General Business 310: Accounting & Finance for Non-Business Majors
Syllabus Spring 2024
This is a general plan for the course that may require adjustments.
Step 1: Read this document in its entirety very carefully.
Step 2: Watch This Week in GB310 and The Next Big Things on our Canvas course mainpage. It will always keep you up to date on your upcoming course obligations. You can access Canvas fromhttps://canvas.wisc.edu.
Step 3: Check the website daily for course announcements and new discussion threads.
Step 4: Check your email daily for updates and information.
Course Description: Part of a two-course online sequence introducing non-business students to basic concepts, practices, and analytical methods the market enterprise system uses. This course is a basic overview of essential economics, business law, finance, and accounting topics. The description provided in the course catalog does not reflect the actual breadth of subject areas presented in this course, and it is inaccurate. The course will introduce students to fundamental economic principles and present critical legal topics that are a significant concern to businesses. However, most of the course will be devoted to finance and accounting.
This course delivers all of its content online, and I designed it for abroad campus audience of students who are not majoring in business nor working towards a Certificate in Business. Rather, the audience for this class wants to understand essential business concepts so they can work more effectively with co-workers within for-profit firms and make better decisions as employees, entrepreneurs, citizens, regulators, or researchers. This course will help you explore how businesses make decisions that impact their firms, individuals, and society as a whole.
Requisites: Sophomore standing or higher; not open to business students. My only assumption about your ability to master this material is that you can do algebra.
There is, however, a very important informal prerequisite for this course, and that is patience. As an online class, there is a tremendous dependency on technology, and as we all know, technology can fail. You must recognize this going into the class and accept that there will be problems. The best way to address them is with a patient, calm, and determined demeanor. In other words, do not flip out when there is some technological hiccup. We will get through them.
Credits: GB310 is a three-credit course. I have kept the course's structure, integrity, and rigor consistent within-person UW courses. You will fulfill the course credits by completing fourteen content modules. Each module contains required videos, chapters, and preparatory materials. Though there are many do nothing, learn nothing, easy online courses where everybody gets an A, this course is definitely not one of them. Please adjust your expectations accordingly.
Course Structure, Format, Organization & Activities: This course is delivered in one introductory and fourteen content modules. In general, each module will provide you with a variety of learning experiences:
• Readings
• Video lectures
• Assessment Preparation documents containing key terms, concepts, equations, and practice problems (where applicable) to prepare for the exams.
You will work independently, doing the readings, watching the lectures, and working on practice problems. The video lectures are closed captioned, and text transcriptions are also provided. The readings and videos do not entirely substitute for one another. By design, each medium contains some information the other does not. The only way to learn all the material is to fully engage in both the readings and the videos to prepare for the exams.
Assets Available for Download: Each module has a chapter and an assessment preparation document in PDF format, both readily downloadable. Also, if you have space on your computer, you may want to download the video files for a module. To do so, click on the Download Links button of the video frame. For example,
To make notetaking during the videos more efficient, you can download PDF transcripts of the videos and important images from the videos in PowerPoint. These assets are available in the Additional Resources section at the bottom of each content module. Note that these files contain the transcripts and images for all the videos in a module.
Learning Outcomes: In addressing the four disciplines that impact businesses that we will touch on in this class, there are three global over-arching learning outcomes, and each module of content will help students to:
1. Talk the talk: Students will demonstrate the appropriate application of fundamental business terminology and concepts necessary to effectively communicate with professionals across a given business organization.
2. Walk the walk: Students will apply the common business processes and tools they can leverage to develop their professional, academic, and personal futures.
3. Be able to think like a businessperson: Students will explain the various reasoning businesses use to make decisions and the impact those decisions have on the firm and society. Students will examine their assumptions and predispositions regarding the role of business in society and reflect on how the course has influenced their positions.
THINGS YOU NEED
Course Technology: Since all educational activities will occur online, you must have a reliable high-speed internet connection. It is your responsibility to ensure you satisfy this requirement, or else this class will be a nightmare, and we do not want that.
