Business Data Management and Communication

In this course, you will learn the foundations of financial accounting information. You will start your journey with a general overview of what financial accounting information is and the main financial statements. You will then learn how to code financial transactions in financial accounting language. In the meantime, you will learn about the most important concept in contemporary financial accounting: accrual accounting. You will then critically analyze how firms recognize revenues. Finally, you will finish the course with an analysis of accounting for short-term assets, where you will go into detail on how firms account for accounts receivable and inventories. Upon successful completion of this course, you will be able to: • Understand the main financial statements and the financial information • Write a financial transaction in financial accounting language and understand how this impacts the main financial statements • Understand how accrual accounting and fundamental accounting concepts work • Understand revenue recognition principles and how they impact the main financial statements • Account for accounts receivable and inventories. This course is part of the iMBA offered by the University of Illinois, a flexible, fully-accredited online MBA at an incredibly competitive price. For more information, please see the Resource page in this course and go to onlinemba.illinois.edu.

In this course, you will explore advanced topics in financial accounting. You will start your journey with accounting for assets with more than a 1-year life. You will learn in detail how firms account for fixed assets. You will then move on to the financing of assets and discuss accounting for liabilities. The course will continue with an in-depth exploration of shareholders’ equity. Finally, you will critically evaluate the preparation, components, and analysis of the cash flows statement. Upon successful completion of this course, you will be able to • account for fixed assets, • understand accounting for liabilities, • evaluate shareholders’ equity section of a balance sheet, and • understand preparation and information provided by cash flows statement. This course is part of the iMBA offered by the University of Illinois, a flexible, fully-accredited online MBA at an incredibly competitive price. For more information, please see the Resource page in this course and onlinemba.illinois.edu.

This course introduces students to the science of business analytics while casting a keen eye toward the artful use of numbers found in the digital space. The goal is to provide businesses and managers with the foundation needed to apply data analytics to real-world challenges they confront daily in their professional lives. Students will learn to identify the ideal analytic tool for their specific needs; understand valid and reliable ways to collect, analyze, and visualize data; and utilize data in decision making for their agencies, organizations or clients.

Thriving in the Information Age compels organizations to deploy information as an actual business asset, not as an IT asset or merely as a business byproduct. This demands creativity in conceiving and implementing new ways to generate economic benefits from the wide array of information assets available to an organization. Unfortunately, information too frequently is underappreciated and therefore underutilized. This first course in the two-part Infonomics series provides a non-technical perspective on and methods for understanding and taking advantage of information’s unique economic characteristics. Starting with dissecting whether the information is or isn’t an asset or even property, students will begin to appreciate the challenges and opportunities with treating it as one. Then the course examines how information behaves in the context of various familiar micro-economic concepts, and what can be gleaned from this to improve the way information is managed and leveraged. This leads to exploring the various ways information can generate economic benefits—or be monetized, including how various styles of business analytics can increase information’s potential and realized value for organizations.

Even decades into the Information Age, accounting practices yet fail to recognize the financial value of information. Moreover, traditional asset management practices fail to recognize information as an asset to be managed with earnest discipline. This has led to a business culture of complacence, and the inability for most organizations to fully leverage available information assets. This second course in the two-part Infonomics series explores how and why to adapt well-honed asset management principles and practices to information, and how to apply accepted and new valuation models to gauge information’s potential and realized economic benefits. In addition, the course will enlighten students on the critical but confounding issues of information ownership, property rights, and sovereignty. The course will wrap up with an overview of emergent roles for the information-savvy organization of the 21st century.