better the networking
opportunities for success.
Although I was in the free PhD program at Stanford (for five long years), my closest friends were in the MBA graduating classes across those years. I lived with MBAs, drank with MBAs, chased women with MBAs, skied with MBAs, and maintained postgraduate contacts with some of those MBAs. About the only thing I didn't do is take classes with them. Since I was a CPA with an MBA when I arrived at Stanford, I was forced to take courses from outside departments such as mathematics, statistics, economics, political science, and operations research in order to develop research skills.
For 30 years in the Stanford GSB Alumni Magazine, I have been following the job titles and other biography information about MBA graduates.
MBAs are something like what the military referred to as "90-day wonders" during World War II when college graduates could become officers in 90-day training programs. What amazes me is how many of those Stanford MBAs became CEOs, CFOs, and other top executives. A great many started their own businesses and became multimillionaires. And I like to think that most of them succeeded without being unethical.
Many of my MBA friends at Stanford were green and immature. They had undergraduate degrees in humanities, engineering, and science. The MBA program did more than give them a two-year crash program in business. It helped them to mature and honed their competitive drive. MBA graduates took pride in being admitted to Stanford's competitive program. It gave them self confidence that, in my viewpoint, helped many of them succeed when they started up their own business ventures.
Perhaps most importantly, the MBA program at Stanford bonded the MBA students to a point where many of them became life-long friends. I am sure the subsequent networking resulting from the MBA program helped many of these students to have opportunities to achieve success.
If I had not set a goal on getting one
of these free doctoral degrees followed by a 12-hour per week faculty job, would
I have gone for a Stanford MBA?
You bet!
The MBA degree opens doors to success. And I hate making snob-like comments, but the greater the prestige of the MBA program, the better the networking opportunities for success. The education is not necessarily better in the prestige schools, but the networking most likely is much better.
Millions of dollars pour back each year into prestigious universities from MBA alumni. This is mostly because those alumni are grateful for the opportunities afforded by their opportunities in the MBA programs, especially the networking opportunities.
Is there a need for improvement in the
education content in MBA programs?
You bet! But course content is only part of the MBA program.
See http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/AAAaward_files/AAAaward02.htm
An
Award-Winning Ethics Professor Shares Many of His Course Materials
Some accounting professors may want to build in some of the highly scholarly and
classical philosophical roots of ethics and moral philosophy into their courses,
especially courses or modules on ethics in accountancy, taxation, and auditing.
Professor: Robert Cavalier --- http://www.phil.cmu.edu/faculty/cavalier/
Department of Philosophy --- http://www.hss.cmu.edu/philosophy/
Carnegie-Mellon University
Course: Ethics and Moral Philosophy
Course Link --- http://caae.phil.cmu.edu/Cavalier/80130/Syllabus.html
Note the topic listing on the in the frame on the left side of the page.
From the Stanford University Graduate School of Business Alumni Newsletter on August 23, 2002
"[Teenagers are] always asking questions about moral dilemmas. My goal is for the students to go home feeling that they understand what it means to philosophize. I want them to get jazzed about the topic." - Robert Reich, PhD '98, an assistant professor of political science, describing the intention behind the Philosophy Discovery Institute that he co-founded to introduce teenagers to philosophical thinking. http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/july24/philosophy-a.html
Also note Professor Cavalier's philosophy course noted above.
I really like this trend in academe!
"College Archives 'Dig' Deeper," by Kendra Mayfield, Wired News, August 2, 2002 --- http://www.wired.com/news/school/0,1383,54229,00.html
A scholar wants to present a groundbreaking working paper on teleportation to his colleagues around the world.
Instead of submitting the paper to a print commercial journal and waiting months for results to be published, the researcher can simply pull up MIT's Center of Teleportation Research Web page and instantly submit the paper and data sets online, for all his cohorts to review.
This virtual intellectual asset sharing is part of DSpace, a joint project between MIT and Hewlett-Packard to create a long-term, sustainable digital repository.
This fall, MIT plans to open the DSpace archive to all its professors. The project will also release a set of free software tools so that any college or university can create its own online repository.
"We see this kind of system as a kind of public good," said MacKenzie Smith, associate director of technology for MIT's libraries.
As universities churn out vast amounts of research in electronic form, many are building immense digital archives to capture, distribute and preserve intellectual output.
"We really have to start thinking about alternative models, so we don't lose a record of scholarship from this particular era," Smith said.
"Technological obsolescence is a huge problem with keeping material viable beyond the next 5-10 years. It is yet to be proven that publishers who electronically publish this material will succeed in preserving it."
Other institutional archives include the University of California eScholarship Repository, Ohio State University's Knowledge Bank and Caltech's Library System Digital Collections.
