Continuous Assurance Research Articles

The Messy Matters of Continuous Assurance: Findings from Exploratory Research in Australia

ABSTRACTThe potential benefits of and business imperatives for continuous assurance (CA) are now widely acknowledged. However, uncertainty remains about how CA may be effectively implemented at a theoretical and practical level. The aim of this paper is to report on the first stage of a long-term comparative case study research project examining the adoption and implementation of CA in Australian organizations. The research supports three goals: (1) to inform strategies for creating CA capability, (2) to increase success of CA initiatives, and (3) to advance theory. Key findings emerging from this exploratory case study research in six organizations include the multifaceted and messy nature of CA, implementation as an emergent and translation process, managing change and relational contexts, the CA “champion” and top management support, assembling new skill sets and building capabilities, and the problems and politics of information.

MATERIALITY THRESHOLDS IN CONTINUOUS AUDITING: RESEARCH AGENDA AND TRAINING MATERIALS

Continuous audits are a major trend of last decade and their deployment is projected to shape the market and practices of professionals in the auditing arena (KPMG, 2010; Deloitte 2010). The trend toward deploying more frequent (continuous) audits motivates the study of the assessment of materiality thresholds in these audits. The objective of the current study is twofold: first, to propose a research framework to investigate the most important elements that’ll shape the future of the market for continuous assurance. Then second, to introduce a training manual that could be used either in the classroom or in small to mid-size public accounting firms involved in implementing continuous assurance products. Some of the most significant research questions the current study poses is whether auditors and investors use the same basis to compute materiality thresholds (net income, total assets, or pre-tax income) when continuous reports based on continuous audits are prepared/used to make investment decisions, or whether they determine their materiality estimates on different bases. The study also examines whether the basis to compute materiality thresholds (traditionally net income) used by investors/users and auditors is the annual or the period (month, week, day, etc.) of the report net income. Additionally, the research framework examines the controversy surrounding the congruency between auditors and users materiality estimates. Specifically, the study poses the question of the extent to which materiality threshold estimates of auditors and investors with respect to continuous reports generated by continuous audits will be congruent. Lastly, the study investigates whether the basis to compute materiality thresholds is a function of the subject matter being audited, and whether the congruency between investors and auditor’s materiality estimates is a function of the subject matter being audited. Training materials are developed to reflect the most significant research issues examined in this study.

Software defined environments: An introduction

During the past few years, enterprises have been increasingly aggressive in moving mission-critical and performance-sensitive applications to the cloud, while at the same time many new mobile, social, and analytics applications are directly developed and operated on cloud computing platforms. These two movements are encouraging the shift of the value proposition of cloud computing from cost reduction to simultaneous agility and optimization. These requirements (agility and optimization) are driving the recent disruptive trend of software defined computing, for which the entire computing infrastructure--compute, storage and network--is becoming software defined and dynamically programmable. The key elements within software defined environments include capability-based resource abstraction, goal-based and policy-based workload definition, and outcome-based continuous mapping of the workload to the available resources. Furthermore, software defined environments provide the tooling and capabilities to compose workloads from existing components that are then continuously and autonomously mapped onto the underlying programmable infrastructure. These elements enable software defined environments to achieve agility, efficiency, and continuous outcome-optimized provisioning and management, plus continuous assurance for resiliency and security. This paper provides an overview and introduction to the key elements and challenges of software defined environments.

