Syllabus for MBP-007

PRINCIPLES OF FINANCIAL ACCOUNTING


COURSE DESCRIPTION

Principles of Financial Accounting is designed to help you learn to analyze and record business transactions; summarize these transactions; and prepare, interpret, and use financial statements. The course begins with the analysis of accounting statements, transactional analysis, and journal entries and finishes with the adjustment, closing, and evaluation of financial statements.

COURSE TOPICS

COURSE OBJECTIVES

After completing this course, you should be able to:

  1. Explain the purpose and functions of accounting.
  2. Identify the nature and importance of financial statements.
  3. Analyze business transactions, explaining their effect on the financial statements.
  4. Explain the accounting for revenues, expenses, assets, liabilities, and stockholder's equity.
  5. Discuss the steps in the accounting cycle.
  6. Prepare, interpret, and use basic financial statements: the income statement, the balance sheet, the statement of cash flows, and the statement of owner's equity.

COURSE MATERIALS

You will need the following materials to do the work of the course. The required textbook is available as a custom text from the University’s textbook supplier, MBS Direct. 

Required Textbook

Note: The following ISBN is for the custom book edition containing only Chapters 2–5.
        
ISBN-13: 978-1-307-05741-6

TECHNOLOGY REQUIREMENTS

COURSE STRUCTURE

Principles of Financial Accounting consists of four modules. Modules include an overview, topics, learning objectives, study materials, and activities. Module titles are listed below.

ASSESSMENT METHODS

For your formal work in the course, you are required to participate in online discussion forums, complete written assignments, and partake in review conference calls. See below for details.

Consult the Course Calendar for due dates.

Discussion Forums

Discussion Forums are for individual learning, peer-to-peer instruction, and interaction with the course facilitator. You are encouraged to participate in online discussion a minimum of every other day. Using an alternating day engagement schedule enables you to monitor the evolution of topic discussions, ask clarifying questions, and contribute to content exploration. In addition, this approach provides time to reflect on your learning progress; review course materials, work and rework assignments, and check and confirm your understanding of course content and application. Also, it establishes a pace for class interaction.

You are expected to participate actively in online discussion forums. Your contributions enable and enhance individual and group learning. As an intensive course, its content must be learned and applied in specific periods of time. Therefore, it is recommended that you make an initial post to the discussion room no later than Wednesday of each week. The rationale for posting by midweek is that if you have questions, your peers and course facilitator can address them early in the week, promote understanding, and enable continuous learning. Moreover, posting by Wednesdays challenges you to complete the weekly readings, formulate questions, and respond to discussion questions. This practice helps to prevent waiting until the end of the week to engage course content and discussion, which can result in falling behind in the work and in turn feeling overwhelmed.

Remember: Don’t suffer in silence! The course design, discussion forum engagement, and access to course facilitator are focused on creating a community-of-learners exploring, learning, and mastering course materials together. Through individual study, peer engagement, and facilitator guidance, you can advance through the preparatory courses and matriculate in the MBA degree program.

You are encouraged to post an initial response and at least one comment on other posts per week and per discussion question.

Types of Posts

Substantive Posts—Substantive posts are your response to the initial discussion questions posed by the course facilitator in each discussion forum. The substantive post evidences your understanding of the theories, models, and applications of course topics under discussion. Typically, substantive posts are information rich and data-driven citing and/or incorporating content from course learning materials, as well as external sources including work experiences, professional journals, or newspapers. The substantive post acts as a topic foundation on which to build content insight toward application mastery.

Contributory Posts—Contributory post are comments to one or more peer learners. These posts extend or expand the responses of others. They define, clarify, and broaden everyone’s understanding of work. Contributory posts build, challenge, and explore other’s perspectives and applications of course materials. Like substantive posts, contributory posts are information rich and data driven. They are insightful responses contributing to everyone’s understanding of and experience with the topics being discussed. However, these posts are not simple, non reference-supported response statements such as “Yes, I agree with you!” Instead, they are opportunities to explore topics through course materials and deepen your understanding and application of a topic in a supportive peer learning environment.

A discussion forum rubric can be found under Evaluation Rubrics in your course space.

Written Assignments

You are required to complete written assignments consisting of content exercises and problems from the the course textbook.

