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Peer Review

Deloitte's IFRS e-learning

Reviewed:

Jan 3, 2010 by Business
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Ratings

Overall Rating: 4.8 stars
Content Quality: 5.0 stars
Effectiveness: 5.0 stars
Ease of Use: 4.5 stars
Overview:

Deloitte has developed a series of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) training modules which are offered free as a public service upon registration at their website. A total of 37 separate modules exist on the following topics:
  • Using IFRS e-learing,
  • IAS1 (presentation of financial statements),
  • IAS2 (inventories),
  • IAS7 (cash flow statements),
  • IAS8 (accounting policies, changes in accounting estimates and errors),
  • IAS10 (events after the balance sheet date),
  • IAS11 (construction contracts),
  • IAS12 (income taxes),
  • IAS14 (segment reporting),
  • IAS16 (property, plant, and equipment),
  • IAS17 (leases),
  • IAS18 (revenue),
  • IAS19 (employee benefits),
  • IAS21 (the effects of changes in foreign exchange rates),
  • IAS23 (borrowing costs),
  • IAS24 (related party disclosures),
  • IAS27 (consolidated and separate financial statements),
  • IAS28 (investments in associates),
  • IAS 29 (financial reporting in hyperinflationary economies),
  • IAS31 (financial reporting of interests in joint ventures),
  • IAS32 (effects of changes in foreign exchange rates),
  • IAS32/39 (accounting for financial instruments),
  • IAS32/39 (hedge accounting,
  • IAS32/39 (derecognition of financial instruments,
  • IAS33 (earnings per share),
  • IAS34 (interim fnancial reporting),
  • IAS36 (impairment of assets),
  • IAS37 (provisions, contingent liabilities and contingent assets),
  • IAS38 (intangible assets),
  • IAS40 (investment property),
  • IAS 41 (agriculture),
  • IFRIC12 (service concession agreements),
  • IFRS1 (first time adoption),
  • IFRS2 (share-based payments),
  • IFRS3 (business combinations),
  • IFRS5 (non-current assets held for sale and discontinued operations),
  • IFRS8 (operating segments.
Type of Material:

Tutorials
Recommended Uses:

Individualized instruction; continuing professional education for accountants and accounting educators.
Technical Requirements:

  • Flash 6.0.47.0 and above
  • 32 bit Windows 95/98/2000/NT4 (Service Pack 3+)/XP. Vista as of Spring 2009.
  • Internet Explorer 5, 5.5, 6. With IE7, the Action Planner will not launch. Firefox browser used for review purposes.
  • ActiveX and Java installed.
  • Pop-ups enabled.
Identify Major Learning Goals:

Understanding and applying the IFRS and IAS standards. Each module identifies specific learning goals in its Overview segment.
Target Student Population:

Accounting majors at the junior, senior or graduate level. Business and accounting professionals. College educators.
Prerequisite Knowledge or Skills:

Intermediate accounting courses.

Content Quality

Rating:
Strengths:

Outstanding alternative to learning from a textbook. Each tutorial presents content by providing an Overview followed by a section that defines relevant terms. Next, user's encounter scenarios which require the ability to apply the standard. Users deal with work at hand by answering questions, providing assistance to clients, writing documents, and preparing for meetings. To move through a scenario, users must answer questions correctly.

Each module provides a complete demonstration of concepts addressed. In addition to being extremely timely, they are clear, concise, and accurate. Content is kept to a minimum to avoid being overwhelming, but is sufficiently adequate to achieve the desired results.

Concerns:

None

Potential Effectiveness as a Teaching Tool

Rating:
Strengths:

Each module presents content using interactive cased based (scenario) pedagogy. For example, users click on email received by the protagonist in the slides and then take the appropriate action to respond to a client's request. Multiple attempts are allowed to solve each scenario. A coaching feature can be used to obtains hints. The correct solution can also be displayed for comparison to the user’s answer. Assessment takes the form of multiple choice questions and multiple response items. Review suggestions are provided for those who do not achieve a score of at least 70%.

Each module specifies learning objectives, reinforces concepts progressively, demonstrates relationships between concepts in an outstanding fashion. Each module is an extremely efficient way for professionals, faculty, and to learn the international financial reporting standards and the international accounting standards.

Concerns:

None

Ease of Use for Both Students and Faculty

Rating:
Strengths:

  • Content is well organized and professionally presented. Graphics are outstanding. Content can be printed.
  • The series has a demo module to teach users how to use the software.
  • Bookmarking and keyword searching features exist. Tabs within each slide provide access to additional information if desired.
  • Interactivity is achieved by working through scenarios that require accessing emails, faxes, phone calls, memos, and voice mail; answering multiple choice questions, dragging and dropping items into the proper categories.
  • Each scenario has an accompanying Toolkit that provides background about the client, references, a "coach me" facility, a clue feature, relevant examples, and necessary software (Word and Excel).
  • Progress through each module is tracked by a rectangular box that gradually fills as each segment is completed.
  • A score of 70% is required to successfully pass a module and print a certificate of successful completion. If users do not pass, they are given their score and a list of "Coach Me" sessions to review.
  • Feedback can be sent to the developers.
Concerns:

  • Launching the modules can be quite troublesome. Pop-ups must be enabled. Temporarily enabling them does not seem to work. Given the time of day a module is launched, viewers may need to wait several minutes before it opens. Despite a 270 Mbps Internet cable connection launching may be very slow, such that users may mistakenly believe the module won't open.
  • The instructions for downloading the material are not concise enough and the modules should be usable with any browser.
  • No sound has been incorporated.
Other Issues and Comments:

Launching a module can be troublesome. See Ease of Use Concern. Otherwise, these modules are truly outstanding e-learning tools. This discussion is based on reviews of the IAS2, IAS7, and IAS9 modules.
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