The study group project is concerned with the accounting and other, related information about the operations of a not-for-profit organization or government. In this project, you and your fellow group members are invited to use the web and other resources to gather information about a particular not-for-profit organization group of organizations, or a government.
Discuss your findings among your group, and come to a conclusion based on them. Present the findings of your team in a 2–3 page position paper in the class conference so other students can view and comment on it.
Your position paper should discuss a topic relevant to accounting in federal, state, or local governments; domestic or foreign not-for-profit organizations; foreign governments; or supranational organizations. For example, your group may want to compare the efficiency and effectiveness of two large philanthropic organizations based on the information and criteria you have gathered. Or you may want to consider how do the standards proposed by the GASB for governments correspond to those set down by the FASB for not-for-profit organizations.
You may search for information through course materials or in documents related to your own professional experience in not-for-profit organizations. If using the web for information gathering, you may locate appropriate organizations through any of the following URLs:
Your faculty member will measure your participation and that of the other group members by monitoring the written discussions and the documents shown in the part of the web classroom assigned to each study group. Your grade for the position paper will constitute 50% of your participation grade (10% of your total grade for the course).
The paper will be graded on the basis of (1) content; (2) grammar, spelling, and continuity; (3) use of citations within the paper; and (4) appropriate authoritative sources.
In using information derived from web-accessible resources, you should evaluate the information you obtain and be careful to maintain academic integrity.
To evaluate information, consider the source and whether the source is authoritative. For example, information published in refereed journals available in databases accessible through the web is generally more authoritative than author-published information. While this is not always true, additional skepticism should be applied when evaluating nontraditional web sources. Students should consider whether the author or publisher may be biased due to competitive pressures, financial interests, or political agendas. Such points of view may be valid, but conflicts of interest should be disclosed.
To maintain academic integrity, students should be mindful of inadvertent plagiarism. Text should not simply be extracted from sources and inserted into a position paper. Rather the concepts, ideas, and arguments of the author should be reflected upon and paraphrased with appropriate citation of the source. Direct quotes may be appropriate in certain circumstances, but they should be limited (especially in a paper of this size) and properly cited and referenced.