Rapid Implementation Of ERP Financials Into The Curriculum: A Success Story

Most academic institutions wish to provide current, up to date and real world software applications to their students and this causes a number of common difficulties.  This is especially true as those applications become far larger and more complex, such as in Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems, more recently referred to as Enterprise Systems.  The authors’ institution has a degree program in accounting information systems, and the authors believed that it was critical that ERP skills and applications be included in order to maintain the stature of the program.  Although difficulties were expected, the authors nonetheless pursued various classroom ERP alternatives.  This paper reports on those efforts, which culminated in the creation and offering of an ERP financial applications class in a six month time period.  It is believed that such information will provide encouragement and useful information to other institutions that are considering such implementations

Internet Based Oracle Financial Training: A Success Story

Most academic institutions wish to provide current, up to date and real world software applications to their students and this causes a number of common difficulties. This is especially true as those applications become far larger and more complex, such as Enterprise Systems. The authors’ institution has a degree program in accounting information systems, and the authors believed that it was critical that ERP skills and applications be included in order to maintain the stature of the program. Although difficulties were expected, the authors nonetheless pursued various classroom ERP alternatives. This paper reports on those efforts particularly the adoption of internet based training rather than the traditional computer lab in the creation and offering of an ERP financial applications class. It was quickly determined that avoiding a dedicated computer lab option will result in substantial saving in additional hardware expenditure. Creating an online classroom forum for sharing of ideas and information is another component of internet based training course. “Caucus” a proprietary online software developed by our university allows faculty and students share their comments, questions, comments and suggestions with one another on broad basis. It is believed that such information will provide encouragement and useful information to other institutions that are considering such implementations

The State Of Teaching Accounting Information Systems: Is There A Gap?

Based upon a literature review and through interviews, discussions, and questionnaires filled out by accounting information systems (AIS) educators, the authors conclude that while total consistency and uniformity may not be desirable in teaching the subject of AIS, there seems to still be a need for more rigor, more consistency in coverage, and perhaps, more cutting-edge training of instructors to be able to prepare the students in this important area.  They further conclude that more hands-on exercises and practice seem to be needed in the dissemination of knowledge in this respect.  The authors also observe that perhaps more than one course is needed to be able to cover the fundamentals in accounting systems as well as provide numerous experiences with relevant software.  Additional interviews and discussions with experts in the accounting systems area on an ongoing basis are very much needed to do justice to this important matter

Estimating Task Duration in PERT using the Weibull Probability Distribution

The Weibull probability distribution can be used as an alternative model for task time estimates in the PERT estimating methodology. It has the same advantages as the traditional beta distribution for this application. It has additional benefits, however, that make it a preferred option