Advanced Financial Information Systems

Code 2156 (7.5 ECTS credits), Autumn 2004

Aim and structure

This course is intended to provide a thorough understanding of how financial information systems are implemented and utilized in companies. Particular emphasis is placed on learning not only what functions the systems provide, but also understanding their technological structure and the linkages with business strategy. A significant amount of hands-on use and development of a prototype system forms part of the learning experience.

The course is built around lectures, short class cases, a prototyping project, a company case, and literature. Please see below for descriptions of the different elements of the course. For a brief overview of the general philosophy of this course - what we teach and how and why - kindly see the "About the program" part of the letter that went out to students accepted to the Program in Advanced Financial Information Systems in the summer.

Structurally, the course contains two parts. The first one, comprising lectures 01-08, class cases 1-2, and the literature specified under "Part I" below, serves as an introduction to the field of financial information systems, and to the basic tools we will be using. There's nothing particularly advanced about this part, but because of the very different background and experience of the students attending this course, we must begin with an introduction or refresher. The second part, comprising lectures 09-28, class cases 3-10, and the readings listed under "Part II" below, deals with the functions and technology of advanced financial information systems in more depth.

The course 2157 Strategic Financial Information Systems, which is given in the spring, continues directly from this course and deals with more advanced topics, data warehousing and data mining, and XML-based systems.

Prerequisites

In order to attend this course, you either have to be a student in the Program in Advanced Financial Information Systems, or be accepted individually as a participant by the examiner. Reasonably senior accounting, information systems, and PIB exchange students will generally be accepted as long as there is space available, but do please contact the examiner first.

Lectures

There are 14 pairs of 90-minute lectures scheduled, almost always in classroom 304 (in the main building, one floor above the study office) on Monday afternoons. The aim of these is to, as far as possible, tell you stuff that you need to know that isn't in the textbooks.

Attendance is technically voluntary, but do bear in mind that the exams will draw on both the literature and the lectures, and that, really, as far as possible the lectures aim to complement and extend, not overlap, the material in the books. In practice, attending the lectures is an efficient use of your time, both with regard to learning and with regard to passing the course.

Guest lectures may be added - watch your mail!

Class cases

In order to tie the lectures together, and make them concrete, they will, starting with the second pair, include a small case-like assignment from week to week. These cases will vary in form, content, length, everything, but they will always be introduced at the end of a weekly lecture, and discussed at the beginning of next week's lectures. Usually they will consist of a research paper or professional article to read and think about. Occasionally they might be a set of web pages to explore. But, they might be HBS-type actual cases; they might very occasionally be end-of-chapter-type exercises; they might be anything, really. Anyway you'll get pointers to them, and the instructions, at the end of a lecture on the subject; you will then have a week to reflect on the material, and then we'll get back to the material before going on with the next lecture topic.

There is going to be 10 of these class cases. To encourage people to actually read and think about the cases - which facilitates the discussions quite amazingly - and because it turns out that it is quite difficult to get really high composite grades in a course with many separately graded parts, there will be an opportunity to collect bonus points by submitting written analyses of the cases. There will be ten cases, and consequently it is possible to collect up to ten bonus points. The mechanics are simple. If you wish to be eligible for up to one (1) bonus point for a case, you need to publish your submission as a web page on the pafis server, and e-mail a link to your submission to afiscases@pafis.shh.fi before 09:00 on the morning of the Monday when the case will be discussed in class. The contents of your submission will have to be determined by the case in question, but in terms of size and effort a submission roughly equivalent to 1-2 written pages will always be enough. The written case analyses are done individually, that is, in groups of one (1).

The prototyping project

A major part of the learning process in this course consists of the hands-on experience of exploring, designing and building a representative module of an advanced financial information systems. This is organized and supported through a series of computer workshops. The three first ones introduce the tools you will need, and the fourth one introduces the actual module prototype to build.

The objective of the first workshop is simply to get you all set up and familiar with the computer system we'll be using throughout the course and program. The deliverable is a - your - initial home page on the PAFIS web server, which you will be using, among other things, to submit most of your cases and projects. The second workshop introduces the PHP programming language, a relatively easy-to-learn tool for writing server-side web code. The deliverable is a small exercise demonstrating the functionality that you will need. The third workshop shows how to use a relational database as part of your module, and the deliverable is again an example of how this works. These deliverables are not graded, as such, but serve as learning milestones or project checkpoints. You should submit them, i.e. link to them from your home pages, before the following workshop. Except, for obvious reasons, for the first one, these submissions can and should be made in and by groups of two persons.

The fourth workshop then introduces the actual prototyping project, which you have until the end of the term to prepare and submit. The deadline is Monday, December 20th, 2004. This submission is the one that is actually graded, and you need to get 15 points out of 30 possible in order to pass the course. It should be done in groups of two persons.

Attendance in class is nominally voluntary. This means we do not keep track, but you will find it difficult bordering on impossible to complete the deliverables unless you show up when we explain how to do it, and assist you with getting started.

Programming lectures

Complementing the regular Monday afternoon lectures and the workshops, there will be a series of 7 lectures and demonstrations, on Wednesday afternoons, almost every week during the term when there isn't a workshop, part exam, or anything else. These lectures focus on the purely practical programming aspects of constructing web pages, server and client side scripts, and databases. As little theory as possible will be introduced. Attendance is totally voluntary, and the exams will not require you to know the stuff that is dealt with in these lectures. However, based on the experience of the previous three courses, they should be of moderate to great help in enabling you to cope with the workshops in a more efficient manner. Also, programming can be quite entertaining - every year we have a few persons discovering that they actually like to program computers! Consequently, we do go a little beyond what is required or immediately useful for the workshops. We will, for instance, introduce the more powerful IBM DB2 database system. The programming lectures will be followed by workshop support sessions, when you can get assistance with your code in the computer labs.