The Canvas course management system is a required component in conducting the course, and you can access it from https://canvas.wisc.edu. I expect all students to use and monitor the site daily to participate in class activities.
There are over 140 instructional videos. If you have the storage capacity, you may want to download and watch the videos. Downloaded videos often provide a smoother viewing experience than streaming them directly.
You will take the exams online with remote proctoring. To do so, you will need a microphone, webcam, and speakers for your computer. In other words, atypical laptop will do nicely.
There are technology support links at the bottom of our mainpage.
Textbook: There is no required textbook for the course. Yup, you heard that right. Go blow the money you saved on something fun. Remember this when we talk about opportunity costs. All materials will be available on the Canvas site.
Calculators: The Wisconsin School of Business created online financial calculators for this course. You will need to use them to solve many of the problems in this class. You can access them through the GB310 Financial Calculators linkin the Examinations section of the Modules page. These calculators will be essential to solving many problems quickly.
If you like, you may also use a single non-programmable handheld calculator. Phones are strictly forbidden as calculators.
COMMUNICATION
Canvas: Canvas is the primary means by which students receive course information and materials. I expect you to monitor the site daily to stay abreast of your responsibilities.
Email: Send your email to the teaching assistant and meat [email protected].
Iteach over six hundred students across two courses, generating thousands of emails a semester. Managing this email traffic is a major logistical challenge for my teaching assistants and me. To keep things simple and organized and to ensure we answer students’ questions promptly, send all emails to [email protected].
If you send an email anywhere besides [email protected], it will be deleted unanswered.
Do not use the email function within Canvas because it goes to the incorrect Inbox.
You should expect a response to your email within one business day. Saturday, Sunday, and holidays are not business days.
GB310 is a business course, and as such, you will conduct yourself professionally. Laziness is unprofessional. It is your responsibility to stay abreast of the information sent to you. Consequently, if you send a question to [email protected] when the answer is clearly in the syllabus, an email sent to you, or the course main page, we will ignore your question. If you do not get an answer to your question by the end of the next business day, it is likely that your answer has already been made available to you.
Student Discussion Board: There is a discussion board at the top of our Modules page for students to post administrative and content questions to their classmates. This has typically been the fastest way to get an answer to a quick question in the past. Students are strongly encouraged to answer questions posted by other classmates. As always in this class, all communicationshall be conducted professionally.
EVALUATIONS
Business in Society (BiS): These are activities in which you briefly reflect upon a topic you might not have otherwise considered, then potentially see there are alternative ways to think about these matters. This course component should feel more like play than work, allowing you to easily earn 100% of sixteen course points if you get the job done.
The Business in Society activities will have a timeline something like this:
1. I set out a question, proposal, or scenario.
2. You think about it. These exercises are an opportunity for you to reflect on what you know and believe at this point. Do not do any research on the topics. You are to reveal what opinions you bring to the table now without coaching from the internet. Remember, there are no right or wrong answers—just the quality of your thoughts.
3. You will deliver your thoughts on the topic by the posted deadline. Specific instructions on submitting your deliverables will become available before each assignment.
4. After I receive all the submissions, I will release a video with my view on the topic.
5. You will compare and contrast your view to mine, then submit your response to my view.
I hope these activities will move you toward thinking like a businessperson.
It should take at least a paragraph or two to articulate your thoughts. Submissions that show no effort, such as one-sentence or, worse yet, one-word submissions, will earn a zero.
Deadlines, all due by 11:59 p.m.
February 8: Your view of BiS#1.
February 11: Your response to Mark's view of BiS#1.
March 7: Your view of BiS#2.
March 10: Your response to Mark's view of BiS#2.
April 4: Your view of BiS#3.
April 7: Your response to Mark's view of BiS#3.
April 25: Your view of BiS#4.
April 28: Your response to Mark's view of BiS#4.
I will not accept late submissions—ever. If you miss a deadline, hold your breath, you earned a zero.
Exams: All exams are two hours and will be administered online via Canvas using the Honorlock proctoring system. Taking exams while using Honorlock is a course requirement, and I will not administer exams to students without it.
