Stevie: A Dynamic, Between-Instructor Collaborative Internet Tool for Learning Cardinalities

Abstract

Instructors increasingly use a data modeling approach to teach accounting information systems (AIS). An important part of data modeling is the specification of cardinalities. Cardinalities represent constraints on the participation of entities in a relationship and are used to express business practices. Stevie is an Internet tool that helps students learn cardinalities. Stevie has a number of unique features. First, Stevie is a collaborative effort; its content is created by a number of instructors. Second, Stevie is a dynamic Internet application. Dynamic Internet technology enables instructors to manage student accounts, add exercises, and create customized assignments. Further, customized assignments make it easy for instructors to adapt Stevie's content to specific learning objectives for their AIS course. For example, instructors can create assignments where students have to define stereotypical cardinality patterns or heuristics for REA relationships. Finally, Stevie supports accounting-specific classifications that make the creation of customized assignments for the AIS class easier.