Central Michigan University College of Business Administration Online MBA Program. MBA 620 Online: Managerial Accounting: A Management Perspective

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1 Central Michigan University College of Business Administration Online MBA Program MBA 620 Online: Managerial Accounting: A Management Perspective Instructor Contact Information Amy Swaney, PhD Physical Office: 325 Grawn Hall, School of Accounting Office Phone: (989) Cell Phone: (734) a.m p.m. only swane1a@cmich.edu (preferred contact method) Virtual Office Hours: Held on Blackboard Collaborate, Time TBA Required Textbook Hartgraves, A. L. and Wayne J. Morse, Managerial Accounting (7 th edition), Cambridge Business Publishers, (ISBN: ). Course Objectives All organizations must plan for future operations, monitor their current operations, and evaluate their past performance. MBA 620 is designed to investigate the role accounting and accounting systems play in planning, monitoring, and evaluating business operations. Upon completion of this course the student should: (1) understand how to use accounting information in the planning, monitoring, and evaluation of business operations and (2) understand the models and information requirements of common types of managerial decisions. MBA 620 will also provide instruction in how to present the results of quantitative managerial analyses in an effective manner. Finally, the course will investigate the ethical issues facing managerial accountants in their accounting and reporting practices. Course Policies and Procedures Communication is key: The communication channel is always open. It is very important that we keep connected and interact with one another. If you have questions, please feel free to use , the discussion boards, or our Collaborate chat sessions. Learning takes place in a community. To be a successful online student takes effort! You have to be self-motivated and self-disciplined to keep yourself on schedule with reading, assignments, projects, etc. You do have to allocate time from your busy schedule to work on the course so you won't fall behind. To enhance and facilitate learning, the following expectations are laid out for this course: Expectations for the student: 1) Students are expected to check their CMU and read Blackboard Announcements daily 2) Students are expected to submit their assignments online through Blackboard 1

2 3) Students are expected to submit homework, cases, exams and other course materials by their due date 4) Students are expected to follow online communication etiquette (netiquette) 5) Students are expected to work with their team members to complete team projects 6) Students are expected to engage in thoughtful participation in discussion board activities Expectations for the instructor: 1) The instructor will hold weekly virtual office hours and weekly chat sessions via Blackboard Collaborate 2) The instructor will check daily and respond to course-related questions within 24 hours during weekdays 3) The instructor will post weekly assignment reminders and follow-up reminders if needed 4) The instructor will provide feedback on submitted assignments within one week of the assignment s due date Working ahead: I understand that you have other responsibilities that may vary through the semester, so I want to encourage you to work ahead when necessary. However, class discussion becomes more difficult if all students are working on different assignments. To maintain balance, I will post all assignments and discussion questions in your Weekly Assignments folder two weeks prior to their due date. Netiquette: I expect you to be courteous in all messages, threaded discussions, and chats. Respect each other in discussion board and chat sessions. To protect the learning experience of everyone in the class, I reserve the right to drop from the class anyone who uses profanity or abusive language. Some general guidelines are listed. Avoid using ALL CAPS. This is considered SHOUTING when you are online Respect your peers and don t post anything that you wouldn t say in person Proofread your message before you post Take care with sarcasm and humor, it is easy for the reader to misinterpret your message Do not respond to personal attacks. Instead, contact the instructor for action All messages sent for this class will go to your cmich.edu account. Visit and click on Sign-in to access your cmich account, including . It is possible to have forwarded from your cmich account to another account that you use more frequently. Consult the provider of your normal account about how to do this. (It is easy to do in yahoo mail and gmail.) Responding to I will check daily. On weekdays, I will respond to course-related questions within 24 hours. If I believe that the questions are of broad interest, I will post the question and answer on the Announcements page. Announcements: These will be posted in the Announcements section, and they will be sent out to you automatically by . I will post in Announcements all reminders, updates, and test score distributions. I will also post questions that are pertinent to us all and their answers. 2

