A Method of Teaching the Underlying Theory of XBRL: An Application of Information Modeling and XML Programming with a Microsoft Excel Implementation

In this paper, we describe a computer lab exercise that will help students understand the underlying theory of XBRL. The lab requires students to build the taxonomy of accounts from a trial balance, create a well structured XML compliant document, load the XML document into Microsoft Excel, and produce a set of financial statements. The exercise follows the system development life cycle, is user friendly, and is very easy to understand. Bloom’s taxonomy of thinking skills was used to structure the learning objectives. At two hours in length, the exercise has been used in an AIS class and was received very well by the students. By the end of the lab, students should understand the concept of information modeling, markup technologies, and how they can be applied to accounting.