This blog is written by Tracy Coenen who is a forensic accountant and fraud examiner in Chicago and Milwaukee. She investigates white collar crimes, including cases of financial statement fraud, embezzlement, tax fraud, and insurance fraud. Topics include: auditing and regulation, fraud news, fraud prevention, pyramid schemes and MLM, scam prevention, and work and writing.
Type of Material:
Collection
Recommended Uses:
Homework or in-class discussion
Technical Requirements:
Web Browser
Identify Major Learning Goals:
To provide access to stories and information on forensics and corporate fraud.
Target Student Population:
Senior level course on forensic accounting.
Prerequisite Knowledge or Skills:
Intermediate financial accounting
Content Quality
Rating:
Strengths:
This credible author provides audience with a “rich” summary of forensic accounting experiences that are sorely needed to supplement information in current forensic accounting textbooks. Content is very current with many functioning links to news reports concerning fraud.
Concerns:
As a blog several quality of content criteria are not applicable. For example currency of content is dependent on the frequency with which posts continue to be made. Content is not necessarily self-contained as it supplements rather than teaches concepts.
Potential Effectiveness as a Teaching Tool
Rating:
Strengths:
The site contains a wealth of current information on corporate fraud. It provides a means for linking theory to practice and the real-world. Teachers and students could learn a lot in a short time. As assigned reading, it provides content that should generate rich discussions in a forensic accounting or ethics course.
Concerns:
the Fraud Files blog primarily functions as a reference site, rather than a teaching and learning tool. As a result, no objectives have been specified, nor has prerequisite knowledge been identified. Concepts aren't necessarily reinforced progressively except when a specific case is followed for awhile. Instructors will very likely need to structure learning activities.
Ease of Use for Both Students and Faculty
Rating:
Strengths:
The author's website is a professionally crafted blog and very well organized. It is easy to use and incorporates graphics with text, making the site quite visually appealing. By clicking on the Archives tab, users have access to posts dating back to November of 2005.
Concerns:
This module is not really a learning object and has no interactivity other than posting comments in response to the author's commentaries. So much content exists, one can become overwhelmed rather quickly.
Creative Commons:
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