A Senior Level AIS Course Based On The AICPAs Top-Ten Technology Issues

In response to requests from accounting firms and companies that hire graduates of the Culverhouse School of Accountancy (CSA) at the University of Alabama (UA), the CSA was awarded a permanent increase in funding to enhance its Accounting Information Systems (AIS) course offerings. As a result of this, two new faculty were hired to teach AIS courses and a Collaborative Learning Lab (CLL) was constructed in the College of Commerce and Business Administration (CBA) computer center. Prior to this change, the AIS curriculum consisted of one undergraduate course and one graduate course in AIS. Two new courses were added to the curriculum, one each at the graduate and undergraduate levels. This past year I was responsible for the senior level AIS course, Accounting 489 (AC 489). Since there was no pre-specified list of topics to be covered in this course, I decided to use the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) top-ten technology issues list as a basis for the content of the course. This paper briefly describes the AIS curriculum at UA and then discusses challenges faced when defining AC 489, the structure of AC 489, and an evaluation of the course based on my experiences this past year.