By enrolling in this course, you consent to Remote Proctoring, including installing the Honorlock Chrome extension and sharing some personal data with Honorlock.
I will make detailed exam and Honorlock instructions available the week before each exam. When it becomes available, you will find information about the exams on the Exam Materials page. You can access the page either from the Course Administration section of our mainpage or the Examinations section of the Modules page.
You must take your exams on a laptop or desktop; other devices will not work. Your responsibility is to have all the requisite electronics and a reliable internet connection for exams. This is particularly true if you are taking the course overseas. Students have completed this course from around the globe, which is great. However, some countries have strong firewalls that make it difficult or impossible to take exams online. China is a prime example of one such country in which students have had a nightmare getting around the Great Firewall. If you plan on taking the course from such a location, sorting out all the technical details is entirely your responsibility. Be certain to investigate the issue in advance, or you will risk dropping the course when the first exam is upon you.
There is a significant limitation to Honorlock proctored exams. It is impossible to provide an online review of your exam after you submit it without putting my exams into the public domain, which would destroy the academic integrity of the course. It is an unfortunate technological constraint, but I can do nothing about it.
Exam Dates and Times: Exams open at 6 a.m. on the start date and close at 11:59 p.m. the following day. All times are Central Time.
Exam One opens Monday February 19, and closes Tuesday.
Exam Two opens Monday March 18, and closes Tuesday.
Exam Three opens Monday April 15, and closes Tuesday.
Exam Four opens Monday May 6, and closes Tuesday.
PREPARING FOR SUCCESS
1. The expectation is that you will stick to the course schedule. That means you will complete all module materials in their designated weeks. Students who put off the work and then crammed for the exams have done very poorly. The most crucial step to success in GB310 this summer is to start tasks on time, like today, and work hard consistently to master them. You are smart; you would not be at the UW if you were not. What is really on the table here is your work ethic.
2. Read the module’s chapter and watch the videos closely. You might find it helpful to review the transcripts of the videos.
3. Each module has an assessment preparation document. These documents contain keywords, key concepts, key equations, and multiple-choice questions. These questions maybe conceptual or quantitative. The correct answers are at the end of the document. In some cases, there are complete solutions. If you do not get the correct answer, go back and review the chapter and videos. Try to figure it out. A surprising amount of learning occurs as you work to understand why you got something wrong.
4. Check the discussion board regularly. You may learn from other students’ posts, and the answer to a question upon which you are truly stuck may have already been answered.
5. If not, use the discussion boards to post the question yourself. I encourage the class to assist their peers by answering questions. Learning takes place this way too.
6. If that fails, use [email protected] to send your question to my teaching assistant and me.
7. Attend online office hours. Check for their availability in the This Week in GB310 section of our Canvas mainpage. Here is the thing to remember, if you want to learn the material, my teaching assistant and I will find away to be helpful.
Missed Exams: We will arrange makeups for students who miss exams due to documented medical conditions. You will earn a zero if you miss an exam and do not have a documented illness.
GRADES
The following components and their associated weights determine your course grade.
Component Course Points
Exam One 18
Exam Two 24
Exam Three 24
Exam Four 18
BiS Participation 16
Total Course Points 100
There are four BiS propositions, each requiring your initial view of the issue, then your opinion of my view. That’s atotal of eight BiS activities for sixteen course points, or two course points per activity.
How your course points are determined:
Course Points = 18×Exam 1% + 24×Exam 2% + 24×Exam 3% + 18×Exam 4% + 16×BiS Participation%
For example, 67% on Exam One, 33% on Exam Two, 54% on Exam Three, 61% on Exam Four, and 75% of the BiS Participation points, then your course points are,18×0.67 + 24×0.33 + 24×0.54 +18×0.61+ 16×0.75 = 55.9
As with the example above,your course points will be rounded to the tenth of a point when determining your letter grade.
The letter grade breakpoints below incorporate a curve based on the performances of previous class offerings.
