CREATING AN AACSB TECHNOLOGY CLASS FOR FINANCE MAJORS UTILIZING BLOOMBERG, EDGAR, YAHOO FINANCE, AND MICROSOFT EXCEL

ABSTRACT : In an attempt to attract students and showcase technology, many "Trading Rooms" have been, or are in the process of completion as Schools of Business across the country. During the planning and construction phases, research showed that while admissions departments loved Trading Centers and utilized them as recruitment tools, acceptance and utilization by faculty has many times been more sporadic. This paper addresses these issues from the point of view of students, faculty and administration of an AACSB accredited School of Business of a University in Pennsylvania.INTRODUCTIONThis paper is a case study of creating an AACSB Technology class for finance majors utilizing Bloomberg, Edgar, Yahoo Finance, and Microsoft Excel. As the planning process continued for building the course, we reviewed plans for the new business building with what we felt were the most important School of Business stakeholders. These stakeholders included students, faculty, administration, and the department professional advisory boards which we believed to be a good representation of prospective employers. Informal and formal responses were elicited from each of these groups and the results are summarized below.Students: The student responses seemed to be more associated with the style and amenities of the building including dedicated meeting space for student group work, better access to technology, and more open classrooms.Faculty: While much if not all of the faculty reflected the same desires as the students, a number of the faculty went beyond these requests to include business related items such as a meeting area or lounge with business publications and a business centric interactive news wall - an area where business students could meet and talk about the business world. The Finance department, and to a somewhat lesser extent, the Accounting department wanted an increased use of business technology which became focused on Bloomberg.Administration: While all stakeholders desired to increase the ability to provide the industry with better prepared employees, administration provided some more pragmatic goals. The School of Business is the largest school in the University and yet it had no signature building. The new business building was to be that building and the "Trading Room" was to be the showcase.Professionals: After discussions with finance professionals, it was apparent that Bloomberg was not only on the leading edge of technology, but truly required technology for all finance students to learn. The professionals also had a very positive response to basing the course on Excel.The Advisory Board for the Finance Department representing some of the biggest employers of the region fully supported the need for and use of Bloomberg. The following comment made an Advisory Board member summarizes the need for building the course: "graduating finance majors need more than a simple working knowledge of Excel... The ability to utilize Excel is as important as the ability to read".In addition, Bloomberg comes at a fairly high price and considering some schools may choose not to purchase the service, the authors felt it was important to include additional sources of information including EDGAR, and Yahoo Finance. With regards to Yahoo Finance which is free, some instructors may question the accuracy of its information, however a study by (Flanegin, et al 2009) suggested that Yahoo Finance data was an acceptable transitory substitute for CRSP for research purposes.AACSB requires all School of Business students take a "technology course" and for many schools this requirement is fulfilled by a very general course that has sufficient breadth for all majors but very limited depth for any individual major. On occasion one may find institutions that have a management information systems class for management and marketing majors and an accounting information systems class for accounting and possibly finance students, but very few have a technology course specifically designed for finance majors. …