Institution C: Uses of Accounting Information  

Abstract

The introductory financial accounting course (ACC230 – Uses of Accounting Information I) at INSTITUTION C requires redesign. It is a mandatory course for all business majors enrolling approximately 1,800 students annually. During the fall, students attend one 50-minute large enrollment (~ 300 students) lecture and two smaller (~34 students) recitation sessions of 50 minutes each per week. The large enrollment sections are taught by 2 senior instructors and the recitations are facilitated by 15 graduate teaching assistants (TAs). There are also 4 evening sections being taught by 2 adjunct faculty.

The introductory accounting course is faced with several academic problems. Over the past two academic years, the effective withdrawal rate approached 30%. In addition, student learning performance has been rather poor with 23% of the students not receiving a passing grade. Furthermore, over 6% of the students retake the course, which equates to 3 full class sections per year. Due to the manual grading procedures students do not receive timely detailed explanatory feedback. Also, the accommodation of different learning styles and skills is difficult due to the course’s traditional format which does not utilize technology. Finally, ACC230 does not cover all the necessary concepts and principles needed for upper level courses, so a separate one credit hour course (ACC250) on the mechanics of debits and credits is required, further straining the departmental resources.

The course redesign intends to reduce the number of sections by increasing the section enrollment size. The number of in-class lectures will decrease by half and the instructional time will be replaced with online activities. The remaining lecture time will be altered to involve students in hands-on practice problem solving. Furthermore, the redesign will result in reducing the number of recitation sessions from two 50-minute meetings to one 75-minute meeting per week. The recitations will be mandatory for all students to promote active learning and teamwork. The redesign seeks to establish an open lab/tutoring hybrid (face-to-face, online) environment, staffed by TAs, where students will receive personalized assistance. Technology will be deployed to deliver homework, frequent low-stakes quizzes as well as more complex tests. Moreover, the redesign will automate grading, peer/group feedback, and the scheduling of tutoring. It will also engage students in interactive tutorials and provide timely, explanatory feedback on their performance. The course curriculum will also be augmented to cover topics taught in ACC250.

The quality of the course will be enhanced through a combination of technology, computer-generated individual lesson plans based on knowledge level, and collaborative learning. Active learning will be increased substantially through interaction with the online instructional materials and peers, giving students improved opportunities for hands-on practice and application of learned concepts with immediate feedback. Open lab/tutoring will enhance and support student understanding allowing an increase in classroom time for accounting procedures and concepts. Classroom experience will be enriched through interactive practice activities.

Performance on specific final exam questions from the prior traditional course format will be compared to the redesigned course. Attrition rates and distribution of grades will also be compared. Additional student performance on quizzes, tests, and homework will be tracked during this project. Diagnostic pretests and posttests will measure learning gain for core domains. Student attitudes towards the course as well as self-efficacy ratings will be collected. Focus groups evaluating student introductory accounting knowledge will be conducted with instructors teaching upper level accounting courses.

The redesign will result in the elimination of a complete course (ACC250), a reduction in the number of teaching personnel, a decrease in the number of sections, and better utilization of instructional time due to the introduction of technology. Furthermore, there will be a decrease in cost per student of 33%, or $108,000 annually. The savings associated with the redesign will be used to fund other courses within the department (specifically taxation) as well as the development of a new orientation program for incoming business students with the aim of teaching successful academic and teamwork skills.

Introduction

The School of Business at INSTITUTION C intends to redesign an introductory accounting course (ACC 230: Uses of Accounting Information I) that is being offered to a population of approximately 1,800 undergraduate students annually. The current course structure consists of a large lecture and two recitations of 50 minutes each per week. The lectures lack interactivity: the instructors serve as information presenters and student participation has been largely in the form of note-taking. The intent of the recitations is to provide smaller-group (on average 34 students per section) instruction and homework guidance. Due to the lack of automated grading and detailed student achievement reports, the recitations do not have enough student performance data available to tailor instruction to content areas where deficiencies are most prevalent. Feedback is often very generic, not timely or individualized, and students only derive limited value from the recitation sessions. In general, the course suffers from high withdrawal rates and low academic success rates, requiring many students to repeat the course. Student success has a direct link to degree completion and overall university retention, which is of paramount importance to not only the students but also the University Administration and the broader society and economy as a whole.

