FIN 470: Financial Analysis in Excel

Larry Schrenk, Instructor

Exams, Assignments, Project, and Grading Policies

Evaluation:    

Grade Scale: Please note that grades/percentages will not be ‘rounded up’ (see below) and extra credit assignments are not available.

Academic Intergrity: Any violation of academic integrity will be dealt with severely. See the WSU Integrity Oath and the Academic Integrity Policy. All assignment are subject to review through Turnitin.com for originality. (Submissions are automatically submitted to Turnitin.com.) Students caught violating any of these these principles will be subject to a failing grade for the course as well as referral to the Vice President for Student Life and Development for further disciplinary action.  

                               Plagiarism: This is "using the words or ideas of another writer without proper acknowledgment, so that they seem as if they are your own" (Academic Integrity Policy). Plagiarism includes the use of AI text generators or chatbots, such as ChatGPT, to create any material you submit in this course (paper, exams, or discussions). See the specific AI policy below. Any use of plagiarism (or any other breech of academic integrity) in this course may result in a failing grade for the entire course. More information about plagiarism can be found here.  

AI Policy and Course Chatbot

        AI Policy

           Not Allowed

• Creating any course submission (or parts thereof): papers, reports, presentations, etc. (or their outlines)

• Answering exam questions

• Answering homework questions

• Creating discussion posts

• Rewriting or changing the entire style of any submission

                             Allowed

• Using AI as a tutor or to create self-quizzes

• Finding project/paper/discussion topics

• Getting explanations of concepts/theories

• Finding resources/references/examples

• Finding/downloading data Identifying individual spelling or grammatical errors Improving selected phrasing or style issues

                         For anything else, approval is required.

                    AI Cautions

• Avoid using either your primary or school e-mail address; get a new e-mail for use with generative AI.

• Do not submit personal or sensitive information.

• AI can share your data with third parties.

• Employees may read your conversations.

• AI results often do not provide the citations required by academic integrity.

• AI can ‘hallucinate’, i.e., provide false or distorted information.

• AI can be biased especially in sensitive political or social issues.

• AI model training may violate copyright.

FIN             FIN 470 Course Chatbot

         WinSUfin470Chat is a chatbot to answer questions about FIN 470 - Financial Analysis in Excel at Winona State University. This chatbot can answer questions about the course content. You can use this to find information, explain concepts, get examples, test yourself on the material, etc.  

                    This chatbot has access to all the readings for the course. More information is available on the chatbot webpage (as well as sample questions).  

                     WARNING: This is a preliminary, beta version; absolutely no guarantees of accuracy are implied.  

                     IMPORTANT NOTES:

• Use of this chatbot is subject to the course AI Policy. You are required to read the AI policy (above) before using this chatbot. Violation of those policies will result in receiving a failing grade for the entire course.

• A chatbot is ‘no excuse’ for submitting inaccurate information. “But the chatbot said…” is not a valid excuse for submitting incorrect information in any course submission.

• I have access to all conversations with the chatbot, so I can easily check if you used the course chatbot in inappropriate ways.

• The course chatbot will not be available when either of the exams is open.  

Attendance: Attendance is required in this class. The full details will be given in class, but here are the basics:

• I will not take attendance until the second week of class.

• You will be allowed five permitted absences for the semester, which are only to be used for medical absences, job interviews, official sports participation, and other justified absences. Each additional absence will result in a deduction of 1 point (i.e., 1%) from your final course score.

• Should you have acceptable and documented reasons for missing more than five days, you are required to provide documentation covering all missed classes (including the five permitted days). Here are two examples that should make this clear:

  • Example 1: You miss 4 days due to participation in a WSU sports competition, then you are in the hospital for a week missing 3 more days of class. You have missed a total of 7 days (2 more than automatically permitted), but you can provide acceptable and documented reasons for all 7 days, so you have no penalty.

  • Example 2: You decide to skip 5 days of class without any justification. Then you get legitimately sick and miss an additional class. You do not get an additional permitted absence even if you have documentation for the sick day. The 5 permitted absences that you wasted were for covering legitimate absences, such as your sick day. If you wanted to get an additional permitted absence for the sick day, you would need to provide acceptable and documented reasons for all 6 days that you missed.

Participation: Participation is expected in this class. There is no specific grade for participation, but for students who do not participate, I reserve the right to deduct up to 10% of the final course grade. In exceptional cases, extra credit may be given for participation.

          Cell Phone Policy: Cell phones may not be used during class. Please keep them muted and stored in your backpacks or elsewhere.  

Groups: All group members normally receive the same grade for group submissions. If, however, there is a significant problem of non-participating by one or more group members, I reserve the right to lower the grades for those members or remove them from the group (which would result in their losing all credit for group work).

Exams: There are two examinations. The tests are not deliberately cumulative; however, since the course builds upon itself, concepts developed in earlier chapters will necessarily be used in later chapters. You may only use a calculator, but not the textbook, notes, crib sheets, formulae sheets, etc. You may not substitute a cell phone, tablet, computer, etc. for the calculator. The only exceptions are accommodations authorized by the University. Make-up exams will only be given if there is official documentation of an emergency, e.g., a doctor’s note. Details and dates are listed on the schedule. All exams will be taken through D2L during class, so you will need to bring your laptop to all exams. I assume that everyone has experience with this. You will also be required to use the Lockdown Browser (LDB). If you have not used this software before, it is your responsibility to download it and make sure it works before you come to class. Instructions are here.

Assignments: There will be a series of assignments completed by groups. Due dates are listed on the schedule.

Projects: Each student will do an individual Excel project that uses that software to complete a complex financial or economic project. Topics must be approved by the instructor. More information can be found here, and due dates are listed on the schedule.

Academic IntegrityStudents who commit any infraction of academic integrity are subject to failure for the entire course. 

Rounding: Let me explain my reasons for not rounding up grades. Whether or not scores are rounded up, there has to be some number that divides an A from an A-, an A- from a B+, etc. Rounding introduces potential ambiguity. That is, if you need a 90 for an A-, is 89.5 an A-. If not, is 89.55? 89.555? 89.555...? Whichever rounding method I might use can cause someone the same frustration as not rounding. If I don’t round, you get an 89.99 and a B+, you will be annoyed. If I do round up 89.55, you get an 89.54 and a B+, you will be annoyed. In my experience there are few semesters in which some student does not miss a grade cutoff by just a tiny bit. I do not round grades because I want my grading policy to be fair and clear as possible. For my class an A- is ≥ 90, and 89.99999999 is still a B+.

Evaluation: Evaluation of a student's performance in this course as a whole will be guided by the following criteria:

              A: Demonstration of superior work (written and analytical) in fulfillment of course requirements; improvement during the semester will be weighed in evaluation.

              B: Excellent work (written and analytical) in fulfillment of course requirements; improvement during the semester will be weighed in evaluation.

              C: Satisfactory work (written and analytical) in fulfillment of course requirements

              D: Assigned work is not satisfactory or not completed and/or student fails to meet minimum attendance requirements.

              F: Failure to meet minimum course goals: Examinations, participation and attendance, course project (including the submission of drafts through out the semester).