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An Innovative Online International Accounting Course
on Six Campuses Around the World

Bob Jensen at Trinity University

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Table of Contents

Introduction

The Course is Globally Synchronous On the Internet

The Main Purposes of the Course

Invited Guests are Also Online

Technology Software Successes and Problems

Coordination and Course Credit Problems

Student Evaluations of the Course

Advantages and Disadvantages from a Faculty Perspective

Professor Lightner's Acknowledgements

Conclusions by Bob Jensen

 

Introduction

A highlight for me at the November 6-7, 1998 AICPA Accounting Educators Conference was a presentation by Sharon Lightner from San Diego State University and Linard Nadig from the University of Fribourg in Switzerland.  This presentation followed a ceremony presenting Professors Lightner and Nadig with the $1,000 AICPA Collaboration Award prize.

You can hear Sharon live on August 14 at the CETA workshop described at http://www.rutgers.edu/Accounting/raw/aaa/99annual/cpelist.htm .

The Collaboration Award was given for an online course that is now offered to a class comprised of five students from each of six universities in the United States, Japan, Switzerland, Spain, and Hong Kong.  I videotaped the presentation by Professors Lightner and Nadig.  The purpose of this document is to provide you with a summary of the highlights of this innovative international accounting course.

The course has some highly innovative features including the online participation of accounting standard setting bodies in the various countries mentioned above.  The course is also innovative in that students in class and in team projects see and hear one another over the Internet in a manner much like they would see and hear each other if they were all in the same classroom.

 

The Course is Globally Synchronous On the Internet

At San Diego State University (SDU), the course is given as ACCT 596 Experiential International Accounting course with focus on international accounting standards and standard setting.  The course is simultaneously given on six campuses in Switzerland, Japan, Spain (two campuses), and Hong Kong.  Each school provides five students.   Hong Kong was added in the second year of providing this course online.  A professor from each of the campuses is assigned to jointly teach the course (in English).  

The course meets once each week at the same time.  This means that SDU students must assemble in a computer lab at 11:00 p.m. at the same time students from other parts of the world assemble in their computer labs.  Other starting times were at 8:00 a.m. in Switzerland and Spain, 12:00 p.m. in Japan, and 4:00 p.m. in Hong Kong.   In addition, student teams must assemble at times when all team members can participate online.  Grading is based primarily upon class participation and team project performance.  The course professor from each campus also is online for each class.   In addition, one or more staff members from the standard setting body of each nation is online for some of the classes.

A helper for the course is an Internet training online introduction called   "Opening Doors to Internet Knowledge" that is described at http://www.treuhaender.ch/10-96/Rechnung/14dnadig/14dnadig.html   Anyone can register for the online training materials.  A summary of the training course is given below:

WHO. Anyone who has the capability of remote Internet access and has the desire to learn how to download/install software, ftp, browse the web, search the web, send/receive email, read/post to newsgroups, and create web pages. Also, you should have some familiarity with your own computer.

WHAT. A class entitled, Opening Doors to Internet Knowledge (Acctg 397). This is a one unit, fun, self paced, hands on, credit/nocredit course. (This class has nothing to do with accounting!) This class will appear on your transcript; it will not count toward the total number of units required for graduation.

WHY. Individuals need minimum Internet competencies to succeed in today?s environment. Internet access and Internet knowledge can open new doors in your life.

WHEN. Work from your computer at your convenience. There are NO prerequisites and NO formal class meetings. The class may be added at anytime through Reg-line at SDSU or through the College of Extended Studies at SDSU.

COMPUTER REQUIREMENTS. To take the class you need a PC running Windows 3.1 or higher, or a Macintosh running System 7.0 or higher. You need approximately 40 megabytes of free hard disk space to install and run an ftp program, Eudora, and Netscape. You also need at least a 14.4 modem (preferably 28.8 or 33.6)

HOW MUCH. (Assumes you will use AzNET as your outside Internet provider)  Prices for the training course range from $0 to $115.

 

The Main Purposes of the Course

The main purpose is to  allow students from other nations to simultaneously study international accounting standards in a formal course.   Accounting standards differ between nations differ in many ways do to differing cultural, economic, and financial histories.  As business becomes more global, understanding of these differences and efforts to harmonize these standards grow in importance.

Another purpose is to conduct a unique experiment in synchronized online learning in the presence of students from other nations, professors from other nations, and accounting standard setting officials in other nations.

The course deals with both cultural issues and accounting issues having the greatest differences between nations.  

Other purposes deal with technology and innovation.  The course is an experiment in the efficiency and effectiveness of selected computer, networking, email, chat line, audio, and video technologies for delivery of synchronized lectures, cases, and class discussions simultaneously via the Internet.

Other purposes included experimenting with remote submission of student projects via FTP transfers across the Internet.  Students also communicate via chat rooms and bulletin boards.

A key purpose is to experiment with the ability of student teams to work efficiently and effectively online.  Students were members of two teams.  The first team is comprised of students on the same campus.  The second team is comprised of one student from each of the six campuses.

 

Invited Guests are Also Online

A unique feature of this course is the presence of invited guests to appear live online (in audio and video) in selected classes.  The accounting standard setting body in each nation provided one or more assigned staff members to participate in the course.  For example, in the United States, the Financial Accounting Standards Board representative is Thomas Porter.  From Connecticut, Tom must arise before 2:00 a.m. to appear on a course commencing in California at 11:00 p.m.

In addition, online guests included employees of accounting and business firms from various nations.

 

Technology Software Successes and Problems

Each computer on each campus and guest participant site had a camera to transmit images of students, instructors and guests.  HoneyCom multi-purpose video software was used for that purpose.  The Honey Software home page is located at http://www.honeysw.com/   This company has a variety of software downloading options.