Nonprofessional investors' perceptions of the incremental value of continuous auditing and continuous controls monitoring: An experimental investigation

In this study, we investigate nonprofessional investors' perceptions of the incremental value of additional assurance provided by continuous auditing (CA) and continuous controls monitoring (CCM) relative to traditional periodic auditing. We also examine whether nonprofessional investors' perceptions of incremental value of CA and CCM depend on whether the procedure is performed by internal or external auditors, given that external auditors are likely to be perceived as more independent and objective than internal auditors. We conduct two experiments, one using 120 nonprofessional investors recruited by a national survey company, and the second using 184 participants recruited via Amazon's Mechanical Turk platform. The first experiment employed a 2×2 between-participants design in which we manipulate the type of assurance (CA or CCM) and the source of assurance (internal or external auditors). The second experiment was identical to the first experiment, with the addition of a fifth condition to test a conjecture stemming from the results of the first experiment. The results from both experiments indicate that although nonprofessional investors believe that continuous auditing decreases the likelihood of material errors and asset misappropriation, nonprofessional investors do not concomitantly increase their investment upon learning about the implementation of these sophisticated continuous assurance techniques. Evidence from the second experiment provides support for the contention that the reason why nonprofessional investors do not increase their investment pursuant to implementation of CA or CCM is due to the salience of the additional costs of these techniques. These results have important implications for firms considering the implementation of additional assurance procedures such as CA and CCM.

Psychiatry Clerkship Core Curriculum Renewal: Assessing the Shift to Larger-Group Learning

A curriculum renewal of the third-year psychiatry clerkship rotation at University of Toronto Medical School resulted in a shift from case-based, small-group teaching at multiple teaching sites to the delivery of core material in a larger-group format. The authors examine the effects of this change in curriculum delivery. Student examination performance and student evaluations of the clerkship rotation and teaching were compared for the years before and after adoption of the updated, larger-group format curriculum. Student examination performance was unchanged, comparing those who participated in small-group seminars versus those receiving larger-group core teaching. Student evaluations of the curriculum as a whole and of the core teaching were also unchanged, other than more negative evaluation of the course organization in the year immediately after implementation of the new curriculum. Delivering core curriculum in larger- versus smaller-group format did not have any discernible effect on student psychiatry clerkship performance, and overall student assessment of the rotation remained largely positive. The involvement of highly-rated teachers and the higher number of uninterrupted clinical days may balance out with the trend for students to generally prefer small-group to larger-group learning. Ongoing evaluation and refinement of the psychiatry clerkship experience and core curriculum will be crucial to continued assurance of a high-quality learning experience for our medical students.

A Conceptual Model for Evaluating Systems with Continuous Assurance Services

Nowadays there is a need for real-time awareness to assure conformity of organizational transactions to increase their reliability and to mitigate organizational risk. In this context, Continuous Assurance has assumed an important role as a management goal and in ensuring improved effectiveness of organizations. Some information systems already support Continuous Assurance services, but disposable data require extra effort to make it useful for management purposes. Hence, this paper presents a model constituted by five dimensions aiming to evaluate an information system with Continuous Assurance services. Moreover, each dimension has some proposed metrics to guide the development of an evaluation tool.

Risk Management as an Element of Processes Continuity Assurance

Dynamic growth of new technologies creates a formation of new kinds of risk in organizations’ activity. In this range one should notice the necessity of risk management. It should lead to risk minimization or elimination, and finally assure processes’ continuity. Risk management must have a system character, be connected with all realized processes and undergo the improvement as the effect of assessment, monitoring, measurement and analyses. The worked out coherent methodology of identification, analyses, assessment and acceptability evaluation determines the kind of risk undertaking. According to the proposed procedure it can be realized as operational control or system risk monitoring.

Financial Accounting Standards Should Not Matter: It's Just a Layer

An introduction to the journal is presented in which the editor discusses various reports within the issue on topics including cloud computing and risk analysis, information fusion in continuous assurance, and the factors influencing the planned adoption of Continuous Monitoring Technology (CMT).

