Gary Saunders

Electronic courses: old wine in new bottles?

Offerings of electronic courses and degrees are growing at a surprising rate. Some have surmised that E courses represent the future for higher education and that the traditional university may soon be a relic of the past: do E courses represent a significant improvement over traditional pedagogy for educating students? In this context, 305 questionnaires were sent by e‐mail to accounting chairpersons in the USA. A total of 94 usable responses was received. Nearly 65 per cent of the respondents indicated that E courses are simply correspondence courses presented with new technology. Those who view E courses as correspondence courses are more negative on offering E courses in university programs or offering degrees through the completion of only E courses. They are also more restrictive with E courses, favoring the proctoring of exams and requiring students to come to campus as part of the E course. Additionally, they tended to agree that “the student‐to‐student and the student‐to‐instructor interaction that are missing in E courses makes them less valuable to the student.” Instead of viewing E courses and E degrees as the “university of the future”, they see them as adjuncts to university programs just as correspondence courses have been for decades.

Using program flowcharts in the development of macros for spreadsheet applications

Abstract Accounting and business curricula are being changed to provide increased emphasis on information systems concepts. Much of that change involves the use of microcomputer spreadsheet packages. For decades, program flowcharts have been used in developing programs in languages such as COBOL, FORTRAN, and BASIC, but little evidence is available to indicate that program flowcharts are being used in developing complex spreadsheet macros. Students in accounting information systems classes were required to prepare program flowcharts prior to developing a spreadsheet that required complex macros. Student feedback indicated that they would prepare program flowcharts in the future when they develop complex spreadsheet macros.