The current utilization of technology for the management and delivery of the course is negligible. The course is plagued with lack of automation for academic as well as administrative matters, which requires the instructors to spend a significant amount of time on tasks such as manual grading of all assignments, exams, and peer evaluations; labor-intensive sorting and processing of all emails; and manual scheduling and monitoring of student progress. There is a soaring demand to automate these tasks so the instructors can devote more quality time to mentoring students and the graduate teaching assistants (TAs); providing individual assistance and personalized feedback; and enriching the educational experience through active learning activities.

To address these academic and administrative problems, the School has committed to improve the course in terms of increasing student learning performance and achieving more efficient utilization of institutional resources associated with teaching the course. The overall goal of the redesign is to improve student learning, reduce the cost of ACC230, and to build a foundation for future redesign within the School of Business.

Replacement Model of Course Redesign

The replacement model was selected as best fitting the needs for the course redesign. This redesign model is aligned with the overall mission of the School to make education more accessible to all students by shifting some of the instructional time online while still preserving in-class meetings for direct instructor guidance and feedback. The replacement model embodies a gradual shift from the traditional face-to-face teaching format to online learning. This hybrid approach for course delivery is more conducive to the undergraduate student population at INSTITUTION C, where there is only a very limited number of online lower-division classes and not all students have extensive experience with online learning. Thus replacing only some of the classroom time with interactive computer-based learning activities will allow students to maintain a high comfort level with the proposed course format.

By employing the replacement model, the number of lectures will be reduced approximately in half (from 15 lectures under the traditional course format to 8 lectures in the redesigned format) throughout the duration of a semester. The frequency of the lectures will be higher at the beginning of a semester to provide direct instruction on the basic concepts and principles of accounting. Lecture time and face-to-face time with the instructor at the beginning of a semester will help establish the foundational knowledge that students will enhance through online practice activities and team assignments. In-class meetings will also occur before each major exam (e.g., midterm, final). One in-class meeting will be devoted to a series of guest speaker presentations to provide students with a more diverse perspective on accounting principles and their application in the business world. This guest speaker day is likely to increase motivation and interest of students, as it will directly relate to aspects of future careers in the accounting field.

The overall structure of the course is going to be altered significantly to improve the quality of learning and to reduce the cost-per-student associated with teaching the course by approximately 33%. The School is planning to utilize the savings associated with the implementation of the course redesign for the development of a new orientation program for the incoming business students. This program will equip students with skills needed to be successful in their undergraduate studies, leading to increased retention and graduation rates. Upon completion of this orientation program students will have skills in time management, conflict resolution, effective team work, and leadership. They will also acquire valuable study skills, presentation techniques, and improved communication skills. The savings from the redesign will be also diverted to supporting the taxation specialization at the School of Accountancy where additional personnel resources are needed to maintain the competitive position of the nationally-ranked taxation program.

All students will be expected to actively participate in the redesigned lecture meeting and one recitation per week. The section size will be increased on average by six students, which will lead to the overall reduction of sections by approximately 16%. A larger section size would be desirable but due to classroom capacity limitations is not feasible at this time. In addition, an open lab environment staffed by graduate teaching assistants will provide access to approximately 45 tutoring hours each week. This represents a 50% increase in available tutoring time compared to the traditional course format.

Redesigning the Whole Course

The School of Accountancy has already standardized the curriculum and course delivery for the daytime sections of the introductory accounting course. The aim is to ensure consistency in course content, streamlined course delivery, and seamless integration of new instructors and graduate teaching assistants. A senior lecturer was appointed into the role of a course coordinator, overseeing all academic and administrative aspects of the daytime sections, such as hiring and mentoring of graduate teaching assistants, course content selection and presentation, and resolution of student grievances. The evening sections are currently being taught by adjunct faculty (a total of six sections per year) who do not have direct peer oversight and mentoring at their disposal. Thus discrepancies in course structure and delivery are more likely in the evening sections. The course improvement initiative, therefore, plans to redesign the course as a whole. The School plans to synchronize the curriculum and course delivery for all sections, to eliminate the personnel resources (adjunct faculty) teaching the evening sections, and to abandon offering the evening sections. A common syllabus, textbook, and assignments will be utilized in all sections. A single, full-time, senior lecturer will be responsible for managing all academic and administrative affairs associated with the redesigned course.

