Striving for excellence: Recent research has found accounting education wanting, but new approaches and new resources have emerged in efforts to better prepare students for what they will encounter in today's job market. (Accounting Education).According to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. a broad-scale American Accounting Association-sponsored research project from 2000, an enormous gap exists between what is being taught in the accounting classroom and what is being practiced in corporate America -- or in the evolving global marketplace. As a result, traditional undergraduate and graduate accounting programs face unprecedented competition -- internally, as students consider other options, and externally, as market-driven vendors offer their own courses. In the definitive publication, Accounting Education: Charting the Course through a Perilous Future -- a joint project of the American Accounting Association, American Institute of Certified Public Accountants With over 330,525 CPA members (in August 2006), the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) is the largest professional organization of Certified Public Accountants (CPAs) in the United States of America. , Institute of Management Accountants The Institute of Management Accountants (IMA) is a professional organization headquartered in Montvale, New Jersey consisting of over 70,000 members worldwide. The IMA is dedicated to advancing the role of the management accountant and financial manager within the business and the "Big Five" accounting firms -- authors W. Steve Albrecht and Robert J. Sack write that accounting education being delivered today is the same as it was 20 or 30 years ago. The premise: the practice of accounting has changed dramatically, while accounting education hasn't kept pace. The gap between accounting practice and education is presumed to be widening, and there is a perceived unresponsiveness to that gap by accounting educators. However, innovations are emerging in the teaching of accounting in the fast-paced global environment marked by the revolution in technology and Internet services. Traditionally, accountants prepared financial information for internal and external decision-making, audited the fairness of that information and made sure that companies complied with tax and regulatory standards. Numbers were expensive to come by and were revered as a commodity in and of themselves. Therefore, the careful and accurate collection, recording and dissemination of those numbers made up most of the accountant's job. Now, numbers are cheap, they're everywhere They're Everywhere is an episode of The WB drama series, Charmed. Synopsis Prue and Piper give in to their fears that the men in their lives may be Warlocks and cast a mind-reading spell to find out the truth. -- and they're difficult if not impossible to manage. As a result, while technology has provided meaningful tools for tracking, sorting and disseminating information, it has created unprecedented complexity, as well as a concern for the value and integrity of that information. A New Mindset mind·set or mind-set n. 1. A fixed mental attitude or disposition that predetermines a person's responses to and interpretations of situations. 2. An inclination or a habit. Now, instead of looking strictly to the past, accounting has become more forward-looking. With the tedium of mere documentation relieved by the aid of number-crunching software and databases, the savvy business person has time to approach the profession at a more sophisticated and thought-provoking level, one that requires imagination and creativity. It's more critical now to look at accounting tools as a point of departure in seeking knowledgeable information for making intelligent strategic decisions. The profession now requires critical thinking as to how best to determine a business's advantage in reducing costs, increasing revenues and maintaining a competitive posture. Despite the pessimism in the AAA-sponsored report, the content and delivery in accounting education have also moved from fitting into a fundamental formula to one that must be recognized on a new level of thinking. In the past, the educational model fed into traditional hiring practices, where college graduates with degrees in accounting apprenticed at public accounting firms before deciding whether to continue to work as generalists or specialize in, say, tax or auditing. The choices are no longer as straightforward, and educational options will need to continually adapt in order for "accountants" to remain relevant. Students have a greater breadth of choices; in addition to just accounting, these include finance, strategic planning Strategic planning is an organization's process of defining its strategy, or direction, and making decisions on allocating its resources to pursue this strategy, including its capital and people. and information systems and technology. In a sense, accounting courses are becoming the tip of the iceberg tip of the iceberg n. pl. tips of the iceberg A small evident part or aspect of something largely hidden: afraid that these few reported cases of the disease might only be the tip of the iceberg. in filling the needs of the well-rounded business student. No longer can a CFO See Chief Financial Officer. rely on hiring new employees who have strictly studied accounting. New curriculums and ways of teaching are evolving. James Schwartz, chairman and assistant professor of the Accounting Department in the School of Business at Golden Gate University (GGU GGU Golden Gate University GGU Grønlands Geologiske Undersøgelse (Greenland's Geological Survey) GGU Gold's Gym of Utah GGU Gas Generator Unit GGU Government Guarantee and Undertaking (Vietnam) ) in San Francisco San Francisco (săn frănsĭs`kō), city (1990 pop. 723,959), coextensive with San Francisco co., W Calif., on the tip of a peninsula between the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay, which are connected by the strait known as the Golden , argues that a new skill set is required. This entails educating students who can read the output from computer-generated reports, analyze the numbers, interact with the information, make informed decisions, then communicate these decisions clearly and concisely to a varied audience. Schwartz believes that the real issue is how accounting is taught, and that a class's topic or content is not as important as the process. Now, there is a greater emphasis on writing, communication and understanding group dynamics group dynamics: see group psychotherapy. . There is also a greater need for current affairs current affairs npl → (noticias fpl de) actualidad f current affairs current npl → (questions fpl d')actualité f in course content, and GGU's program has become highly responsive to the unfolding of current events in corporate America. In St. Louis, Mo., Dan Viele, director of Webster University's Online Program in the School of Business and Technology and associate professor of business, thinks the traditional accounting degree will still provide the anchor to support varied collaborations. He likes the new thinking of coupling accounting with finance or information technology, because of the ability to provide students with a much broader set of skills. GGU's Schwartz believes that professionals in the accounting field will constantly have to retool re·tool v. re·tooled, re·tool·ing, re·tools v.tr. 1. To fit out (a factory, for example) with a new set of machinery and tools for making a different product. 