Process Indicators of Quality Clinical Pharmacy Services During Transitions of Care

The American College of Clinical Pharmacy charged the Public and Professional Relations Committee to develop a short white paper describing quality measures of clinical pharmacists' patient care services in transitional care settings. Transitional care describes patient movement from one health care setting or service to another. Care transitions are associated with an increased risk of adverse events for patients. Pharmacists play an important role in ensuring that medication errors and adverse events are minimized during these transitions, largely through the reconciliation of medications and assurance of continuity of care. Quality measures are often divided into three domains: structure, process, and outcome. Given the typical nature of the pharmacist's role, process indicators are best suited to evaluate quality clinical pharmacist services. However, process indicators relevant to pharmacists' activities are not yet fully described in the literature. The committee searched available literature describing quality measures that are directly influenced by the pharmacist during care transitions. This white paper describes these process indicators as quality measures of clinical pharmacists' services, identifies the transitional settings and activities to which they are most applicable, and provides the published sources from which indicators were derived. For process indicators that could not be found in published sources, we propose relevant measures that can be adapted for use in a given setting. As pharmacists become more involved in diverse and emerging patient care areas such as transitional care, it will be critical that they use these types of measures to document the quality of new services and reinforce the need for pharmacist participation during transitions of care.

Knowledge Discovery for Continuous Financial Assurance Using Multiple Types of Digital Information

This paper investigates some extensions to what has emerged as classic continuous (financial) assurance (CFA). First, this paper suggests broadening the base of information that is used in such systems to include emerging social media. Second, because of the new source of data, the methodologies also need to be expanded to include knowledge discovery approaches to facilitate analysis of new and existing information. Third, I suggest that continuous financial assurance begin to integrate with other business efforts at monitoring and knowledge discovery, for example, “business process management.” Ultimately, an integrated system could gain from information and discoveries in these other monitoring and knowledge discovery efforts. Finally, this paper suggests that additional proactive knowledge discovery be used in addition to classic continuous financial assurance data to facilitate additional discovery.

Information Fusion in Continuous Assurance

ABSTRACTWe extend continuous assurance research by proposing a novel continuous assurance architecture grounded in information fusion research. Existing continuous assurance architectures focus primarily on methods of monitoring assurance clients' systems to detect anomalous activities and have not addressed the question of how to process the detected anomalies. Consequently, actual implementations of these systems typically detect a large number of anomalies, with the resulting information overload leading to suboptimal decision making due to human information processing limitations. The proposed architecture addresses these issues by performing anomaly detection, aggregation, and evaluation. Within the proposed architecture, artifacts developed in prior continuous assurance, ontology, and artificial intelligence research are used to perform the detection, aggregation, and evaluation information fusion tasks. The architecture contributes to the academic continuous assurance literature and has implications for practitioners involved in the development of more robust and useful continuous assurance systems.

Methodology of assessing quality education

The two main tasks are set in front of the education: continuous assurance and quality assurance in higher education. The development of society, globalization, the development of the market conditions in higher education system and the established knowledge market require to be in compliance with the higher education system and the formation of the unique space for education. The new ways of development and improvement of the higher education are found. The quality of education in higher schools is usually equated to the high standards which bind an academic teacher during the realization of the didactic process. In this paper, the quality assessment procedure for higher education, which influences an increase in quality of didactic process, is presented. With results analysis obtained during the examination of the students' opinion on the professional competence of the academic teachers, the aim is to start exploring possibilities and perspectives towards an increase in quality of higher education.

A solution for real time monitoring and auditing of organizational transactions

The controlling and auditing of organizational transactions in real time allows to determine the degree of reliability with which they are carried out, mitigating the organizational risk. This paper presents a solution proposal under a new vision for organizational auditing and monitoring in real time since it is focused on the implementation of continuous assurance services in organizational transactions in compliance with the formalisms of a business ontological model. Furthermore, this paper contributes for a new paradigm of the transactional auditing, which is intended to be at a very low and detailed level of organizational transactions.

