Syllabus

DeVry University Online course content is constructed from curriculum guides developed for each course that are in alignment with specific Terminal Course Objectives. The Terminal Course Objectives (TCOs) define the learning objectives that the student will be required to comprehend and demonstrate by course completion. The TCOs that will be covered in detail each week can be found in the Objectives section for that particular week. Whenever possible, a reference will be made from a particular assignment or discussion back to the TCO that it emphasizes. A Given a set of financial statements, explain the theory, objectives and conceptual framework underlying financial statement reporting for governmental and private nonprofit organizations; and the authoritative organizations (FASB, GASB, FASAB) that set accounting standards and how these organizations develop Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) that guide practitioners and others in the preparation of annual reports and financial statements. B Given a governmental or nonprofit entity, compare governmental and nonprofit entities to for-profit entities, and analyze the principles of accounting and financial reporting that pertain to these entities. C Given a state or local government entity, explain the purpose of the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR) and analyze and explain its structure including the composition of its three basic sections, including the budgetary comparison schedules as required in the Required Supplemental Information (RSI). D Given a state or local governmental entity, construct and explain the elements of Governmental-Wide Financial Statements; explain the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) standards that govern the Governmental Group of Funds; and evaluate the accounting bases used to record transactions in these funds. E Given a state or local governmental entity, distinguish and explain elements of the Proprietary Group of Funds and how this group of funds differs from other funds; explain the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) standards that govern the Proprietary Group of Funds, and evaluate the accounting bases used to develop the Proprietary Funds Statements. F Given a state or local governmental entity, explain elements of the Fiduciary Group of Funds and distinguish how this group of funds differs from other funds; discuss the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) standards that govern the Fiduciary Group of Funds; and evaluate the accounting bases used to develop the Fiduciary Funds Statements. G Given a state or local government or private nonprofit organization, evaluate the financial position and results of operations of these entities using ratio analyses; explain the nature of GASB Statement 34 Reporting Rules for Special-Purpose Entities, as well as accounting protocols for public institutions of higher education. H Given a private nonprofit organization, illustrate the basic steps involved in the creation of a private nonprofit organization as well as the reporting requirements mandated by state and federal law; demonstrate the correct financial statement presentation for net assets in accordance with FASB 117, as well as the correct accounting for contributions received and contributions made in accordance with FASB 116.