2. and to take part in continuing professional education (CPE (Customer Premises Equipment) Communications equipment that resides on the customer's premises. CPE - Customer Premises Equipment ). Indeed, Benjamin Ola. Akande, Dean of the School of Business and Technology at Webster University Webster today operates as an independent, comprehensive, non-denominational university with campus locations around the world. It offers undergraduate and graduate programs in a wide array of disciplines, including the liberal arts, fine and performing arts, teacher education, business , contends that a critical issues facing business education in America today -- as it pertains to the development of financial analysts and CFOs -- is the growing population of working adults (ages 24 to 65) pursing graduate education in accounting and finance. These students are finding that they need to develop skills beyond their specialty areas, particularly in strategic planning, management skills and leadership development. New Educational Providers One big change in the 1990s was a surge in the number and variety of new accounting education providers. Within the past six years alone, over 1,000 institutions have begun offering programs. These range from off-line degree and certificate programs, to online degree and certificate programs, as well as continuing professional education. It's best to think of distance learning as occurring when the student and instructor are not in the same classroom, and e-learning (or online learning) as a subset of distance learning, taking place over the Internet. In the past, colleges and universities -- drawing on their established classroom teaching methods, faculty and content - have typically been the main providers of distance education. GGU and Webster, for instance, are both established educational institutions that have developed e-learning and distance-education programs. The University of Phoenix and DeVry Institutes of Technology, on the other hand, are two of the largest existing private, for-profit institutions, challenging the public and not-for-profit private schools. Each began by offering classroom education, and are now expanding into online learning. Many online accounting courses and CPE credits are offered by companies that have affiliated with existing universities. Cardean University -- which has no physical campus -- was founded by academics who saw the Internet as a way to democratize de·moc·ra·tize tr.v. de·moc·ra·tized, de·moc·ra·tiz·ing, de·moc·ra·tiz·es To make democratic. de·moc high-level education. It provides accounting and other business courses in an accredited accredited recognition by an appropriate authority that the performance of a particular institution has satisfied a prestated set of criteria. accredited herds cattle herds which have achieved a low level of reactors to, e.g. e-learning MBA MBA abbr. Master of Business Administration Noun 1. MBA - a master's degree in business Master in Business, Master in Business Administration program. While scholars from premium research universities such as Columbia, Stanford and the London School of Economics The School is a member of the Russell Group, the European University Association, Association of Commonwealth Universities, the Community of European Management Schools and International Companies, The Association of Professional Schools of International Affairs as well as the Golden develop course content, Cardean employs its own faculty to deliver its courses and mentor its students. Ultimately, the notion that education is not nearly as nimble as business may be, in part, a good thing. According to Schwartz, "We had better lag coporate America, or we're in big trouble. The real issue is: by how much? Yes, we trail coporate America. Yet we ask ourselves, what's the distance there? It goes back to the issue of how we teach. RELATED ARTICLE: Sampling of Online Accounting Programs Golden Gate University * www.ggu.edu * Offers undergraduate and master's degrees in finance and financial planning Financial planning Evaluating the investing and financing options available to a firm. Planning includes attempting to make optimal decisions, projecting the consequences of these decisions for the firm in the form of a financial plan, and then comparing future performance against , as well as master's in accountancy and taxation and graduate certificates in accounting and finance. Webster University School of Business and Technology * www.business.webster.edu * www.webster.edu/worldclassroom/ * Online MBA degree program for working adults. DeVry Institutes of Technology * www.devry.edu * www.devry.quinstreet.com/2/online.html * Offers online degree in business administration with a concentration in accounting. University of Phoenix * http://www.phoenix.edu * http://online.upophx.edu/ * Through Online Campus, offers BS in Business/Accounting, MBA/Accounting. Cardean University * www.cardean.edu * Offers online business courses and an accredited MBA degrees. Courses created in association with leading business universities. Mastery Courses (25-30 hours to complete within a 6-week period): Assessing profitability; assessing risk; assessing the quality of accounting information. Quantum Courses (2 hours to complete within a 2-week period): Pre-MBA Accounting; Learn to Speak Accounting. WiseGuides * www.wiseguides.com * International provider of continuing professional education for licensed accounting professionals, offering courses in taxation and accounting. Bisk Education  Bisk Education, Inc. is a United States corporation, founded in 1971 to provide distance test preparation for accountants. * wwwbisk.com * Multimedia continuing professional education courses in financial accounting, audit, CPA (Computer Press Association, Landing, NJ) An earlier membership organization founded in 1983 that promoted excellence in computer journalism. Its annual awards honored outstanding examples in print, broadcast and electronic media. The CPA disbanded in 2000. and tax, as well as online interactive university certificates and degrees, including MBAs. Learning Insights * www.courses.learninginsights.com/online/ * Offers continuing education continuing education: see adult education. continuing education or adult education Any form of learning provided for adults. In the U.S. the University of Wisconsin was the first academic institution to offer such programs (1904). courses in financial accounting, financial analysis and strategy. SmartPros Ltd. * www.smartpros.com * Offers continuing education courses in tax, accounting and management in a variety of formats including online and video, such as FMN FMN flavin mononucleotide. FMN abbr. flavin mononucleotide FMN oxidized form of flavin mononucleotide. Online, a monthly program. Also available are CPA courses and CPE tracking. Get connected Access a powerful one-source connection to the knowledge you need in today's fast-moving global economy. Access www.fei.org. On your desktop. * emerging issues updates * access to member database * downloadable files * powerful financial tools * valuable case studies * a network of 15,000 peers * career management tools * our award-winning job bank * online CPE credits Bookmark A stored location for quick retrieval at a later date. Web browsers provide bookmarks that contain the addresses (URLs) of favorite sites. Most electronic references, large text databases and help systems provide bookmarks that mark a location users want to revisit in the future. us today! Susan Schott Karr is a freelance writer in Chatham, NJ, who writes frequently about training and education. |
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