The redesign also intends to absorb the curriculum currently taught in a separate one-credit hour course on the mechanics of debits and credits (ACC250) into the redesigned introductory accounting course (ACC230). The effectiveness of the one-credit hour course has been rather limited, as evidenced by the lack of practical debit/credit skills in the advanced accounting courses. Furthermore, students perceived the one-credit hour course as unimportant, since it was delivered as a stand-alone, self-paced online course with inadequately defined structure and support. By combining the debit/credit curriculum with the existing introductory accounting content, students will gain a better foundation in basic accounting concepts and principles. In addition, this change will make the curriculum at the School of Business more consistent with its peer/competitor schools. Also, by introducing a more structured course delivery approach that provides more frequent feedback and personalized assistance, the lower-division undergraduate students will be better equipped to be successful in ACC230.

Encouraging Active Learning

The replacement model also facilitates the change of teaching philosophy for in-class meetings to include more active learning activities and practice. The instructors at the School of Business strongly believe that introducing student-centered activities will lead to a more positive learning experience for the students, as well as higher learning performance. Under the redesigned format, students will work on practice exercises in smaller groups within the larger lecture setting, while reaping the benefits of peer feedback and clarifying instructor explanations. The traditional lecture format will be altered to include only 30 minutes of instructor-led presentation while the rest of instructional time (35 minutes) will be devoted to hands-on class activities. Students will interact with each other in small teams with the instructor serving as a facilitator, rather than an information presenter (authoritative lecturer). Instructional software will frequently support more immersive student engagement with the course content in the context of large-size lecture halls equipped with computer technology. The classroom support IT services will augment the available stationary classroom PCs with portable laptops, enabling student teams to get easy access to computing technology for completion of online learning activities.

Students will be organized in groups of five at the beginning of the semester to cooperate on activities and projects. The redesigned course will utilize the Discussion Board capability of the Blackboard course management system (CMS) to promote the exchange of ideas among students in an asynchronous learning environment. Furthermore, chat technology, which is highly proliferated in the undergraduate student community, will allow students to communicate efficiently online. Since INSTITUTION C has established a formal partnership with Google Inc., the students will be directed towards Google Docs and Spreadsheets as user-friendly asynchronous online collaboration tools. Students will be asked to collaborate on a team project which encompasses analyzing real-life financial information for selected businesses. This team assignment will provide students with authentic-learning opportunity where they can apply concepts and principles learned in the class. The small-group learning environment will be also replicated during recitation sessions where students will be able to interact with graduate mentors and receive feedback on their team work. Students will be asked to evaluate the performance and quality of work of their teammates through an automated web-based interface which was developed by the School’s IT department. Specifically, students will rate the following skills of their teammates: responsibility, time management, communication, teamwork, quality of contributed work, and participation in discussions and meetings. The peer feedback will promote self-reflection and possibly highlight areas where future growth in team skills could occur.

Active learning will be promoted through the adoption of interactive, computer-based materials that are available from the Thomson Corporation – the publisher of college textbooks and learning resources. Students will have access to a multimedia textbook, which allows easy navigation to interrelated topics, thus reinforcing broader understanding of the instructional material. To offset the decrease in the amount of in-class lectures, students will be directed to computer-mediated tutorials allowing them to practice accounting concepts and principles. Students will interact with online exercises to apply their knowledge and to receive immediate feedback on their performance. Students will benefit from the instructional software by working through interactive simulations, testing their skills in educational games, applying their knowledge in practice exercises, and enhancing their comprehension of course content through video cases.

Providing Students with Individual Assistance

The current course format does not lend itself to individual/personalized assistance for the students. Student learning performance data is not readily available under the existing model, where the majority of the grading is done manually and the maintenance of the gradebook is a labor-intensive task. Raw student scores are tracked but there is no reporting and no automated tools that would help monitor and analyze individual student performance or to assist with follow up and corrective action. Historically, students have not been utilizing office hours that are fairly rigid in term of schedule and meeting place. The scheduling options for office hours were inflexible. In the traditional course format students have access to a total of approximately 30 office hours per week.