Course Schedule	<!– // –> <!– writeFlash(‘/ec/Courses/13775/CRS-DVUO-2148869/The_Hub/00_supp_media/ebook_qstart_banner/ebook_qstart_banner_fixedsize.swf’, ’480′, ’60′) // –> Week, TCOs and Topics Readings Assignments Week 1 TCO A & B Accounting Standards <!– document.write(“”+ GenerateEBookLinkWithIcon( “57700″, “Chapter 1: Introduction to Accounting and Financial Reporting for Governmental and Not-For-Profit Organizations”)); // –>Chapter 1: Introduction to Accounting and Financial Reporting for Governmental and Not-For-Profit Organizations <!– document.write(“”+ GenerateEBookLinkWithIcon( “57701″, “Chapter 2: Overview of Financial Reporting for State and Local Governments”)); // –>Chapter 2: Overview of Financial Reporting for State and Local Governments Threaded discussions Homework: 1-2, 1-3, 1-4, 1-5, and 1-8; 2-2, 2-3, 2-4, 2-10 Weekly Quiz Week 2 TCO A & C The General Fund and Special Revenue Funds <!– document.write(“”+ GenerateEBookLinkWithIcon( “57702″, “Chapter 3: Budgetary Accounting for the General and Special Revenue Funds”)); // –>Chapter 3: Budgetary Accounting for the General and Special Revenue Funds <!– document.write(“”+ GenerateEBookLinkWithIcon( “57703″, “Chapter 4: Accounting for the General and Special Revenue Funds”)); // –>Chapter 4: Accounting for the General and Special Revenue Funds Threaded discussions Case Study – Week 2 Homework: 3-4, 3-5, 3-6; 4-3, 4-4, 4-7 Weekly Quiz Week 3 TCO D & E Other Governmental Funds and Proprietary Funds <!– document.write(“”+ GenerateEBookLinkWithIcon( “57687″, “Chapter 5: Accounting for Other Governmental Fund Types: Capital Projects, Debt Service, and Permanent”)); // –>Chapter 5: Accounting for Other Governmental Fund Types: Capital Projects, Debt Service, and Permanent <!– document.write(“”+ GenerateEBookLinkWithIcon( “57688″, “Chapter 6: Proprietary Funds”)); // –>Chapter 6: Proprietary Funds Threaded discussions Case Study – Week 3 Homework: 5-2, 5-3, 5-6; 6-2, 6-3, 6-4 parts b & c Weekly Quiz Week 4 TCO F Fiduciary (Trust) Funds <!– document.write(“”+ GenerateEBookLinkWithIcon( “57689″, “Chapter 7: Fiduciary (Trust) Funds, Interfund Transactions”)); // –>Chapter 7: Fiduciary (Trust) Funds, Interfund Transactions Threaded discussions Homework: 7-2, 7-4, 7-8, 7-14 Midterm Examination Week 5 TCO D Government-Wide Statements <!– document.write(“”+ GenerateEBookLinkWithIcon( “57690″, “Chapter 8: Government-wide Statements, Fixed Assets, Long-term Debt”)); // –>Chapter 8: Government-wide Statements, Fixed Assets, Long-term Debt Threaded discussions Homework: 8-4, 8-5, 8-6, 8-14 Weekly Quiz Week 6 TCO G & H Not-for-Profit Organizations <!– document.write(“”+ GenerateEBookLinkWithIcon( “57692″, “Chapter 10: Accounting for Private Not-for-Profit Organizations”)); // –>Chapter 10: Accounting for Private Not-for-Profit Organizations <!– document.write(“”+ GenerateEBookLinkWithIcon( “57695″, “Chapter 13: Auditing, Tax-Exempt Organizations, and Evaluating Performance”)); // –>Chapter 13: Auditing, Tax-Exempt Organizations, and Evaluating Performance Threaded discussions Homework: 10-2, 10-3, 10-6; 13-7, 13-11, 13-12, 13-15, 13-17 Weekly Quiz Week 7 TCO G Special-Purpose Entities <!– document.write(“”+ GenerateEBookLinkWithIcon( “57691″, “Chapter 9: Accounting for Special-Purpose Entities, Including Public Colleges and Universities”)); // –>Chapter 9: Accounting for Special-Purpose Entities, Including Public Colleges and Universities Threaded discussions Homework: 9-2, 9-5 Weekly Quiz Week 8* All TCOs All Topics Final Exam * Unless otherwise specified, access to most Weeks begins on Sunday at 12:01 am MT and that week’s assignments are due by the next Sunday at 11:59 pm MT. “Week 8″ opens at 12:01 am MT Saturday of the 7th week. Any assignments or exams must be completed by 11:59 pm Thursday of the 8th week.
