The integration of expert systems into the teaching of accountancy: a third-year option course approach

Abstract

The documented experiments into the teaching of expert systems to accountancy students have generally followed the pattern of including exposure to this technology as a minor aspect of a mainstream accounting or business course. This paper describes a different approach to the teaching of expert systems. It cites a case in which expert systems are taught as a tool in their own right. The key objective of the course was to develop knowledge of this technology from an appreciation of the tool itself rather than from any particular use of it. The paper attempts to highlight a number of issues behind te developments of a course of this nature and describes how they were dealt with in one particular circumstance. It concentrates on the first iteration of a course taught at a large UK university to undergraduate accounting students during 1991 and 1992.