3 Required Discussion Board activity: There is a weekly discussion question posted under the Discussion Board link. In total, there are 6 discussion questions, one for each week that we do not have an exam. There will not be formal discussion board activity during exam weeks. Your participation is included as part of your course grade, 5 points for each of the 6 weeks for a total of 30 points. Everyone in our class sees the discussion postings so please respect each other and take this opportunity to learn from your classmates. To earn all 5 points, you are expected to respond to the Discussion Board Question and provide one thoughtful reply to a classmate s response to the Discussion Board Question. I will evaluate the discussion postings with the rubric in the Introduction folder on our Blackboard site. After students have posted a number of responses and we have commented on them, I will post a new question for the week. Watch for the posting of the new question within the Discussion Board. I find that if I don t change or update the question, students find it difficult to draft responses without being repetitive. The overall aim is to keep the discussion interesting. Live chat option: We will schedule optional chat sessions. Please respond to "When will be a good time for you?" in the Discussion Board. With the time options you provide, I will have the chat session scheduled and posted by the end of Week 1. Providing the technology cooperates, we will hold these chat sessions using Collaborate. (Please go through the set- up instructions for Collaborate provided in the Communications folder of our Blackboard (Bb) site.) If your time permits, take this opportunity to interact with your classmates and to get your questions answered in real-time. Of course, you can always ask me questions via (or via phone when arranged ahead of time). Assessment of Homework Problem Assignments: Each week s class has problems to be turned in at the end of the week. One of the learning objectives of this course is to have students know how to prepare financial analyses in an effective manner. To begin to learn effective presentation techniques, submit your homework and case submissions in a way that s easy to understand. What constitutes easy to understand? Here are some initial lessons/expectations: Give a short title to your analysis Label each item in a financial calculation For an equation, first write it out in words, e.g., revenue = units sold x sales price Don t cram it in, i.e., use blank lines and tabs to space things out Highlight the answers (and the label for the answers) in a bold font or underlined (or both!) Use a readable font. This will sometimes take some effort when you re using MS Excel At times, I will post high quality submissions (after asking permission) to give all students an idea of what I am looking for. I will also include comments on these posted submissions. When I grade the homework submissions, I look for an honest effort to do all the problems. I do not look for the right answers. While right answers are nice to have, it is most important to try to do the homework problem and then consult the solutions that will become available after the homework is submitted. Like learning any new task, there is a lot to be gained from making mistakes and then figuring out how to do it right. There is also a lot to be learned from helping each other. With that thought in mind, I have created a discussion board that students can use to post questions about the homework. I encourage students to answer the questions posted. I will monitor the board and will participate if no one has answered a particular question or if I think some guidance would be helpful. 3

4 Assignment file formats: Submission of assignments in MS Word or Excel is fine. I often print them out when I review them, so please use a 12-point font and look at the page layout view to assure that any written responses do not break across pages. Team assignments (cases): There will be 3 team assignments. These assignments are based on the analysis and discussion of a short case study related to the learning goals for the week. Each team will discuss the case assigned for the week and prepare a 2-4 page Word document, using Times New Roman 12 pt. font, double spacing and 1-inch margins. A cover page and, if applicable, a bibliography page may be added, but they will not count toward the number of required pages. The paper needs to address all the questions required by the assigned case. Support your answers with graphs and tables, where appropriate. Each team will have 2 or 3 members. In the interest of time, the composition of the teams will be predetermined and posted on Blackboard before the beginning of the course. Each team will have a set of collaboration tools (file exchange, group discussion board, etc.) made available through Blackboard to facilitate teamwork and information sharing. Each team will submit one copy of each case paper via the submission link made available on Blackboard. The grading rubric for the team cases is posted in the Introduction folder on Blackboard. Each team member will be assigned the same grade. However, at the end of the course each team member will be asked to evaluate his or her peers. The results of these evaluations will contribute to determining the final grade distribution for the class. There will be no case assignments during weeks 5 and 8. These are the two exam weeks. Turning assignments in: There are six weeks of homework and two weeks for exams in MBA 620. Each homework week includes assignments for you to complete. All assignments should be turned in via the Assignment hyperlink in the respective weekly folders. Due dates of each assignment are posted on the syllabus. Deadlines: Odd things happen in cyberspace: submissions get lost, servers disconnect temporarily, and logins fail. Do not wait until the last minute to do your work. Allow time to meet deadlines. You are responsible for getting the work submitted on time. All assignments are due by 11:00 pm EST on the Sunday following the week s assignment. For example, if week 1 on the syllabus is for the workweek starting Monday, January 1, the assignment for week 1 is due on Sunday, January 7 by 11:00 pm, EST. The assignment for week 2, therefore, would be due by 11:00 pm EST on Sunday, January 14. Late work: The best way to learn accounting is by doing problems and doing lots of them. I stress keeping up with the work. In the long run, this makes learning accounting easier. To provide an incentive to stay up with the work, late homework will receive a 25% deduction from the credit available for the assignment. Not a huge penalty, perhaps, but enough to provide encouragement. Feedback on exam and assignment submissions: While I do not make comments on all submissions, please check for feedback on the graded assignments in your grade book by clicking the hyperlinked score. If you have any difficulty finding comments, please read instructions under the Tutorial link. I will grade assignments and provide feedback within one week of their submission. 4