The redesigned course will enhance access to individual assistance by employing advanced information technology solutions and creating an innovative tutoring system. By shifting the completion and grading of homework and quizzes into the online Thomson instructional environment, instructors will gain access to automated reports showing student performance on the individual items in the respective assignments. Reporting metrics will be automated by the School IT instructional systems group to easily identify “at-risk” students with low achievement who would highly benefit from individual assistance. This reporting functionality will allow the instructors to tailor review sessions to the learning needs of a particular class and/or individual student. Instructors will be able to focus on areas where students have deficiencies, correct misconceptions, and help build the necessary knowledge base.

Office hours are going to be replaced with a hybrid accounting tutoring system (HATS) that will consist of an open lab environment staffed by graduate teaching assistants. The redesigned course model emphasizes matching instructional guidance to the actual learning needs of the individual students by carefully analyzing their learning performance on the class assessments. The proposed tutoring system recognizes that students are faced with a variety of academic challenges and therefore a flexible structure of providing instructional assistance is needed. HATS will aid the students in the learning process by offering about 45 tutoring hours each week, including extended evening hours and weekends. The graduate teaching assistants are going to be equipped with portable computer technology (laptop computers) to promote physical mobility. Tutoring will be conducted not only within the lab setting but more informal environments will be investigated, such as the student union. It is anticipated that by offering non-traditional meeting places students might be more likely to utilize the tutoring services. To promote the use of the tutoring services, students who score 50% or less on any given assignment will be sent an automatic email inviting them to schedule a tutoring session with any of the graduate teaching assistants. Students will choose a tutoring time from a web-based interface embedded within the email and upon their selection an automatic confirmation email will be sent to both the student and the graduate teaching assistant. It is expected that low performing students will have to attend the tutoring sessions, while participation for high performing students will be optional. The automated scheduling feature will also allow tracking of actual attendance, so further follow-up with students will be enabled. The face-to-face tutoring sessions will be augmented by synchronous conferencing sessions conducted through the Adobe Acrobat Connect Professional (formerly known as Breeze Meeting) software which is licensed at INSTITUTION C. This collaboration solution does not require any software downloads for the students. It enables sharing of applications and files, allowing the tutors to see where students are experiencing difficulties so appropriate individual assistance and encouragement can be provided.

In the redesigned course students will experience an improved support structure. A new role of a super-TA/course assistant will be instituted to handle administrative matters and various student inquires and requests. This new arrangement will increase access to individual assistance for students, while improving the response time. The course assistant position will be staffed by a senior graduate teaching assistant (Ph.D. student in the advanced stages of graduate accounting studies). Traditionally, all graduate teaching assistants were responsible for teaching two course sections per semester, but in the redesigned model the super-TA/course assistant will teach only one section to get familiar with the instructional content and structure: the balance of his/her time will be devoted to dealing with administrative issues. The course assistant will also help with processing emails to address non-content-related questions. The School’s IT department will replicate a public email structure that has been successfully used in the INSTITUTION C Online MBA program to automatically sort through major email categories (e.g., technical issues, requests for make-up exams, and grading inquiries) that will be defined in the email interface. By creating the course assistant position, the instructor will be able to focus on academic rather than logistical interactions with the students, leading to an enhanced level of individual assistance.

Building in Ongoing Assessment and Prompt Feedback

Educational theory and practice suggests that the utilization of instructional software that provides immediate feedback on performance will lead to improved student achievement. The introduction of the Thomson online integrated learning solutions and assessment tools will enable students to complete exercises, low-stakes quizzes, and homework on computers while receiving immediate feedback on their specific performance. The feedback will frequently consist of elaborative explanations that will help students reinforce what they are learning. Students will be able to review the feedback at a later date, for example when preparing for a cumulative assessment. While solving practice problems and homework, students will be able to access the electronic version of the textbook and extra instructional scaffolds, such as animations and definitions of terms. These additional resources can be highly personalized by each student since a variety of learning resources and help materials is available to accommodate a diversity of learning styles and personal preferences.

