Critical Factors Of Success In Curriculum Enhancement In The Accounting Curriculum Using SAP R/3

Education is a well recognized aspect of an enterprise system implementation. How to educate, what to educate, when to educate, and who to educate are common questions that get raised. As an example, of particular importance in an enterprise system context is the balance between learning how to use the system itself and in understanding the integration and process concepts behind the system. As the go-live date fast approaches and budgets are running tight, firms often limit or eliminate the concepts, such as education, and focus on the keystrokes so that employees will be able to use the system. Saint Joseph's University, a liberal arts university in the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania area, recently implemented SAP R/3 within its accounting curriculum. This implementation was done in phases and at each point during the rollout, a user questionnaire was used to assess the learning skills and abilities of the students. In the early stages of this rollout, keystrokes and navigation became paramount as students learned the menu paths and reporting information available within the system. In later courses, the skills were transparent to analysis of information as students attempted to make business decisions using a case simulation. An assessment was done before and after each course, which assisted the instructors in knowing what to emphasize and when. The purpose of this paper is to outline the structure of this delivery and the lessons learned from field experience.