These archives may provide more efficient, open access to research than costly commercial journals, which scholars often rely upon to publish their work and establish prestige.
"Today, institutions are paying unconscionably high prices to buy access to the research they support that is published in profitable commercially published journals," said Rick Johnson, enterprise director of SPARC, the Scholarly Publishing & Academic Resources Coalition.
"Institutional repositories can stimulate emergence of new publishing models that are more efficient and effective in serving academe."
A number of successful open-access e-print archives already exist. Physicists and mathematicians publish drafts of unpublished work in the Los Alamos Physics e-Print archive. Cognitive scientists self-archive papers in CogPrints. Engineers and scientists post pre-prints in the U.S. Department of Energy's PrePRINT Network.
Individual authors can use free self-archiving software to build online repositories that are compliant with the Open Archives Initiative.
Institutional repositories build upon this idea, allowing faculty to post everything from research data and data sets to images and audio files, theses and dissertations, conference papers, listserv archives and other "gray literature" online.
Faculty members are often desperate to find a safe online repository to post research data and other "born digital" material, Smith said.
Continued at http://www.wired.com/news/school/0,1383,54229,00.html
Certificate Program News
I have long contended that virtually
all colleges and universities will one day see the light on the importance of
adding online and onsite certificate programs to complement traditional degree
programs. Last week I featured the new certificate programs in the
graduate school of business at the University of Rochester. This week I
will mention a new certificate program at Georgia Tech's Wesley Center --- http://www.newmedia.gatech.edu/
Universities such as Stanford, Carnegie-Mellon, and Columbia have already
discovered that certificate and other training programs can bring in hundreds of
millions of dollars in growth revenues, revenues that are growing much faster
than traditional degree program revenues.
From Yale University: Advances in Knowledge Management
Excerpt from an August 16, 2002 Message from Charles White, Vice President of Information Resources, Trinity University
In the Office of the Registrar and a few selected administrative offices we are experimenting with a new electronic document management system called Scopeware by Mirror Worlds Technology (http://www.scopeware.com). If this has the propellers on your hats turning check out the web site for Mirror Worlds Technology and Scopeware. They call it a knowledge management system. You may find the concept behind it interesting.
You can read the following at http://www.scopeware.com/products/prod_overview.html
Does today's IT infrastructure leverage corporate knowledge? Corporate information grows in volume everyday. Every minute of every day documents are created, e-mails sent, appointments scheduled, hard copy documents filed, information feeds accessed, and so on.
The vast majority of this information is not leveraged. This unstructured information-information that is not formally published-provides great value by enhancing insight, speeding decision making, and increasing quality, but is often overlooked in the day-to-day decision making process.
The barriers to leveraging corporate knowledge Until now the cost and complexity of harnessing unstructured information has prevented its use in everyday business operations. Information is scattered amongst a multitude of physical and electronic stores. The artificial constraints of taxonomies, application ownership, location, file folders, etc. make it difficult for individuals to find and use information.
An additional obstacle in harnessing enterprise information is individual behavior and corporate culture. Typical business initiatives, such as compliance, R&D and manufacturing process planning require users to push information into appropriate stores in accordance with pre-defined policies and procedures. However, users do not always comply and follow policies and procedures in putting information in the assigned location, further accentuating the challenges of finding and leveraging information.
Scopeware - A new approach for leveraging enterprise information Scopeware is a patented knowledge management solution that enhances existing business functions (customer service, sales and marketing, compliance, wireless, etc.) by automatically capturing unstructured information in real-time and making it available and useful to those who can profit from it.
The Scopeware solution is the result of 10 years of research by world-renowned Yale computer scientist and Scopeware Chief Scientist Dr. David Gelernter.
Scopeware provides out-of-the-box functionality, automatically integrating with standard business information systems. Implementation takes days, not weeks or months. Scopeware is designed to be easy to implement and simple to use. The intuitive interface provides even the most casual user the full benefit of a powerful knowledge management solution and requires little training. This means Scopeware's total cost of ownership is significantly less than typical knowledge management solutions.
Scopeware mines, in real-time, corporate network repositories for information without forcing employees to remember file folder names, locations, or the applications originally used. Scopeware dispatches "intelligent agents" which link to thousands of repositories (including OCRed scanned documents)-then logically and in a time-ordered sequence (known as the Stream of Information) displays what is relevant. Employees are not required to change their behavior; Scopeware automatically leverages all corporate information automatically and makes it available to those who need it.
Scopeware fosters global collaboration among employees with diverse functional perspectives, providing teams the most complete view of the information they require to perform at the highest level of quality. This alone gives a significant boost to productivity as most organizations typically spend 30-40% of their time just finding information.
Continued at