Students will be exposed to more frequent assessment and will receive prompt automated feedback through the adopted instructional software. The redesign plans to include weekly low-stakes online quizzes to facilitate practicing the course content. This represents a 100% increase in the amount of low-stakes assessment since the current course structure calls for only 7 quizzes per semester. The quizzes will present both corrective and explanatory feedback so students can strengthen their understanding of the course content. In many instances the feedback will be linked to relevant passages of the hyper-textbook, promoting a creation of mental models. Students will also complete two larger projects (an individual and a group project) and four exams (three exams and a comprehensive final vs. 2 midterms and a comprehensive final under the traditional course format) that will be conducted under proctored conditions to prevent cheating. The School has several technology-equipped classrooms with a total of over 110 computer/seats and an undergraduate laptop program with approximately 160 laptops that will be used in the administration of the exams. Additional computer resources are available through the University Technology Office.

When introducing a new major course objective/content area students will be asked to complete a content-specific pretest that has been built into a test bank accompanying the course electronic textbook. Based on the pretest performance, students will be automatically presented with personalized learning plan consisting of online activities designed to aid in content acquisition. These learning activities can be assigned and their completion tracked on the instructional software. After completing an instructional unit, students will take a computer-based posttest, so learning gain could be measured.

In the redesigned course students will be completing all homework online. During their problem solving attempts, students will have access to a hyper-textbook and additional computer-based instructional help materials. Multiple solution attempts will be permitted, so students can achieve full content mastery. Many of the homework problems can be administered as algorithmic questions that have changing surface features (e.g., numerical values) each time the particular question is presented to the student. This algorithmic presentation exemplifies additional drill practice for the students, so they can acquire a complete understanding of the course content. Under the traditional course format, due to time constraints and lack of automated tools, instructors award credit for homework completion (submission). The manual grading of weekly homework prohibited detailed feedback that would reinforce the learned content.

Ensuring Sufficient Time on Task and Monitoring Student Progress

The instructional software from the Thomson Corp. allows tracking of student achievement on all assignments. The available data includes, but is not limited to, accuracy of answers on the overall assessment as well as the individual items, time on task, number of solution attempts (in case of homework), and date of assignment completion. This information can be leveraged to track student progress and to provide early intervention. For example, if a given student is consistency submitting an assignment after the original due date, the instructor or course assistant will follow-up with the student via email, phone or in-person and provide assistance when needed. Also, by analyzing time spent on an assignment, the instructor can discover that a student who needed extremely long amount of time to complete an assignment might have problems with understanding the course concepts and/or navigating through the instructional software. In any case, the instructor will be able to follow up with the student and offer help.

The format of the automated student learning performance reports can be specified, so only students who satisfy the instructor pre-defined criteria are being displayed in the reports. For example, the instructor can generate automatic reports showing students who scored below a certain threshold on an assessment. The reporting interface allows the instructor to send a direct email to the identified students, urging them to improve their performance and suggesting that they take full advantage of the available tutoring options. By communicating with the students when they are failing in the course and not just at some arbitrary checkpoints, such as the middle and end of each semester, the instructors will be able to address learning performance issues early and help the students be successful in the course.

The redesigned course will also exploit the adaptive release functionality for the online assessments. The instructional software permits the instructors to specify under which conditions students are allowed to proceed with the online course activities and assignments. The students will be required to master specific learning objective (e.g., score a certain number of points on a given assignment) within a given period of time before being allowed to interact with advanced instructional content. Since the introductory accounting course is targeted at lower-division undergraduate students who might lack effective time and study management skills, a well-structured schedule of course milestones will be developed. The redesigned course will facilitate independent yet guided student learning by leaving some flexibility (in time and place) to achieve the course milestones through the completion of learning activities and assignments. The combination of a hybrid learning environment with a concrete learning plan whose execution is going to be monitored through automated student learning reports will enable students to be successful in the course. Students will gain access to more timely performance feedback, since the majority of learning activities will be delivered online. The increase in the amount of practice and the corresponding feedback will further facilitate student learning.

Assessment of Student Learning

To measure the effectiveness of the course redesign, student performance on a selected set of common final exam items that have remained the same over the several past semesters will be compared against baseline data from the previous academic year (2006-2007). The final exam integrity has remained rather high, since the exam is not returned to the students and no detailed feedback is given to the students. Attrition rates and distribution of grades will be compared as well. This course completion data is available for the past six semesters. Student learning outcomes on all the assignments (e.g., quizzes, tests, homework accuracy and completion) in the redesigned course will be tracked and monitored by the instructor. Diagnostic pretests and posttests will measure learning gain for core domains. Student attitudes toward the course and subject matter as well as self-efficacy ratings will be collected through web-based surveys developed by the School’s IT department that employs four instructional designers experienced in survey design and development. The instructional designers have advanced knowledge of data collection and analysis, thus they will be actively involved in the evaluation process. Focus groups evaluating student introductory accounting knowledge base will also be conducted with instructors teaching upper-level accounting courses.

