The Cat’z Meow

A study in interdepartmental collaboration in developing a

computer game for Principles of Accounting

About us

• Susann Cuperus, CPA, CFE– Assistant professor of accounting

• Jennifer Fennewald, MBA, MSCIS, MHRM– Instructor of computer information

systems

• Rhoda Sautner, PhD, CPA– Assistant professor of accounting

Please ask questions along the way!

About GTSB - U Mary

• Private Catholic School in Bismarck ND

• Offer undergraduate degrees in 8 business / technology areas

• Also offer MS in business and MBA

• Nearly 1,100 students last year between the traditional campus and online

In the beginning…• Discussion about finding a different

way to make learning basic journal entries fun

• Have used Monopoly for years– But the transactions are limited,

repetitive, and time consuming to grade

• Wouldn’t it be great to build a game with technology since that is where the students live?– We decided on a service business –

mobile pet grooming and the name Catz Meow was born.

CIS 356• Jennifer’s course in JAVA

programming includes practical experience in building computer programs

• One of the groups was interested in taking on the project for the semester (year!)– Meet Lance, Andrew & Bryan

• They were enthusiastic and brought some great ideas to the table

The program takes shape

• We met with the students every other week to see their progress, answer questions, and give them feedback

• They learned that some of their original ideas had to be scaled back, at least for now, as they had to work out getting the program to run accurately

• A look at the initial product…

The process continues• During the second

semester in CIS 357, the students continued to work out the bugs and hoped to add more graphics to make the game more appealing

• In mid-semester we brought a class of ACC 101 students to the lab to play the game and give them more feedback

• We also had the students in CIS 107, beginning programming, sit in and the student programmers talked with them about the process they were going through

Lessons learned

• Professors– Communication of our

vision of the program– Time needed for

providing information and feedback

– Taking a project manager role vs. facilitator role

– The use of the program in class and expanding to other courses

• Programmers– Real world application– Disconnect between

client and programmers’ expectations

– Initial estimate of what they could accomplish in a semester

– “learned more from the project than could have from a textbook”

Where we are and where we are going

• Let’s see what the game looks like today

• Next steps:• Turn the

programming over to the next CIS 356 students to add more advanced features and levels

• Sharing of game beyond U Mary???

Thank you for your time!Have a great conference