Assignment Values and Letter Grades	The maximum score in this class is 1,000 points. The categories, which contribute to your final grade, are weighted as follows: Assignment Points Weighting Discussions (30 points per week, Weeks 1-7) 210 21% Homework (30 points per week, Weeks 1-7) 210 21% Quizzes (20 points per week, Weeks 1-3, 5-7) 120 12% Case Studies (40 points Week 2 and 40 points Week 3) 80 8% Midterm 140 14% Final Exam 240 24% Total Points 1000 100% Late Assignment Policy DeVry University Online is an intense learning environment. Thus, late work poses a serious threat to a student’s ability to keep up with the pace of this course. There are times, however, when students may fall behind due to unforeseen circumstances. As a rule, late work is unacceptable, but the instructor recognizes that sometimes emergencies prevent students from completing their work on time. In the event that the student cannot submit his/her work on time he/she should contact the instructor immediately. The instructor reserves the right to deduct points for the late submission. Cutoff time for  “on time” assignment postings is 11:59 pm Mountain Time the day the assignment is due. One final note: Please note that technical problems are not excuses for late assignments in this class. Please back up your work in several places: your system, a floppy or Zip disk, email the file to yourself at another e-mail account, etc. There is nothing worse than losing hard work to a computer crash, and such issue will not constitute a valid excuse for late work in this class. Students are expected to take the necessary steps to ensure the timeliness of their work. Play it safe! All of your course requirements are graded using points. At the end of the course, the points are converted to a letter grade using the scale in the table below. Letter Grade Points Percentage A 930 – 1000 93% to 100% A- 900 – 929 90% to 92.9% B+ 870 – 899 87% to 89.9% B 830 – 869 83% to 86.9% B- 800 – 829 80% to 82.9% C+ 770 – 799 77% to 79.9% C 730 – 769 73% to 76.9% C- 700 - 729 70% to 72.9% D+ 670 – 699 67% to 69.9% D 630 – 669 63% to 66.9% D- 600 – 629 60% to 62.9% F 599 and below Below 60% For DVUO policy on assignment values and letter grades (and all other DVUO policies), please review the information contained in “Policies” under the Course Home section of your course.
Discussion Requirements	In the “Discussion“ areas of the course, you, as a student, can interact with your instructor and classmates to explore questions and comments related to the content of this course. Discussions will always close Sunday, 11:59 P.M. Mountain Time (MT). A successful student in online education is one who takes an active role in the learning process. You are therefore encouraged to participate in the discussion areas to enhance your learning experience throughout each week. The discussions will be graded for: 1. Frequency—Number and regularity of your discussion comments, and 2. Quality—Content of your contributions Frequency—Number and regularity of your contributions. Students are expected to log into the course and post (respond) in the discussion topics on a minimum of three separate days per week, beginning no later than Wednesday. Quality—Content of your contributions. Examples of quality posts include: providing additional information to the discussion; elaborating on previous comments from others; presenting explanations of concepts or methods to help fellow students, presenting reasons for or against a topic in a persuasive fashion, sharing your own personal experiences that relate to the topic, and providing a URL and explanation for an area you researched on the Internet. Quality Measurement High Your contributions to each Topic indicate your mastery of the materials assigned. Your responses might integrate multiple views and/or show value as a seed for reflection for other participants’ responses to the thread. You provide evidence that you are reading the assigned materials and other student postings and are responding accordingly, bringing out interesting interpretations. You know the facts and are able to analyze them and handle conceptual ideas. Medium Your responses build on the ideas of another participant (or more) and dig deeper into assignment questions or issues. When you make intelligent posts during the week, including some good critique of the course material, then you have demonstrated you have an understanding of the material, are reading posts of your colleagues, and are contributing to the class. Your posts demonstrate confidence with the materials, but may be just a bit off target in one area or another. Low You have meaningful interaction with other participants’ postings. Posts that state I agree or I disagree include an explanation of what is disagreed or agreed upon and why, or introduce an argument that adds to the discussion. However, you may have rambling, lengthy posts that show no sign of having been re-read and refined before posting, and your writing suffers lack of clarity and comprehension. Unsatisfactory You will receive little credit in the week’s discussion by just showing up and making trivial comments, without adding any new thought to the discussion. At the low end of the spectrum, no participation gets a “0.” If you are not in the discussion, you do not earn any points. Full credit is awarded when both high quality and required frequency is met. For DVUO policy on discussions (and all other DVUO policies), please review the information contained in “Policies” under the Course Home section of your course.
