PwC INQuires

Since INQuires was created in 2007, we have awarded through our INQuires program over $7.6 million in funding to over 200 schools for faculty research, diversity initiatives and curriculum development.

Focus on Data and Analytics:

Over the last nine years, our INQuires funding has included the awarding of almost $2.1 million to over 100 schools to incorporate data, analytics and technology into their curriculum. As described in Data Driven: What students need to succeed in a rapidly changing business environment, PwC encourages Accounting Programs to incorporate data analytics and related skills into their curriculum to help prepare students for the demands of our profession. We are very pleased to support these curriculum development efforts through our INQuires program.

Sharing resources:

We encourage schools receiving INQuires funding for curriculum development - particularly in the area of data, analytics and technology - to broadly share the outcome of these projects to make resources available to other universities. Many recipients have done so through presenting at faculty conferences and publishing articles. 

We have listed below several specific examples of curriculum development projects PwC is happy to have funded to incorporate data analytics and technology into curriculum. These academics have done great work in this area and we encourage you to explore these potential resources.

Organization

Primary contact

Summary

HUB of Analytics Education Charlie-Bame Aldred Created free materials to assist academics with teaching data analysis techniques.  Resources are housed on the HUB of Analytics website and include  large transactional datasets with supporting information, such as financial statements, business process documents and flowcharts.

Babson College

Shay Blanchette, Julia Kokina, Dessi Pachamanova

Development of an analytics case for management accounting and perform an analysis of the use of data analytics in the undergraduate accounting curriculum.

Colorado State University

Margarita Maria Lenk and Beth Dixon

Developed a data analytics approach for introductory financial accounting courses. The first accounting course was transformed into a real-world data-based active learning course where we derive the students' demand for (1) understanding accounting vocabulary,  concepts, and financial statements (2) mastering the mechanics of the accounting process, and (3) gaining communication skills regarding the meaning of accounting information their excitement and enthusiasm for “doing accounting” by making decisions about real world companies from their own financial statement analysis.

Indiana University

Andrea Astill and Joe Schroeder

Developed a data analytics module to include course notes, student deliverables and data files so that all faculty that teach the undergraduate auditing course can easily implement the data analytics module into their courses.

Miami University

Dale Stoel

Developed an Analytics course for the accounting program.

Northern Illinois University

Ann Dzuranin and Linda Matuszewski

Integrated the development of Excel skills in the accountancy curriculum including Microsoft Office Specialist (MOS) certifications in Excel.

St. John’s University

Vincent Shea Incorporated SAP into undergraduate and graduate level accounting information system courses.

University of Missouri

Vairam Arunachalam and Elaine Mauldin Integrated new modules covering data analytics into three required undergraduate courses (Accounting Information Systems, Auditing, and Intermediate Financial Accounting II) and one graduate elective course (Auditing Internal Controls). Students generally take these courses in sequence, thus reinforcing exposure to data analytics in a variety of settings and using different platforms.
University of Tennessee, Virginia Tech University

Lauren Cunningham, Sarah Stein

 

Created a case study based upon Souper Bowl Inc., a fictitious soup company headquartered in Maine whose revenues fluctuate with weather conditions since soup hits the spot on a cold and snowy day. Using a dataset with more than 21,000 observations, students are asked to use Tableau visualization software to compare actual weather data to client revenue data to spot unusual observations. These techniques, which are increasingly used in practice, allow auditors to identify risky transactions for testing, prior to or in place of random sampling. Students reported that the data felt very realistic. The case is appropriate for undergraduate or graduate students regardless of prior experience with Tableau. To access published article, click here.

University of Washington

Michael Wagner

Developed a new Data Analytics course for the MBA program

University of Wisconsin - Madison

Ann O’Brien

1. Developed and outlined a data analytics short curriculum with prescribed design aspects such as learning outcomes, the “big idea” and “driving questions” of the curriculum, relevant curriculum standards, teaching resources used and reflections and results from implementing the curriculum. This material was presented at the August 2017 AAA Conference on Teaching and Learning.

2. Created a schematic framework of lessons from the learning sciences to share with other accounting instructors.  This material will be submitted for consideration as a workshop at the August 2018 AAA Conference on Teaching and Learning.

 

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Julie Peters

Julie Peters

University Relations leader, PwC US

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