Grade Distribution: Letter grades will be assigned as follows:
Course Points Range
|
A |
80.0 to 100 |
|
AB |
70.0 to 79.9 |
|
B |
60.0 to 69.9 |
|
BC |
50.0 to 59.9 |
|
C |
30.0 to 49.9 |
|
D |
25.0 to 29.9 |
|
F |
0 to 24.9 |
Your letter grade would be a BC, given the 55.9 course points earned during the semester. The course points equation, and the associated letter grades are in the Calculate My Grade spreadsheet on our main page. Use it to quickly ask ‘What if?’ questions about what letter grade you may achieve.
The letter grade breakpoints reflect a grading curve based on many previous offerings of the class. Here is the distribution of letter grades the breakpoints have produced historically from more than two thousand observations.
A 20%
AB 25%
B 25%
BC 21%
C 6%
D 2%
F 1%
The resulting sample mean GPA is 3.1. At the end of the semester, I will look at the distribution of academic performances and compare them to the historical performances. If this semester deviates from the past, I may widen the course points/letter grade bands to achieve the target GPA of 3.1. Note, may is different from will, so widening is not guaranteed. Students who complete all the exams can only benefit from such a widening. Students with an unexcused absence for an exam will not benefit from this widening.
Grading Policies: The course grades are calculated entirely by the components and their associated percentages, as stated above. There is no extra credit available. Your components will not be reweighted, ever. Facts such as your scholarship status, graduation timeline, participation in athletics, or any other facts of your life you think are important and bear special consideration concerning grades are irrelevant. No student ever receives special grade considerations. Never. Giving special treatment to one student that is not available to the class is fundamentally unfair. I do not engage in such inappropriate favoritism. The bottom line when it comes to grades is this, if you want a higher grade, work harder to achieve better outcomes on the remaining course components.
Academic Integrity: By virtue of enrollment, each student agrees to uphold the high academic standards of the University of Wisconsin-Madison; academic misconduct is behavior that negatively impacts the integrity of the institution. Cheating, fabrication, plagiarism, unauthorized collaboration, and helping others commit these previously listed acts are examples of misconduct which may result in disciplinary action. Examples of disciplinary action include, but is not limited to, failure on the assignment/course, written reprimand, disciplinary probation, suspension, or expulsion.
That’s the polite and official UW proclamation on academic integrity and misconduct; here is my view of cheating. Cheating is theft. You are stealing a grade you did not earn. Cheating undermines the motivation of honest students to work hard and is a fraud perpetrated upon the firms that might hire you. To keep everybody motivated to work hard and maintain the reputation of UW-Madison as the flagship state school, ANY acts of academic misconduct will be pursued to the fullest extent possible. For those of you who cannot read between the lines, the fullest extent possible means I will make it my personal mission to assign you anFfor Cheating on your transcript and have you expelled from the UW. Unless you plan on applying for a job at Enron, anFfor Cheating on the transcript from the university you partially completed will likely destroy your hopes of getting a good job. To date,a few former students have found out, to their horror, that nothing in this paragraph is a bluff.
TENTATIVE COURSE SCHEDULE
OTHER THINGS
Errors: This course contains 140+ videos, 14 readings, 14 assessment preparation documents, calculator instructions, an extensive syllabus, and more. In other words, it has a ton of moving parts. I have worked very hard to create a high-quality online experience for you, but if you find any errors, typos, important omissions, or the like, please let me know. I will incorporate your feedback into the course as quickly as possible to benefit current and future students. Thanks in advance for your efforts in this regard.
Accommodations for Students with Disabilities If you are entitled to an academic accommodation, I strongly encourage you to use it. Many students who have foregone their accommodations regret their decision. Login to McBurney Connect and schedule your Faculty Notification Letter (FNL). Your FNLs are due by the end of the third week of the semester, September 22.
Academic Calendar & Religious Observances Whenever possible, students should provide at least one week's advance notice to request special accommodation.
Course EvaluationsI strongly encourage you to participate in the course evaluation.
Privacy of Student Records & the Use of Audio Recorded Lectures Statement
Students’ Rules, Rights, & Responsibilities
Teaching & Learning Data Transparency
Course Designation: Breadth—Social Science. Level—Intermediate. L&S Credit—Counts as Liberal Arts and Science Credit in L&S.