Sociocultural Women's Health Standardized Patient Case and Student Guide

OPEN ACCESSDecember 1, 2011Sociocultural Women's Health Standardized Patient Case and Student Guide Carrie Bernat, MA, MSW, Monica Lypson, MD, Deborah Berman, MD, Hilary Haftel, MD, MHPE, Tricia Tang, PhD, Maya Hammoud, MD, Casey White, PhD, Julie Perry, MD, Kelly Poszywak, MS Carrie Bernat, MA, MSW University of Michigan Medical School Google Scholar More articles by this author , Monica Lypson, MD University of Michigan Health System Google Scholar More articles by this author , Deborah Berman, MD University of Michigan Health System Google Scholar More articles by this author , Hilary Haftel, MD, MHPE University of Michigan Health System Google Scholar More articles by this author , Tricia Tang, PhD University of Michigan Health System Google Scholar More articles by this author , Maya Hammoud, MD University of Michigan Health System Google Scholar More articles by this author , Casey White, PhD University of Michigan Medical School Google Scholar More articles by this author , Julie Perry, MD University of Michigan Health System Google Scholar More articles by this author , Kelly Poszywak, MS University of Michigan Medical School Google Scholar More articles by this author https://doi.org/10.15766/mep_2374-8265.8471 SectionsAbout ToolsDownload Citations ShareFacebookTwitterEmail AbstractAbstract Introduction: The Sociocultural Women's Health Standardized Patient (SP) exercise is designed primarily for third-year medical students, but can also be utilized by other health professions students learning the skills of incorporating a patient's personal, cultural, social, and health beliefs into their medical history taking and negotiation of care/treatment plans. Students participate in this one-on-one SP encounter during their Obstetrics and Gynecology clerkship. Methods: The resources presented here are the materials provided to students to help them prepare for this exercise. We have also provided facilitators with the SP cases, training materials, and assessment tools associated with this exercise. Over time, the preparation materials provided to the students were adjusted to meet their educational needs or to address common logistical concerns/misunderstandings. These materials can be presented to the students in printed/paper form or they can be uploaded to a student resource portal as PDF documents. Results: During the 2008–2009 academic year, 44% of students found the preparation materials presented as somewhat valuable or valuable and 85% of students indicated that the objectives and expectations of the exercise were clear. Ninety-two percent of students who completed our curriculum evaluation either agreed or strongly agreed that it was helpful to receive feedback about their clinical skills from the SP immediately following the interaction, 94% agreed or strongly agreed that the SP provided informative feedback and 95% agreed or strongly agreed that the SP was effective in portraying the patient. Discussion: The art of the feedback conversation is one that has evolved significantly over time in our program. Feedback conversations are difficult and therefore require continual assurance that SPs are adequately prepared and providing the quality of feedback expected. This requires significant time on the part of the SP Educator to perform quality assurance and performance evaluations, but we have found that investment of time and effort to be well-spent. Educational Objectives By the end of the module, the learner will be able to: Demonstrate appropriate components of gynecological and relevant health histories.Demonstrate appropriate alternatives to offer the patient.Establish and maintain rapport with the patient.Elicit a gynecological and relevant health history.Explore the patient's cultural, social and health beliefs in the context of her health practices.Negotiate a plan that is mutually acceptable for you and the patient.Demonstrate attentiveness and empathy during the interaction.Demonstrate receptiveness and active participation during feedback and debriefing discussions. Sign up for the latest publications from MedEdPORTAL Add your email below FILES INCLUDEDReferencesRelatedDetails FILES INCLUDED Included in this publication: Instructor's Guide.docx SP Training Powerpoint.pptx Feedback Training.pptx Sociocultural Women's Health Checklists and Assessment Tools.pdf Sociocultural Women's Health SP Case and Training Materials.pdf Sociocultural Women's Health Student Prep Booklet.pdf To view all publication components, extract (i.e., unzip) them from the downloaded .zip file. Download editor’s noteThis publication may contain technology or a display format that is no longer in use. Copyright & Permissions© 2011 Bernat et al. This is an open-access publication distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial license.KeywordsHistory TakingNegotiationHealth Equity Research Disclosures None to report. Funding/Support None to report. Loading ...