Audio around the world was transmitted via Onlive Talker software multi-person audio from Onlive Inc. at http://www.onlive.com/

Text messaging, chat lines, and file transfer software used ICQ software from Mirabillis at http://www.mirabilis.com/    Professor Lightner reported that one thing she liked about ICQ chats is that up to six different screens can be viewed simultaneously from six different users.   She also liked it that messages could be viewed as they were being written rather than having to wait for a message to be completed and then transmitted. 

Professors Lightner and Nadig reported general satisfaction with the hardware and software technology.  The main problem seemed to be bandwidth and Internet connection speed, especially in Spain.  At times, students must shut off the video in order to get reliable online audio.

 

Coordination and Course Credit Problems

One problem is that all six universities have different semester starting and ending dates. 

Another problem lies in giving academic credit for the course.  Issues arise regarding having multiple instructors from multiple countries.  Course topics do not necessarily fit neatly into the curriculum plan for each university.  Admission standards are not uniform for all students across all countries.  Each campus controlled its own admissions of students to the course.

Comparing and grading student performance on teams is always a challenge and having team members only meeting on the Internet adds to this challenge.  Professor Lightner felt, however, that student performance to date has greatly exceeded the expectations of all the instructors.

 

Student Evaluations of the Course

The most frequent complaint by students was in the difficulty of scheduling online meetings of their team members.  Time zone differences were particularly troublesome.

In this course there are both national and international projects.  Making these projects due the same week was troublesome for some students.

Students enjoyed being exposed to the advanced internet communication technologies.  However, these technologies were also troublesome at times.  For example, having to shut down the video images in order to improve audio communication can be troublesome.  Also, having to write messages in English that are viewed in real time while the messages were being viewed around the world must have been troublesome for Japanese, Swiss, Spanish, and Hong Kong students.

In general, student evaluations of the course are very high.

 

Advantages and Disadvantages from a Faculty Perspective

At the AICPA Educators Conference, Professor Nadig from Switzerland discussed the advantages and disadvantages from the perspective of a faculty member in the course.   Advantages included improvement of student and faculty communication skills and technology skills.  It is far better to experience these newer technologies first hand than to merely read about how others use them.   Close interaction and teamwork by international students obviously improved communication skills and team building skills.

Other advantages included cultural exposures, interactions with professional accounting standard setters and accounting practitioners in six nations, and networking both during and after the course.  The students had team projects much like projects they may encounter in their careers following graduation.

Professor Nadig did not dwell on disadvantages.  I suspect there are hurdles to jump over.  Admission standards are not identical for all students.   Other problems included different semester dates and time zones across six nations.   Student evaluations by multiple instructors having international online teams is obviously a great challenge.  It was not mentioned by Professors Lightner and Nadig, but obviously communication is somewhat difficult in written and oral communications by students whose primary language is not English.  This becomes even more difficult using ICQ software where messages appear before foreign students and foreign faculty have a change to read over the message and correct the phrasings in English.

Professor Lightner mentioned some difficulty in getting students into the course.   Each campus had a somewhat different process for admitting students.  She mentioned that some students as SDU balked at having a course meeting at 11:00 p.m.  She did assert that students who ended up in the course exceeded the expectations of faculty in terms of course performance.

 

Professor Lightner's Acknowledgements

Professor Lightner made a special point of publicly acknowledging the help and guidance given to her in designing and implementing this course.  She especially thanked Gerhard Mueller of the FASB for helping in designing the course and in making the international contacts with foreign universities and international standard setting bodies.  She was grateful for the technician and administrative support on the various campuses and for free software donated by some of the vendors mentioned above.  zNet provided free Internet access.

 

Conclusions by Bob Jensen

I should mention that similar technologies for international delivery of synchronous and asynchronous courses have been used for a number of years.  Some of these programs are discussed by me at http://WWW.Trinity.edu/~rjensen/255wp.htm    In particular, note the Global Executive MBA (GEMBA) program and links provided at http://www2.fuqua.duke.edu/admin/execed/marketing/index.html   

Even though the technologies were and are still used by various universities and education for global education and training, I congratulate Sharon Lightner for being a pioneer in utilizing this technology in accounting education.  I further congratulate her for being a pioneer in coordinating multiple instructors and foreign students in a single online course delivered synchronously. 

Most importantly, I congratulate Professor Sharon Lightner and the faculty from other nations for integrating the staff of accounting standard setting bodies and practitioners from six nations to be active participants in the online delivery of this course.   This is truly a pioneering effort that must have taken an immense amount of courage and time.

Now if I can get Sharon make presentations in some of my workshops life will be great!

What I would recommend for courses such as this is to replace some or all of the synchronous classes with asynchronous modules.  This overcomes much of the problem of having semesters begin and end on different calendar dates in the various nations.   It also overcomes the problem of having California students start class at 11:00 p.m.  Guest speakers such as Tom Porter at the FASB no longer have to be available in Connecticut at 2:00 a.m. 

Instructors and guests would have to have more materials prepared for online databases.  They would also have to handle more online messaging from students, although they could deal with the messages at convenient times.  Students from foreign countries would have more time to prepare their messages in English.  Online messaging increases rather than decreases in frequency and quality as courses become more asynchronous according to research reported at http://WWW.Trinity.edu/~rjensen/255wp.htm

Some but not all classes could still be conducted synchronously at scheduled dates and times.  Student teams might still have online "face-to-face" meetings via their web cameras and microphones.  They could also still have their ICQ chat lines synchronized for team meetings.

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