To the Instructor

Wow—a second edition. Some days I have to pinch myself to realize that colleagues across the United States and around the world appreciated the first edition enough to warrant a second edition. At the same time, I recognize that this book definitely isn't for everyone—in many fundamental ways, it's nontraditional and significantly different from other AIS texts. I really appreciate the feedback I received from many of you; I've tried to incorporate much of it into the new edition, while retaining the features that worked well the first time around.

As in the first edition, I've introduced more fundamental topics early in the book (transaction processing, ethics, internal control, systems documentation). Later chapters apply those topics in various organizational settings. In addition, some chapters include material students have learned/will learn in other accounting courses; indeed, some colleagues questioned the need for journal entry problems and such in an AIS text. Here's my thinking: I've noticed my own students too often do a "memory dump" as they finish each accounting course. I've included topics like journal entries, the FASB conceptual framework, and the time value of money to show students that all areas of accounting are fundamentally linked to one another—and that it's probably not a good idea to erase their personal database of accounting knowledge as they finish each course.

I believe that accounting education in general, and AIS in particular, is about developing a student's ability to think like an accountant—it's not about preparing them to pass a professional exam. So, as in the first edition, I've shied away from a lot of prescriptive rules and "one right way" thinking in addressing AIS issues. Sure—there are some things in accounting that do have "one right answer": the debits and credits better equal each other, databases better follow the rules of normalization, and such. But many things are a matter of judgment: Do you use letters or numbers to label on- and off-page connectors in a flowchart? What's the best way to document an information system? When is it time for an organization to reorganize its business processes, and how should that be done? I hope you'll help your students develop those critical thinking and judgment skills via your own classroom activities—even if your point of view differs from my own on a particular AIS topic.

For better or worse, "assessment" is one of the watchwords of accounting education in the 21st century—especially for AACSB-accredited schools. I've included a lot of features that I hope will assist you in your assessment efforts: clearly stated learning objectives at the start of each chapter, a test bank that's directly connected to those learning objectives, and various levels of thinking and reasoning and ideas you can use for classroom assessment. (You'll find the latter in the new "teaching suggestions" material on the instructor's Web site for the second edition.)

I'm deeply honored that you're using (or considering using) my text for your AIS course. Please contact me if there's something I can do to improve the text and/or make your life in teaching AIS easier and better.

Best regards,

Bob Hurt
RLHurt@csupomona.edu