{"id":28435,"date":"2020-02-11T05:30:59","date_gmt":"2020-02-11T11:30:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/?p=28435"},"modified":"2020-02-10T22:50:58","modified_gmt":"2020-02-11T04:50:58","slug":"revamped-accounting-technology-class-preparing-apsu-students-with-state-of-the-art-industry-tools","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/2020\/02\/11\/revamped-accounting-technology-class-preparing-apsu-students-with-state-of-the-art-industry-tools\/","title":{"rendered":"Revamped accounting technology class preparing APSU students with state-of-the-art industry tools"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"AustinClarksville, TN<\/strong> – Austin Peay State University (APSU) assistant professor of accounting Dr. Brandon Di Paolo Harrison tries to keep a straight face when he gives the students in his advanced technology for accounting class their first assignment.<\/p>\n

\"Dr.<\/a>

Dr. Brandon Di Paolo Harrison<\/p><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

It seems simple enough \u2013 plug the data he provides into an Excel spreadsheet \u2013 but Di Paolo Harrison doesn\u2019t let them know just how big the data set is.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s too large for Excel,\u201d he said, breaking into a smile. \u201cSo, I give it to them, and when it crashes Excel they all freak out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Later, when he introduces the students to Microsoft\u2019s business analytics tool Power BI, he gives them the same massive data set that crashed Excel. The students are always hesitant to upload the data.<\/p>\n

\u201cI give them the exact same data set, and it loads in less than five seconds in Power BI,\u201d Di Paolo Harrison said.<\/p>\n

Three years ago, the APSU College of Business redesigned its advanced technology for accounting course to better align with the industry\u2019s growing need to interpret and analyze big data. Now, thanks to this course, the college is graduating more students who are familiar with the innovative new tools being used by working professionals. Under the new curriculum, students learn about Advanced Excel, Big Data Analytics and Microsoft Power BI.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re taking some of our technology-based accounting courses and moving them to the next level so students aren\u2019t surprised when they graduate,\u201d Di Paolo Harrison said. \u201cWe go through big data, where they have to clean data, find anomalies, and we get into Microsoft Power BI and they create dashboards analyzing data from an accounting business perspective.\u201d<\/p>\n

For one assignment, the students examined the data for birds striking airplanes. Using these new tools, they were able to dig deeper into the numbers and look at the different types of birds that strike airplanes and the altitude where a bird strike doesn\u2019t cause serious damage.<\/p>\n

[320left]\u201cThey had to see from a business and accounting perspective where the risk point was,\u201d Di Paolo Harrison said. \u201cAbove 10,000 feet, is it safer? We can look at what factors \u2013 altitude, different types of plane, even type of bird \u2013 led to increased damage.\u201d<\/p>\n

The redesigned class, which is offered only in the fall, is proving to be so popular that outside agencies are asking the APSU business professor for potential interns who can teach them how to use this new technology.          <\/p>\n

\u201cThe students, they got it and loved it,\u201d Di Paolo Harrison said. \u201cI had a couple of them that instead of playing Candy Crush at home, they’re playing in Power BI.\u201d<\/p>\n

For information on the class, contact Di Paolo Harrison at dipaolob@apsu.edu<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clarksville, TN – Austin Peay State University (APSU) assistant professor of accounting Dr. Brandon Di Paolo Harrison tries to keep a straight face when he gives the students in his advanced technology for accounting class their first assignment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[23,4640,262,34116,512,825,34509],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4xGYI-7oD","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28435"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28435"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28435\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28436,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28435\/revisions\/28436"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}