Confidentiality of student records in the electronic frontier: professors' and administrators' obligations

The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) was created to provide parents and students over the age of 18 with access to education records and to limit disclosure of those records without proper consent. Recent changes in information technology and amendments to the law itself have put FERPA in a state of flux and uncertainty. In this article we describe the rights of students and obligations of professors and administrators. We provide guidance for maintaining student information, especially in light of advances in information technology. A number of recommendations are made to help protect the rights of students as well as to minimize the likelihood of violations under the Act.     

Confidentiality of student records: The professor's obligation

Recent Federal legislation has secured more firmly the rights of students to control the accumulation and dissemination of information about them. This situation would seem to compel professors to be more knowledgeable of student rights so as not to abuse them. This paper reviews the current status of student rights vis-a-vis their educational records and discusses a potential dilemma for the professor created by the legislation which established those rights. Knowledge of the law is particularly important to the accounting professor because his or her typically close liaison between the student and employment recruiter increases the risk of violation.     

Gendiagnostikgesetz und Versicherung: Anspruch und Wirklichkeit

With the new German Gene Diagnostic Act (Gendiagnostikgesetz) the legislator aims at improving the protection of insurance applicants by prohibiting private insurers from collecting and using genetic information. However, the analysis of the new provisions shows that the provisions pertaining to insurance neither provide a comprehensive protection against genetic discrimination of insurance applicants and insured nor do they protect their right of gene-informational self-determination. Cuts of insurance benefits of the insured in private health insurance as well as incoherent disclosure obligations for insurance applicants unconstitutionally limit the rights of affected people as compared to the time before the Gene Diagnostic Act came into force. In summary, the new Gene Diagnostic Act does not only fail to meet its claims and thus falls short of the expectations, but also, due to numerous unclear provisions, poses a series of grave problems for insurance applicants, privately insured and private insurers.     

职业培训中学生档案的建立、管理和开发利用

职业培训档案是学校档案资源中的宝贵财富。职业培训档案信息价值大，技术含量高。职业培训档案如实、有效地记录了学生职业培训的整个过程，记录学校开展职业培训的历史，包含了丰富的职业培训信息资源。     

高校考试管理档案信息化建设

随着信息技术的广泛应用,档案管理也必须与时俱进,逐步走向信息化管理阶段.本文着重就高校学生作弊档案的信息化管理方式进行了探讨,从而为提高高校学生作弊档案信息化管理提供一些参考和借鉴.     

Integrating a virtual learning environment into a second-year accounting course: determinants of overall student perception

Rapid acceptance of, and changes in, information technology are revolutionizing the way educators teach and students learn. This study reports on the use of Blackboard as a tool for creating a virtual learning environment (VLE). Responses from undergraduate accounting students in New Zealand provide data on the use of the VLE as a learning aid. Findings suggest that the students have openly embraced the VLE and support its adoption by faculty members in other courses. However, students appear unwilling to actively participate in two-way online activities. This has implications for faculty contemplating the adoption of a VLE in their courses.     

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA): An emerging challenge to accounting education

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA; 1990) opens an academic door on two levels which will affect the way we provide educational services. First, employment practices for staff and faculty will require a review. Second, there will be more disabled students in our classroom. This article summarizes relevant provisions of the ADA and offers recommendations for compliance. A significant issue considered is faculty employment practices. Each of the three typical performance areas of faculty activity (research, service, and teaching) are examined. The Act also creates a new environment for instruction for the students. Access to the classroom, office hours, examination locations, research facilities, computer labs, etc., must be made available in a manner that is normally provided for all students. This article presents a graphic paradigm providing a structure for evaluation of the institutional and instructional impacts.     

公司为股东担保的法律效力及商业银行的对策建议

现行银行贷款担保中相当比例是公司为股东担保,其法律效力如何直接关系到银行贷款的安全.我国现行的法律规定并未绝对禁止公司为股东的债务提供担保.允许公司为其股东的债务提供担保既是现实经济生活之需要,亦有利于公司自身的发展,对促进债权实现和维护交易安全均具有积极作用,符合现代立法趋势.商业银行有条件地接受公司为股东提供的融资担保,有利于在防范风险的前提下拓展自己的业务领域.本文提出应修改<公司法>第60条第3款和相关法律法规,建立和完善股东表决权排除制度、董事回避制度、股东诉讼制度和担保信息披露制度,以构建和完善我国公司为股东担保制度.     

