Revisiting objective tests: A case study in integration at honours level

This paper examines the background to computer‐assisted assessment and shows how certain misconceptions or ‘myths’ have arisen around its use. It then discusses an actual implementation of computerized multiple‐choice question (MCQ) tests, addressing both the main theoretical issues, and the practicalities of the design and administration process. It confirms that honours‐level learning can be appropriately assessed using summative computer‐based objective tests, not just in the eyes of the adopting academic, but also in the eyes of the students. Care should, however, be taken to adopt a flexible implementation that is responsive to unforeseen problems

You cannot judge a book by its cover: the problems with journal rankings

Journal rankings lists have impacted and are impacting accounting educators and accounting education researchers around the world. Nowhere is the impact positive. It ranges from slight constraints on academic freedom to admonition, censure, reduced research allowances, non-promotion, non-short-listing for jobs, increased teaching loads, and re- designation as a non-researcher, all because the chosen research specialism of someone who was vocationally motivated to become a teacher of accounting is, ironically, accounting education. University managers believe that these journal ranking lists show that accounting faculty publish top-quality research on accounting regulation, financial markets, business finance, auditing, international accounting, management accounting, taxation, accounting in society, and more, but not on what they do in their ‘day job’ – teaching accounting. These same managers also believe that the journal ranking lists indicate that accounting faculty do not publish top-quality research in accounting history and accounting systems. And they also believe that journal ranking lists show that accounting faculty write top-quality research in education, history, and systems, but only if they publish it in specialist journals that do not have the word ‘accounting’ in their title, or in mainstream journals that do. Tarring everyone with the same brush because of the journal in which they publish is inequitable. We would not allow it in other walks of life. It is time the discrimination ended

The Life and Works of Luca Pacioli (1446/7‒1517), Humanist Educator

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Accounting History Syllabus

The following is Prof. Dr. Alan Sangster’s syllabus for a course taught in Portuguese as a visiting professor at the University of Sao Paulo in 2012

Luca Pacioli and his art

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Printing of Pacioli\u27s Summa in 1494: How many copies were printed?

This paper considers the printing of Pacioli\u27s Summa de Arithmetica, Geometria, Proportioni et Proportionalita (Summa) in 1494. In particular, it attempts to answer the question, how many copies of Summa were printed in 1494? It does so through consideration of the printing process, the printer of Summa, the size of the book, survival rates of other serious books of the period, and the dates it contains revealing when parts of it were completed. It finds that more copies were published than was previously suggested, and that the survival rate of copies has probably as much to do with the manner in which it was treated once acquired as in the number of copies printed

Locating the source of Pacioli\u27s bookkeeping treatise

There is much we do not know about the early development of double entry bookkeeping. What, for example, caused it to be used by sufficient merchants for it to be formally taught to their sons in Northern Italy before anyone had apparently written anything about it? And, what did Pacioli use as the source for his 1494 treatise, the earliest known detailed written description of the method, something that has challenged researchers for at least the past 130 years? Discovering Pacioli\u27s sources could broaden our knowledge of the Renaissance roots of accounting and of its early role and place in business practice; may provide some insights into the reasons for the emergence of double entry bookkeeping; and may give us further insight into the early instruction of double entry bookkeeping. But, previous attempts to find his sources have failed. Making use of hitherto overlooked information, this paper identifies two periods for which knowledge of Pacioli\u27s whereabouts would indicate where to focus any search for his sources and suggests where to initiate the search

Evaluation of the Concept that Pumahuasi Veins Indicate a Potential for the Existence of Underlying Undiscovered Sedex Deposits, Northern Argentina

Fil: Sangster, Alan L. Servicio Geológico Minero Argentino. Instituto de Geología y Recursos Minerales; Argentina.Fil: Sangster, Donald F. Servicio Geológico Minero Argentino. Instituto de Geología y Recursos Minerales; Argentina.We have been asked by SEGEMAR to comment on the possibility that the Pumahuasi veins (Figure 1) may be mobilized Sedex mineralization and that their presence indicates an exploration potential for Sedex base metal deposits, similar to the Aguilar deposit, in the Pumahuasi area