Introducing XBRL Using an Instance Document Shell

XBRL is a very technical language and teaching the basics in an AIS course is made more difficult by the overhead of XML. Many AIS educators do not want to devote a large portion of a semester to XBRL and/or do not want to get into the technology in depth. XBRL can be taught from a less technical perspective by using the XBRL shell presented in this paper. This paper presents an XBRL shell, a case situation, and a number of "activities" for students to do to create an XBRL instance document. Each activity is preceded by explanations and examples of why and what is being done. The activities represent major steps necessary for the creation of XBRL instance documents can be completed in a computer lab or with paper and pencil. The paper is written from an AIS instructor's perspective and is designed to provide him or her with a relatively simple, straight-forward way to teach about XBRL instance documents.