Whitehall, Westminster and Human Rights

No single institution can offer adequate protection for people's human rights. All public bodies must incorporate human rights into their procedures if proper protection is to be established. Bodies such as central government and Parliament may appear to be in confrontation with each other, but they can actually complement each other's respect for human rights. This article examines the arrangements made by Whitehall departments and Parliament to implement the Human Rights Act 1998, and suggests that both Whitehall and Westminster have significantly improved their capacities to secure respect for human rights.     

Whose rights? Professional discipline and the incorporation of a (human) rights framework: The case of ICAS

Professions typically develop disciplinary systems that allow them to caution, fine or expel members whose conduct falls below expected standards. The Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland (ICAS) has amended its disciplinary procedures following challenge under the UK's Human Rights Act 1998. This paper aims to explore the implications of the incorporation of a (human) rights’ framework on ICAS's professional discipline. Disciplinary procedures are located in the context of the nature of professions and professionalism. Human rights legislation relevant to professional discipline is examined and its impact in the context of the nature of rights in general, and human rights in particular, is explored. The ICAS disciplinary changes are discussed in the context of a Hohfeldian-type framework of a range of types of rights. ICAS's procedures are shown to be multifaceted and, when examined in terms of rights (and, where relevant, duties) provide added insight into the nature of accountancy's professional discipline, but deficiencies remain, with the public interest continuing to be subservient to the private interest of accountants and their professional body.     

The Effect of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act on Analyst Forecast Properties: The Impact of Firm Size and Growth Opportunities

Abstract:  We provide evidence that the effect of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act (the Act) of 1995 on analyst forecast properties is conditional on firm size and growth opportunities. We show that analyst coverage, frequency of forecast revisions, forecast errors and dispersion after the Act decreased for large firms and for firms with low growth opportunities but increased for small firms and for firms with high growth opportunities. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that the Act results in additional high quality disclosures in large firms, which face higher litigation risk and tighter scrutiny from investors but not in smaller firms. Our findings of increases in analyst coverage and revision but deterioration in accuracy and precision of analyst forecasts for firms with high growth opportunities after the Act suggest that in spite of increased corporate disclosures, the information environment for analysts deteriorated in those firms.     

个人信息权利的法律性质

信息技术的广泛应用使个人信息的保护受到重视。赋予个人信息法定权利是个人信息保护的基础和前提。从个人信息权利的本质属性来看,个人信息权利不是财产权,而是人格权。但是,个人信息权利应与传统的具体人格权相区别,个人信息权利不应被隐私权所替代,也与其他具体人格权保护的客体不同,个人信息权利应当是一项独立的具体人格权,只有如此,网络空间的个人信息才能够得到完整、全面的保护。     

Rural and Regional Australian Public Accounting Firm Services: Service Provision,Concerns and Tensions

Public accounting firms provide a necessary and important service for rural and regional areas. However, the provision of high‐quality services is hindered by a number of factors. This paper reports the findings from a large‐scale survey of professional accounting firm practitioners located in rural and regional Australia, identifying factors causing concerns and tensions and quantifying their scope and importance. Prominent concerns and tensions identified include adverse effects arising from the employment market, communications technology developments and legislation such as the Corporate Law Economic Reform Program (Audit Reform and Corporate Disclosure) Act 2004 and the Financial Services Reform Act 2001.     

美国金融监管的历史性变革——评析《多德-弗兰克法案》

为提升美国金融体系的稳定性和保护金融消费者利益,<多德-弗兰克华尔街改革和消费者保护法案>于2010年7月21日正式生效,该法案被认为是<格拉斯-斯蒂格尔法>以来最为重要的银行监管法案.该法案的内容主要包括加强对消费者权益的保护,预防系统性风险,改变金融机构"大而不能倒"的局面,加强对金融衍生品、信用评级机构、对冲基金...     