In order to independently assess the effectiveness of the redesign, feedback will be requested from educational professionals at INSTITUTION C. Faculty, technology specialists, and instructional professionals with expertise in program evaluation, transformation of courses, implementation of new curricula, and adoption of innovative classroom technology will be invited to serve on an advisory board. They will provide input after the initial student performance and attitude data are collected during the pilot redesign phase. Their recommendations will be taken into consideration when making revisions to the redesigned course. Furthermore, suggestions for improvement will be solicited after the first semester of the full redesign implementation.

Implementation

Preparing students

The School of Business is going to leverage the faculty members with expertise in transition change management to prepare students and their parents for the shift from face-to-face to the hybrid course format. Specifically, a communication plan will be developed to keep all stakeholders (students, parents, faculty from other departments, IT professionals, and administrators) informed about the upcoming changes. The plan will be launched one semester prior to the redesign pilot and continue throughout the full implementation and subsequent postmortem, when the redesigned course will reach a stabilization period. Information about the course redesign will be posted on the School’s website and will be updated throughout the duration of the redesign. Furthermore, emails containing the major assumptions of the redesign, the value add proposition (improved student learning performance), and examples of relevant successful course redesigns will be sent to the parents and students before the redesign begins. The emails will also provide links to resources to increase student understanding about the hybrid course offering, and to help students acquire necessary skills (e.g., study management, team work collaboration) that would facilitate student success in the redesigned course. Students will be directed to numerous existing resources, such as the Learning Resource Center that offer academic coaching, software training, and tutoring. Students living in the dormitories will have access to extended support through Residential Life that is actively promoting the academic village concept that is aimed to enhanced student retention and academic excellence.

To ensure buy-in and continuous support for the redesign from other faculty members, the School’s administration has been highlighting the redesign efforts in periodic School’s briefings and School-wide newsletter and emails. At the departmental level, faculty receive updates during regular staff meetings. All faculty are invited to provide input to the redesign team. The redesign team has also enlisted direct assistance from an instructor who teaches the advanced accounting course (ACC240), where the impact of the redesigned introductory course (ACC230) will be immediately felt.

Technology

To further ease the transition from in-class to online learning environment, students will be asked to complete a web-based “Online Learning Readiness” survey that has been developed by the Distance Learning group at INSTITUTION C. Students who will score low on the survey will be provided with resources to increase their preparedness for online learning. A series of animated tutorials, printable job aids, and study tips has been created by the University Technology Office, allowing students to increase their awareness about the unique characteristics of online learning and particularly the course-management system. Technical issues, such as access to the course management system will be handled by the university central help desk. Specific instruction and support on the usage of the instructional software that will be deployed in the redesigned course will be provided by the Technology Service and Training Consultant from the maker of the instructional software, namely the Thomson Corporation. In-class training for all instructors and students will be conducted at the beginning of each semester. Further assistance will be available from the technical assistance center, which operates toll-free number, email, and live 24/7 chat. The service level agreement stipulates extended support through the Preferred Customer Program that was negotiated when the School adopted the instructional software from the Thomson Corp. This contract entails on-site training for fall and spring semesters, student in-services during the first week of class, follow-up training one month into the semester, instructor/TA training, and a personal code for technical support so faster resolution of inquiries and issues would be facilitated.

The School’s IT department has been delivering training on the usage of the course management system (Blackboard) to the faculty for the past several semesters. Traditionally, instructors and graduate teaching assistants were participating in face-to-face training prior to the beginning of each semester. A new initiative by the Instructional Systems group within the Business IT department will introduce online training component in Fall 2007. A series of animated tutorials is being developed with the aim to serve the ongoing training needs of the School’s faculty and graduate teaching assistants. Furthermore, a series of ongoing workshops on the various features of the course management system will be implemented in Fall 2007. Ongoing training on the instructional system will be delivered by Thomson Corp.