5 Check your grades: I will post your grades on discussion posts, assignments, and exams as soon as I can. If you find any errors or missing scores in your grade book, please feel free to me. I will correct any mistakes. Exams: There will be two exams. Each exam will consist of two parts. Part 1 will be multiple choice questions. A case or problem will constitute Part 2, and is given as a take home problem. This means the problem will be posted during the week of the exam, solved on your own time, and submitted before the deadline (usually 4-5 days after posting). This is an individual assignment and, as such, each student is required to submit his or her own work. Both parts cover concepts and skills learned from the textbook and the assignments. There are no proctored examinations for this class. Part 1 of the exams (the multiple choice part) will only be open for 90 minutes, i.e., you will have 90 minutes to complete the exam once you start. Take the exam only at a time when you won t experience any interruptions. Course Grading: The graded course elements are: Mid-term Exam Final Exam Homework Submissions (6) Discussion Board Postings (6) Assigned Cases (3) Oil Change Case Extension Peer Evaluation Total Available 100 points 100 points 30 points 30 points 30 points 4 points 6 points 300 points Grade Determination: I will assign the same grade to students with point totals that are close to one another, i.e., I look for gaps in the distribution of point totals and will adjust the respective thresholds accordingly. I will publish (without names, of course) the cumulative score distribution after the midterm exam and after the final exam in the Announcements section on Blackboard. Students with Special Needs CMU provides students with disabilities reasonable accommodation to participate in educational programs, activities or services. Students with disabilities requiring accommodations to participate in class activities or meet course requirements should first register with the office of Student Disability Services (120 Park Library; , sds@cmich.edu) and then contact the instructor as soon as possible. Academic Honesty Statement Written or other work which a student submits in a course shall be the product of his or her own efforts. Plagiarism, cheating, and all other forms of academic dishonesty are prohibited. Copies of the Policy on Academic Integrity may be accessed at (I encourage students to work together to solve homework problems and the take home portion of the mid-term and final exams. I do ask, however, that everyone write up their own solutions. No common sentences, paragraphs, or analyses allowed!) 5

6 Penalty for academic integrity violations: University-recommended sanctions for academic integrity violations will be imposed. All academic integrity violations will be reported to the Office of Student Conduct. Cheating or plagiarism will result in receiving less than full credit, or no credit, for the assignment and/or examination and could also result in failure in the course. Technical Assistance Situations may arise when you need technical assistance. You can reach the CMU Help Desk by: Telephone: (989) Chat: Physical Location: Park Library Room 101 Other Materials: Syllabus Changes I reserve the right to modify the syllabus, if needed. Students will be notified of any syllabus changes through Announcements in Blackboard and . 6

7 Week Assignment Schedule (Seventh Edition of Text) Team Assignments Individual Assignments to be Completed by Sunday and Due Dates Listen to the Audio Lecture on Bb in Week 1 folder Read the Preface to the text Read Chapter 1: Managerial Accounting: Tools for Decision Making In Week 1 Folder: Read Chapter 2: Cost Behavior, Activity Analysis, and Cost Estimation Amy s Gingerbread Week 1 Read one article found in the Week 1 folder on Bb (student s choice) Houses, due at the end Respond to the Discussion Board Question of Week 2 Reply to a classmate s Discussion Board Question Response Submit Problems: C1-32, M2-12, M2-13, E2-20, P2-26 Listen to the Audio Lecture on Bb in Week 2 folder Due: Read Chapter 3: Cost-Volume-Profit (CVP) Analysis and Planning Amy s Gingerbread Read Appendix 3A to Chapter 3 Houses Case (Sunday) Week 2 Read one article found in the Week 2 folder on Bb (student s choice) In Week 2 Folder: Respond to the Discussion Board Question MP Instant Oil Change Reply to a classmate s Discussion Board Question Response Case, due at the end of Submit Problems: E3-17, P3-29, P3-32, P3-34, C3-39 Week 3 Listen to the Audio Lecture on Bb in Week 3 folder Read Chapter 5: Product Costing: Job and Process Operations (pp only) Read Chapter 6: Activity-Based Costing, Customer Profitability, and Due: Week 3 Activity-Based Management MP Instant Oil Change Read one article found in the Week 3 folder on Bb (student s choice) Case (Sunday) Respond to the Discussion Board Question Reply to a classmate s Discussion Board Question Response Submit Problems: M5-14, E5-25, E6-25, P6-30 Listen to the Audio Lecture on Bb in Week 4 folder Read Chapter 7: Additional Topics in Product Costing (pp only) Read Chapter 10: Standard Costs and Performance Reports Read Appendix A to Chapter 10. Week 4 No Team Cases Due Read one article found in the Week 4 folder on Bb (student s choice) Respond to the Discussion Board Question Reply to a classmate s Discussion Board Question Response Submit Problems: E7-25, E7-26, M10-23, E10-29, P10-31 Submit MP Oil Change Case Extension, available in the Week 4 folder Week 5 Mid-term Exam (Available on Bb) No Cases Due Listen to the Audio Lecture on Bb in Week 6 folder Read Chapter 4: Relevant Costs and Benefits for Decision Making Read one article found in the Week 6 folder on Bb (student s choice) Week 6 No Cases Due Respond to the Discussion Board Question Reply to a classmate s Discussion Board Question Response Submit Problems: M4-14, E4-24, E4-25, E4-26, P4-30, P4-31, P4-34 Listen to the Audio Lecture on Bb in Week 7 folder Read Chapter 11: Segment Reporting, Transfer Prices, and Balanced Due and in Week 7 Scorecard Folder: Week 7 Lorax Electric Case due Respond to the Discussion Board Question at the end of Week 7 Reply to a classmate s Discussion Board Question Response (Sunday) Submit Problems: P11-35, P11-36, P11-37, P11-38, P11-40 Week 8 Final Exam (Available on Bb) No Cases Due 7