A formal approach to adaptive software: continuous assurance of non-functional requirements

Abstract Modern software systems are increasingly requested to be adaptive to changes in the environment in which they are embedded. Moreover, adaptation often needs to be performed automatically, through self-managed reactions enacted by the application at run time. Off-line, human-driven changes should be requested only if self-adaptation cannot be achieved successfully. To support this kind of autonomic behavior, software systems must be empowered by a rich run-time support that can monitor the relevant phenomena of the surrounding environment to detect changes, analyze the data collected to understand the possible consequences of changes, reason about the ability of the application to continue to provide the required service, and finally react if an adaptation is needed. This paper focuses on non-functional requirements, which constitute an essential component of the quality that modern software systems need to exhibit. Although the proposed approach is quite general, it is mainly exemplified in the paper in the context of service-oriented systems, where the quality of service (QoS) is regulated by contractual obligations between the application provider and its clients. We analyze the case where an application, exported as a service, is built as a composition of other services. Non-functional requirements—such as reliability and performance—heavily depend on the environment in which the application is embedded. Thus changes in the environment may ultimately adversely affect QoS satisfaction. We illustrate an approach and support tools that enable a holistic view of the design and run-time management of adaptive software systems. The approach is based on formal (probabilistic) models that are used at design time to reason about dependability of the application in quantitative terms. Models continue to exist at run time to enable continuous verification and detection of changes that require adaptation.

Betwixt and Between? Bringing Information Systems and Accounting Systems Research Together

I n 2008, the Research and Publications Committee of the Information Systems Section of the American Accounting Association decided to sponsor a special issue of the Journal of Information Systems (JIS) entitled ‘‘Reviews of Information Systems Research.’’ The objective of the special issue is to ‘‘publish papers that review a stream of research in information systems (IS) broadly defined.’’ The Committee intended that submissions would review and integrate the IS (information systems) and AIS (accounting information systems) literatures and suggest future research directions in both disciplines. The special issue followed a previous valiant and groundbreaking effort in IS/AIS research integration for the IS section by Professors Vicky Arnold and Steve Sutton (Arnold and Sutton 2002). As editor of this special issue, I took a somewhat different approach to the task than is normal. First, rather than a regular call for papers, I requested researchers to submit extended abstracts. The objectives of this approach were to ensure that the scope of the proposed article was concomitant with the objective of the special issue and to identify any potential overlaps in subject matter. In this process, I was able to negotiate the amalgamation of several writing teams. I also ensured that where there was commonality in subject matter, the writing teams were introduced to each other and worked to manage the writing process. Second, I had clear views on how the papers should be structured. As an author of one of the chapters in the earlier monograph for the IS section, I was impressed with the systematic approach Dr. Arnold took to ensuring a common approach in the structure of the contributions and the discipline exercised in ensuring that the goals of the monograph were achieved. It is simpler to achieve a common approach in a monograph than it is in separate papers in JIS. My ambition was, then, to strongly suggest directions to authors but not to mandate a single approach. As a consumer of many literature reviews, I realize how easy it is to maroon readers in a Sargasso Sea, not knowing how to navigate their way. Readers need clear navigational markers and a sense of direction. Third, I saw the review process as a mutual exercise among writing teams, reviewers, and myself as editor. Given the scope of this exercise, I deliberately took a more active editorial role than is normal. These objectives probably added somewhat to the time taken for publication but did, I believe, improve the quality of the papers.