It is anticipated that students taking the redesigned ACC230 course will have a solid background in information technology, since the School’s new admission policy that goes into effect in the Fall 2007 semester will require the mastery of the fundamentals of computer literacy by all incoming students. Prior enrolling in the introductory accounting course, students would have taken the CIS 105 - Computer Applications and Information Technology course (or an equivalent transfer course), which introduces business information systems and the uses of business application software with emphasis on word processing, database, and spreadsheet packages.

According to 2006 INSTITUTION C Student Technology Survey the majority of students own computers (98%). It is interesting to note that 77% of respondents indicated that they own a laptop computer. The data also revealed that 90% of the surveyed students had direct experience with Blackboard as course management software. The School of Business has several computer classrooms and labs where students have access to computing technology. Furthermore, university-wide computing resources will be utilized in support of the redesigned course delivery. Students have wireless access to the Internet from any location on the main INSTITUTION C campus and throughout the entire city. Wireless network connectivity on campus is sufficient to handle high traffic of a population of over 60,000 students.

The School of Business is relying on Blackboard as the main course management software (CMS). In recent years INSTITUTION C has spent significant amount of financial resources to update the Blackboard servers’ hardware and has made considerable improvements to the load balancing software on the Blackboard servers in order to accommodate the growing student population which has reached over 60,000. Even though some efforts have been made by the University Technology Office to introduce Sakai as collaboration and learning environment that could possibly replace Blackboard, the School is not currently considering switching the CMS. INSTITUTION C does not presently have sufficient resources to support Sakai both in terms of personnel and hardware and can’t build the same functionality and features that are available in Blackboard. It is highly unlikely that there would be any substantial changes to the Blackboard CMS in the near future that would have a negative impact on the redesigned course. Any new changes in Blackboard CMS would probably only increase its usability. Furthermore, any change to the CMS would have very limited impact on the course, since the instructional content of the redesigned course is largely independent of the CMS. The content is supplied by the publisher of the course textbook (Thomson Corp.). Thomson has positive experience accommodating large classes of over 1,500 students in their interactive instructional environment. For example, at the University of Iowa a large-enrollment accounting course with very similar characteristics as the planned redesigned course at INSTITUTION C has successfully utilized the Thomson instructional software for conducting online activities and assessment.

Campus support

The initial planning stages of the course redesign have received wide-spread support from the School’s faculty, administrators, and IT professionals. Members of the redesign team represent the various departments that are crucial for a successful implementation of the redesign. The School of Accountancy has already reached an agreement about the key course aspects, such as content areas, instructional format, and a common textbook. Reaching an ongoing faculty consensus should be relatively straightforward, since the School has a long tradition of synchronizing curriculum across various sections of a given course, and reducing duplication of effort by developing a “master” model for all introductory accounting courses. The School of Business administration is instrumental in implementing the redesign. The redesign of the introductory accounting course is viewed as a pioneering initiative that could eventually proliferate across the various departments with the goal to improve student learning and to reduce the instructional costs School-wide.

Timeline

The redesign is going to be piloted in the Spring 2008 semester in all sections of the ACC230. It is not logistically feasible and practical to run parallel sections of the course - some in the traditional format and some in the redesigned format. Based on the outcomes of the pilot phase, the course will be revised during Summer 2008 and any changes will be implemented during the Fall 2008 semester.

The following table highlights the redesign timeline with its major phases and corresponding outcomes.

Summary

By employing the replacement model, the number of in-class meetings will be reduced and substituted with out-of-class activities conducted online. The overall amount of lectures is going to be decreased by approximately 50%. Students will become engaged in more active learning activities and cooperative learning within the large lecture format. The number of recitation sessions is going to be lowered from 2 to 1 per week, and augmented with a hybrid tutoring system, where students will receive individual assistance from graduate teaching assistants. Senior full-time faculty will be reduced from 2 to 1. The additional resources (senior full-time faculty) will be shifted into other undergraduate accounting courses that are faced with lack of instructors. All adjunct faculty will be eliminated due to the elimination of the evening sections of ACC230 and the absorption of curricula from ACC250 into the redesigned ACC230 course. The redesign will result in a 33% reduction of the cost-per-student, representing annual saving of approximately $108,000 that will be diverted to teaching the taxation courses at the School of Accountancy and developing a new orientation program for the undergraduate business students.