Facilitator-Led Topic Review Session

In addition to weekly course discussions, the course facilitator provides a bi-weekly, 30-minute Topic Review Session. This interactive session reviews content, assignments, exercises, problems, and solutions. In addition, discussion questions and content questions are addressed. Coaching sessions will use SKYPE and/or conference calls.

 

GRADING AND EVALUATION

Your grade in the course will be determined as follows:

The course is a noncredit course. The course grade is Credit (CR) / No Credit (NC). A weighted average of  60% or above on all course activities is necessary to pass the course and advance to the next preparatory course and into the MBA degree program.

STRATEGIES FOR SUCCESS

First Steps to Success

To succeed in this course, take the following first steps:

Study Tips

Consider the following study tips for success:

ACADEMIC INTEGRITY

Thomas Edison State University is committed to maintaining academic quality, excellence, and honesty. The University expects all members of its community to share the commitment to academic integrity, an essential component of a quality academic experience.

Students at Thomas Edison State University are expected to exhibit the highest level of academic citizenship. In particular, students are expected to read and follow all policies, procedures, and program information guidelines contained in publications; pursue their learning goals with honesty and integrity; demonstrate that they are progressing satisfactorily and in a timely fashion by meeting course deadlines and following outlined procedures; observe a code of mutual respect in dealing with mentors, staff, and other students; behave in a manner consistent with the standards and codes of the profession in which they are practicing; keep official records updated regarding changes in name, address, telephone number, or e-mail address; and meet financial obligations in a timely manner. Students not practicing good academic citizenship may be subject to disciplinary action including suspension, dismissal, or financial holds on records.

All members of the University community are responsible for reviewing the Academic Code of Conduct Policy in the University Catalog and online at www.tesu.edu.

Academic Dishonesty

Thomas Edison State University expects all of its students to approach their education with academic integrity—the pursuit of scholarly activity free from fraud and deception. All mentors and administrative staff members at the University insist on strict standards of academic honesty in all courses. Academic dishonesty undermines this objective. Academic dishonesty can take the following forms:

Plagiarism

Thomas Edison State University is committed to helping students understand the seriousness of plagiarism, which is defined as using the work and ideas of others without proper citation. The University takes a strong stance against plagiarism, and students found to be plagiarizing are subject to discipline under the academic code of conduct policy.

If you copy phrases, sentences, paragraphs, or whole documents word-for-word—or if you paraphrase by changing a word here and there—without identifying the author, or without identifying it as a direct quote, then you are plagiarizing. Please keep in mind that this type of identification applies to Internet sources as well as to print-based sources. Copying and pasting from the Internet, without using quotation marks and without acknowledging sources, constitutes plagiarism. (For information about how to cite Internet sources, see Online Student Handbook > Academic Standards > “Citing Sources.”)

Accidentally copying the words and ideas of another writer does not excuse the charge of plagiarism. It is easy to jot down notes and ideas from many sources and then write your own paper without knowing which words are your own and which are someone else’s. It is more difficult to keep track of each and every source. However, the conscientious writer who wishes to avoid plagiarizing never fails to keep careful track of sources.

Always be aware that if you write without acknowledging the sources of your ideas, you run the risk of being charged with plagiarism.

Clearly, plagiarism, no matter the degree of intent to deceive, defeats the purpose of education. If you plagiarize deliberately, you are not educating yourself, and you are wasting your time on courses meant to improve your skills. If you plagiarize through carelessness, you are deceiving yourself.

For examples of unintentional plagiarism, advice on when to quote and when to paraphrase, and information about writing assistance and originality report checking, click the links provided below.

Examples of Unintentional Plagiarism

When to Quote and When to Paraphrase

Writing Assistance at Smarthinking

Originality Report Checking at Turnitin

Disciplinary Process for Plagiarism

Acts of both intentional and unintentional plagiarism violate the Academic Code of Conduct.

If an incident of plagiarism is an isolated minor oversight or an obvious result of ignorance of proper citation requirements, the mentor may handle the matter as a learning exercise. Appropriate consequences may include the completion of tutorials, assignment rewrites, or any other reasonable learning tool in addition to a lower grade for the assignment or course. The mentor will notify the student and appropriate dean of the consequence by e-mail.

If the plagiarism appears intentional and/or is more than an isolated incident, the mentor will refer the matter to the appropriate dean, who will gather information about the violation(s) from the mentor and student, as necessary. The dean will review the matter and notify the student in writing of the specifics of the charge and the sanction to be imposed.

Possible sanctions include:

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