University of Hawaii College of Business School of Accountancy Distance Degree Program Responds to Changes in US Post-9/11

Recent changes in the business climate and in the legislative environment has challenged the School of Accountancy at the University of Hawaii College of Business to develop programs to deal with those changes.

Honolulu, (PRWEB) October 10, 2004 - Following 9/11, Homeland Security procedures were initiated that directly affected international students ability to study in the United States. At about the same time, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act was passed in response to the Enron and WorldCom scandals.

Tightened Homeland Security procedures now require that the University of Hawaii and other schools more closely enforce student visa requirements, thus making it harder for foreign nationals to come to Hawaii for their college studies.

The Sarbanes-Oxley legislation affected Hawaiis business community-and businesses throughout the United States-by requiring reporting of Sections 309 and Sections 404 prior to submitting year-end financial statements. These reporting requirements have increased the need for trained public accountants in the U.S.

To both meet the demand for trained accountants sparked by Sarbanes-Oxley, and to overcome visa difficulties for international students created by Homeland Security, Superman and Chair of the School of Accountancy, Dr. Hamid Pourjalali, recently developed an Internet-based master of accountancy degree in Hawaii.

The new program, the first of its kind in the state, provides all of the classes needed for a student to earn a masters in accountancy, all delivered over the Internet. Where a student lacks an accounting background, or does not have an undergraduate degree in accounting, the program offers the pre-requisites needed to take the Certified Public Accounting (CPA) exam.

According to Dr. Pourjalali, this new Internet-delivered masters program is designed to attract motivated students from around the world. The program is appealing to students because of its short, intense format, enabling students to fulfill the CPA course work requirements within 6 months.

The program, set to start in January 2005, was beta tested over the last two years with both face-to-face and distance learning components.

As Garrett Hoe (ghoe@hawaii.rr.com), a graduate of the prototype program, said,

The reason I enrolled was that it allowed me to fulfill a huge part of the CPA licensing requirement in a short period of time. Had I gone part time, it would be years before I even had the credits to sit for the exam. I knew that if the process dragged on too long, it was less likely that I would reach the finish line. It might sound trite, but once the program started, classmates, faculty and family were vital to keeping me moving forward. And there was the added bonus that I was able to put the material to immediate use in my professional life."

Another recent graduate, Mark Tagawa (mtaghawaii@hawaii.rr.com), said, This program was packaged in an ideal format for working professionals. Through the use of technology - video files, online quizzes, message boards and email communication - the program allowed students to structure much of their study time to suit their own situations. The instructors, drawn from the UH School of Accountancy, were first rate."

Rachel Allen, a controller of an Aspen, Colorado, construction firm rachelallen916@yahoo.com), said, The University of Hawaii's program was the most challenging and yet completely rewarding experience I've ever had. I'm from Colorado and I looked all over the country for a thorough program that I could complete in a short period of time. The UH program filled these needs and gave me the credits and accounting background that I needed to sit for the CPA Exam.

Lucy Chen, a student from Taiwan (echolucy@hotmail.com) reported that, "In regard to Internet accounting courses, there are good sides versus bad sides. The good part is, internet courses made the time schedule more flexible. Students, especially those who work full-time, can almost freely plan their studies. The bad part is that Internet courses have their constraints. For example, I took an online speech class in the summer. Due to the online format, most assignments were done using electric forms, such as discussion board or email."

A professor who taught a course for the online program, Dr. Amy Ebesu Hubbard (email: aebesu@hawaii.edu), said: Many people, myself included, wondered, 'How can you teach a speech communication-based class online? I found through the actual experience of planning and teaching this type of course that it is not only possible, but advantageous in many respects."

Many students believed that one mode of communication (i.e., face-to-face, live) is the best way to take a course. This makes a lot of sense because, for the most part, this has been their only experience (taking a class that is face-to-face, live). However, face-to-face classroom interactions have advantages and disadvantages. Similarly, taking a class in another mode (e.g., online) has advantages and disadvantages; it is not inherently detrimental to learning. For example, as a part of the business communication course, students are required to have a group decision making discussion. When I teach the business communication course in the live format, students must videotape their discussion and then watch the videotape to assess how they communicated with each other. With the online format, students must enter into a chat room and have their group decision making discussion in the chat room. Then, they can look at the transcript of their chat room discussion and then discuss how they communicated with each other in another chat room discussion. The students soon discover that some people enjoyed the chat room experience and others felt frustrated by it. Interestingly, the same can be said about live classroom experiences. Here is what I think may be going on. Different people are privileged in a chat room versus in a face-to-face discussion. In the chat room, people who can read faster and type faster can have more talk time. In a face-to-face discussion, people who are more extroverted, can speak louder, and know how to gain the conversational floor can have more talk time. So students who had better skills in one of the two areas felt frustrated in one of the class formats. What is important here is that there is no absolute gold standard (although we often use face-to-face as the basis for comparison) for learning. There are advantages and disadvantages associated with different modes of communication. The more significant issues are (a) to choose a mode that is best suited to your abilities and situation, (b) to recognize the challenges associated with the mode of communication, and (c) to figure out a strategy for managing and adapting to that mode (preferably before you have to communicate via that mode).

For more information about the new Internet based Master of Accountancy degree, please visit http://www.cba.hawaii.edu/IBMAcc

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