Custom fabric ventures: An instructional resource in job costing for the introductory managerial accounting course

Job costing is a core foundational concept in the introductory managerial accounting course. The purpose of this instructional resource (IR) is to provide a thorough hands-on, active learning resource that will allow introductory students to experience a full set of accounting and management activities necessary to produce a job and assign production costs to it. For example, the IR requires students to analyze overhead costs, determine the optimal job size, schedule production, calculate the amount of materials to purchase, complete material requisitions, update raw materials records, analyze labor time records, complete a job cost record and address critical thinking questions. The IR was developed for use in a “flipped classroom” in which students work under the guidance of the instructor, but could alternatively be assigned as an unsupervised out-of-class assignment or on-line project. Since the IR was specifically developed as a learning tool for novice introductory managerial accounting students, adequate guidance is provided throughout the activity. However, to add realism and challenge students to think beyond the confines of simple mechanics, management and accounting issues are seeded throughout. Student feedback indicates that the IR not only helps students learn how a job costing system operates, but also helps students become aware of management decisions and accounting issues that impact the costs assigned to a job.     

《社会保险法》的价值取向与制度反思

《社会保险法》是涵盖养老、医疗、失业、工伤、生育五大社保险种综合性的统一法律。支撑该法律制度的价值基础包括社会安全、社会连带、社会公平以及人权保障等。《社会保险法》构建了适度普惠型的社保体系,强化了用人单位缴纳保险费的义务,凸显了社会保险中的国家责任,加大了社会保险基金的监管力度。然而,在统筹层次、期待权保障与信赖利益保护、基金安全、社会保险给付争议的解决途径等制度构建方面,仍有进一步提升的空间。     

The New Belgian Act on Security Interests in Movable Property

The new Belgian Pledge Act of 11th July 2013 changes in a fundamental way the Belgian Civil Code as to security rights over movables. It contains a complete modernization of the legal framework regarding security rights over movables including the retention of title and the legal lien. The most important innovation is the possibility of a pledge over movable goods without dispossession of the pledger. It is expected that the new provisions will enter into force in 2015 when the new pledge register will be operational. The paper examines this reform from a comparative perspective against the background of legal harmonization in Europe.     

The Impact of Securities Litigation Reform on the Disclosure of Forward-Looking Information By High Technology Firms

This study evaluates corporate voluntary disclosure of forward-looking information under the safe harbor provision of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Using a sample of 523 computer hardware, computer software, and pharmaceutical firms, we find a significant increase in both the frequency of firms issuing earnings and sales forecasts and the mean number of forecasts issued following the Act's passage. To provide more direct evidence that our findings are attributable to the Act reducing firms' legal exposure, we develop a proxy for litigation risk and examine whether the increase in disclosure is more pronounced for firms at greatest risk of a lawsuit. As expected, we find that the change in disclosure is increasing in firms' ex ante risk of litigation. Finally, we report that the safe harbor had no adverse impact on the quality of forward-looking information. Forecast errors, whether directional or non-directional, were not significantly affected by the Act's passage.     

Die Aufdeckung des tatsächlichen Schädigungspotentials eines versicherten Risikos und das Institut der Gefahrerhöhung

Against the background of the rapid spread of new technologies such as nanotechnology to name only one, third party insurers are faced with a multitude of challenges. The reason for this is the typically totally unknown damage and thus liability potential of these technologies. In this context special focus is on the aggravation of risk and the question whether the rights included in §§ 24 f. of the German Insurance Contract Act should be granted to the insurers in the event of any future revelation of the actual damage potential. This must, however, be answered in the negative since here only the risk of an initial and not the risk of a subsequent disruption of the equivalence mandate as assigned to the insured as per §§ 23 ff. of the German Insurance Contract Act applies.     

Environmental performance and analyst information processing costs

This study tests whether the information processing costs of analysts vary positively with the environmental performance information available on the firms they follow. Consistent with this conjecture, we find that these costs increase when analysts process a wider array of environmental performance ratings. Specifically we find that as the number of environmental performance ratings increases, analysts cover fewer firms in their portfolio, provide fewer earnings-per-share (EPS) forecast revisions, and make less timely forecast revisions. Two additional tests confirm that our results relate to environmental performance information and not to confounding factors. First, the “shock” of the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 implemented for California firms in 2012 increases analyst information processing costs incremental to the main effect of environmental performance ratings. Second, analyst information processing costs increase further in the year a firm covered by an analyst provides a CSR report for the first time. Our results have implications for firm managers considering voluntary environmental disclosure and investors deciding on what stocks to include in their socially responsible portfolios because when processing costs are high, analysts will provide less information or less timely information, resulting in more gradual price discovery in capital markets.