Data and safety monitoring policy for National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases clinical trials

Historically, four divisions of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) that manage clinical trials and oversee data and safety monitoring have operated fairly autonomously with respect to their approaches to Data and Safety Monitoring Board (DSMB) operations. We recognized the need for a revised policy on DSMB operations in an effort to encourage greater harmonization of procedures across the four divisions. The purpose of this article is to describe the considerations that motivated the development of the new policy, summarize current DSMB policies and ongoing harmonization efforts across the four divisions, and offer some recommendations for DSMB operations in the hope that other organizations may benefit from our experience. From 2005 to 2009, a working group undertook a review of DSMB responsibilities, policies, and operations. We analyzed and summarized the final policy document that the working group produced, gathered data describing current DSMB activities, and developed a tabular, cross-sectional overview highlighting how divisions are harmonizing their DSMB operations. In 2010, there were 44 DSMBs in NIAID monitoring 169 protocols, and those DSMBs conducted 209 reviews of the protocols. Review and analysis of DSMB practices across the four divisions have led to recommendations for efficient and successful DSMB operations: adopt an inclusive approach, whereby the trial investigators assist in the process of forming and utilizing DSMBs; structures other than DSMBs can often provide many of the features of DSMBs but with greater flexibility in membership, access to interim data, and scheduling; the trial protocol should specify what safety and other concerns should trigger a DSMB review and what data should be included in prespecified reviews; present data in thoughtful and user-friendly ways that answer specific questions; allow sufficient time to plan for working with the DSMB. We recognize that NIAID's specific circumstances and DSMB policy may not apply to the operation of DSMBs in every organization. Nevertheless, we believe that useful lessons can be learned from our experiences and efforts toward harmonization. Homogeneity in DSMB operations and management has appeal as a matter of organizational policy and efficiency. Some limited flexibility, as long as it honors fundamental principles of independence, confidentiality of interim trial results, and clear lines of reporting and approval, may be appropriate on occasion. NIAID's 2009 institute-level policy established a collective understanding of the important contribution that DSMBs make to the responsible conduct of clinical trials. Thinking will continue to evolve, leading to further policy refinements and the continued assurance of patient safety in our clinical trials.

Medico-Legal Education: A Pilot Curriculum to Fill the Identified Knowledge Gap

We sought to determine if a medico-legal educational curriculum designed to increase physicians' familiarity with the legal system in a nonthreatening environment-a didactic and interactive educational seminar-would positively influence learners' knowledge base and self-awareness. Because neither the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education nor its Residency Review Committees specifically addresses medico-legal liability education, we designed a 2-day intensive medico-legal educational curriculum and piloted it in 2007 and 2008 at a large academic tertiary-referral medical center. Postcurriculum evaluations and precurriculum and postcurriculum testing were used to identify areas of common and/or persisting knowledge deficit. A total of 50 graduating residents, fellows, and community practitioners participated in the course. Common areas of knowledge deficit were "privilege," "discovery," statutes of limitations, and basic legal procedure. Discordance in physician interpretation of patient perspective and misunderstanding among physicians of the impact of the legal suit were evident. Concentrated legal education at selected times during medical training may support physicians' motivations to improve the assurance of quality and continuity of care. We continue to revise the curriculum to address issues of lecturer style, lecture content, and overall attitudinal values related to clinical practice, legal education, long-term impact on practice patterns, job satisfaction and its effect on attention to quality and continuity-of-care issues, and health care provider attitudes about the provider's role within the legal system and the community. We plan to conduct follow-up of participants to assess retention and subsequent use of this knowledge.

Using continuous auditing life cycle management to ensure continuous assurance

The main purpose of this study is to develop a model of key steps for the successful implementation of continuous assurance software, and to reduce the impact of internal auditor technology on ensuring enterprise business assurance by monitoring business systems and their procedures, activities, transactions, and events in a real-time manner.The continuous auditing methodology effectively enhanced audit quality and reduced internal compliance cost for Mutli-Fab with across Taiwan and Chinese-based companies and ensure the continuous assurance in this case field study. Continuous auditing lifecycle management will consider continuous data retrieval, continuous data analysis, continuous data control, and continuous data monitor. This field study also provides useful findings and suggestions related to the insights and experiences learned. Key words: Continuous assurance, electronic commerce, continuous audit web services, extensible markup language, business assurance.

Information strategy perspective for business continuity assurance

Information strategy perspective for business continuity assurance