Graduate Course Policies and Procedures	Plagiarism & Citations Plagiarism is a violation of the Academic Integrity code of this institution and will not be tolerated.  The plagiarism policy applies to every aspect of DVUO coursework including threaded discussions, exams, quizzes, essays, assignments, etc.  It is important that students fully cite any outside ideas, text and visual aides they reference in that work. If you copy from, rely on, or paraphrase from your text or from any other source, you must include in-text citations. For any source other than your text, you must also include the proper reference material including the full URL and date accessed if the source is the web. Failure to do so is a violation of DeVry Academic Standards. Instructors are required to follow the DeVry Academic Integrity policy. Refer to your student handbook for details. As a part of our commitment to academic integrity, your work in this course may be submitted to turnitin.com, an online plagiarism checking service. Turnitin.com operates a secure database and protects your privacy by assigning report numbers to all student work stored in its database. The purpose of using this service is to help protect the integrity of a DeVry degree, which in turn helps to protect your work and your investment in a DeVry education. See Turnitin.com for more details. How to Avoid Plagiarism Style Guide Keller Graduate School of Management of DeVry University recommends all graduate students purchase and make use of the official style guide entitled, Writing the Research Paper: A Handbook, 6th edition, by Anthony C. Winkler and Jo Ray McCuen. This handbook includes information on the following styles: APA, MLA, CEE, CMS, and Columbia Online. ISBN – 1413001785. Students can use any of these five styles unless otherwise instructed to use one of them exclusively. Students who have purchased the University’s previous official style guide entitled, The Business Student Writers Manual and Guide to the Internet, by Thomas P. Bergman, Stephen M. Garrison, and Gregory M. Scott, will NOT be required to purchase another style guide. The new style guide is available through the online bookstore, Follett Express. Below are two tutorials covering two of the five acceptable styles: APA Guidelines APA Guidelines for Citing Sources This tutorial provides a resource for citing references in papers using the 5th edition of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (2001). The following is covered within the tutorial: the purposes of APA documentation, guidelines and examples on how to cite original sources in the text of your paper using parenthetical citations, and how to format the reference list and an entire paper. MLA Guidelines MLA Guidelines for Citing Sources MLA style provides writers a system of cross-referencing their sources and protecting them from accusations of plagiarism. This tutorial goes over the purposes of MLA documentation, as well as methods and examples for using parenthetical citations, and how to format a Works Cited page. Frequently Asked Questions When are grades calculated, and how can I view my grades? You must complete any quizzes and post your written assignments (if necessary) to the weekly Dropbox by Sunday 11:59 p.m. (MT) each week, except Week 8 which closes at 11:59 p.m. (MT) Thursday. Once your work is reviewed, you should see comments and total points for each assignment in the Gradebook. Instructors should have Discussion work graded by the following Tuesday and all other assignments by the following Friday. You may check your progress at any time by going to the Gradebook, selecting the week and then your name. Click on the points earned for each assignment in the Gradebook to see any instructor comments. What should I do if a discrepancy is found with my grade? 1. Double-check the error and try to determine what caused it. 2. Send your instructor an email explaining your findings. 3. Trust that any error in grading will be corrected quickly. What if I cannot get my work submitted on time? If you have an emergency that will cause your work to be late, please contact your instructor in advance of the due date so that arrangements can be made. Your instructor may reserve the right to deduct points for work turned in late based on the reason and the timeliness of notice. If a technical problem prevents you from meeting the scheduled due date, please contact the Help Desk at 1-800-594-2402 and immediately email your instructor about the situation. What should I do if I have a disability that requires accommodation? Keller Graduate School of Management is committed to providing reasonable accommodations for eligible students with documented disabilities as defined by state and federal laws relating to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Our intent is to ensure that every student who makes a request for accommodations under ADA is advised of the accommodation process as promptly as possible. If you are a student with a verifiable documented disability, and you can provide medical documentation regarding this disability, then contact our ADA Officer at adaofficer@keller.edu for more information on how to receive ADA accommodations in your online classes or fax your request to 630-929-9745. How can I get extra credit? It is the policy of DeVry University that extra credit will not be allowed in any of its classes, online or onsite, for any reason.