Please note that these lectures are targeted squarely at students who do not have a background as computer programmers.

Company case

Aside from lectures, books, and workshops, we consider that it would be useful for you - to put it mildly - to visit a real-world company and have a look at how their financial information system hangs together. This is best done in reasonably small groups of 3-4 people, and of course the idea is that the groups will share and compare their findings from the different companies. Consequently, each group will write a report - submitted, naturally, as a web page - and give a short presentation of their company case. More information and detailed instructions will be given when the company case project is introduced in lecture 06.

Literature

The literature is divided into two parts:

Part I:

• Jones & Rama: Accounting Information Systems - A Business Process Approach (South-Western, 2003)

  • Publisher's pages
  • Book site
  • Hanken library record

  Please read this book except for chapter 3 (pp. 67-122), chapter 4 (pp. 123-182), chapter 5 part 3 (pp. 205-220), and part IV (pp. 595-). This leaves about 465 pages, gross, out of which end-of-chapter exercises, which you do not need to read, account for about 30%. This leaves a net of about 325 pages to read.

• Olson: Managerial Issues of Enterprise Resource Planning Systems (McGraw-Hill, 2004)

  • Publisher's pages
  • Hanken library record

  Please read it all, except for the questions - it comes to about 160 pages, net.

Part II:

• Readings package & assigned material.

Schedule

• Mo 13.12.2004 Exam part I and/or II

• Sa 29.01.2005 Exam part I and/or II

• Sa 19.02.2005 Exam part I and/or II

Please note that the schedule is subject to changes and extensions.

The three examinations after the lectures have passed are standard exam dates, supervised by the study office for a lot of courses on the same day. You need to register in advance for these, using the school's web-based system. The examination on October 20th is arranged internally for this particular course, and you do not need to register for this one. Just show up.

Examination and grading

The course will be graded based on written examinations and project work.

The literature and contents of the lectures will be examined in two parts. The examination for the first part, comprising the literature specified under "Part I" above, and the contents of lectures 1-8 and class cases 1 and 2, will be worth 28 points. You need to get at least 14 points in order to pass. There will be an opportunity to take the examination for this part on October 20th, and then three exam opportunities after the lecture period when you can take either or both of the two parts.

The examination for the second part, comprising the readings specified under "Part II" above, and the contents of lectures 9-28 and the class cases 3-10, will be worth 28 points. You need to get at least 14 points in order to pass. The examination for this part can be taken at any of the three exam opportunities after the lecture period, when you can take either or both of the two parts.

The protyping project will be graded with a maximum of 30 points, and you will need to obtain at least 15 in order to pass. This project will be done in groups of 2 persons.

The company case project is also required, and will be worth 14 points. You need 7 points in order to pass. The project will be done, presented, and submitted, in groups of 3-4 people.

In order to pass the course, you consequently need to:

• pass the exam for part I with at least 14 points out of 28,

• pass the exam for part II with at least 14 points out of 28,

• submit the prototyping project deliverables, and collect at least 15 points out of 30, and

• present and submit the company case project and collect at least 7 points out of 14.

In addition, the bonus points from the company cases will be credited to you when calculating the final grade. Your grade, on a scale of 1 (satisfactory) to 5 (excellent), will be based on your total points (between 50 and 100) on the standard linear scale.

Results

Exams

Prototype

Company Case

Class Cases

Ethics

We - the school,the faculty,and your fellow students - expect and require that you make a good-faith effort to do the required work in this course without cheating. Briefly: It is not considered okay to copy-paste from anywhere into work that you submit as your own,except under the very strict code governing the use of scientific citations and quotations. It is certainly not okay to use other people's code as such in the workshop submissions,with or without asking their permission. But on the other hand it is quite okay to discuss,compare,collaborate in testing and debugging - the computer workshops are not a competitive sport! We will discuss this issue in the first lectures,and there will be more detailed guidelines and instructions in the workshop assignments. If,despite this,you feel that something is unclear regarding what goes and what doesn't,please ask the faculty directly.

Staying in touch

The web pages of the students attending the course are, of course, on the PAFIS web server. There is also an email list, afis04@pafis.shh.fi , which forwards mail to all the students attending this particular course, and of course to the faculty. Please feel free to use this one to communicate with fellow students regarding matters specific to this course. However, please also think twice before using it. Make sure that what you are mailing is both related to this course, and relevant to all participants. Questions regarding the exams, lectures, exercises and so on are perfectly all right; so are, for instance, tip-offs about useful and relevant web pages you've found. It should be obvious that off-topic stuff like advertisments, forwarded jokes, politics, or anything resembling spam is not okay at all. Abuse will be dealt with in a brutal and efficient manner.

Because this email list is also used to communicate possible changes in the schedule and other possibly urgent or important (or both) stuff, and because it works by sending mail to your @pafis.shh.fi email address, please make sure that you either read your mail on the pafis.shh.fi server regularly, or have it set up to forward your mail to a mailbox that you do read regularly. If you forward, please test that it works!

If you have something to communicate which you would prefer to say anonymously - criticism, feedback, suggestions, whatever - then the easiest way to do so is to use one of the feedback forms that will be available at every lecture. Do please make a habit of letting us know how things are coming across! Unless we get that information we cannot really even begin to think about improving or fixing things.

All changes, instructions, updates, announcements and so on will of course be posted on the course pages on the PAFIS web site. Please note that this particular page - the main course page on the web - and in particular the schedule section is where you will find the links to lectures, readings, workshop assignments, exam results and everything related to this course. And please do not assume that a web page, once you've read it, is by this action on your part carved into stone and frozen forever. This page, for instance, will live and change throughout the course, and so will most of the other ones.

Good luck with the course!