A Warm Welcome to You All

Welcome to our new and returning students, I hope you have a fun and studious year.  Over the course of this academic year I hope to use this blog to offer a few useful facts and bits of information, to help you and point you in the right direction and to give you another method of contacting me and hopefully you will teach me something new as well.

I look forward to working with you all and in case you need them my other contact details can be found here: http://lrweb.beds.ac.uk/help/ALLs/claire-carter

This just made me smile.

I was actually browsing the web for freely available images under copyright rules and came across this article.  There is an argument that what the chap did was a bit sneaky however most people like a win for the small man.  Just a bit of light reading to break up all of that AMP and dissertation research/writing.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/read-the-small-print-credit-card-user-sets-his-own-limit--then-sues-bank-for-closing-account-8753602.html

Profitable Olympics

I came across this little article this morning whilst browsing the BBC website.  Although it obviously has a marketing slant I thought some of you might be interested in the companies mentioned and whether or not they've profited from the amounts invested in advertising at the Olympics.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-23403170

LSE's IPO Upturn

Here's a rather dry post this hot and sunny afternoon but there is a little story from Reuters on the success of the London Stock Exchange's recent IPOs (for those not doing their AMPs, Initial Public Offerings).

I'll let you read it while I go and turn on a fan somewhere...

Reuters.com - London Stock Exchange boosted by acquisition, IPO upturn

ACCA-ctually Useful for AMPs

Whilst having a browse around the media centre part of the ACCA webpage (http://www.accaglobal.com) I noticed some articles and webinars that may be useful for some of your AMPs.

Although the webinars have been held, if you register using the form provided you are emailed a link to the presentation that was given during the webinar.  It also then has sections at the bottom titled: PDFs, speaker bio and resources giving you a wealth of further information on the topic.  

Currently there are four webinar presentations to choose from, they can be found at the bottom right hand side of the media centre page.

There were also some articles that caught my eye matching some of the AMP topics I've seen.  This month's edition of Accounting and Business has articles on evaluating your organisation, whether the best leaders are born or raised as well as an article on the uses of social media.  

Its a good site to get into the habit of using regularly to keep up to date.  

PS: If you need help referencing a webinar take a look in the referencing bible Cite Them Right, found on the library shelves at 808PEA.

PPP defined

Public-private partnerships (2008) Key concepts in governance. Retrieved from Credo Reference Database via http://library.beds.ac.uk ( accessed on 29th May 2013 )

Those of you whose AMP topic concerns Public Private Partnerships success and failure may be finding some of the academic journal articles on the topic difficult to digest. This was certainly my experience anyway. Try to start with something more plainly written, such as Credo Reference maybe.Key concepts in governance appears to be a good starting point and gives a good Definition, Context, Debate & short bibliography on the topic. Specific examples of PPP projects might be found on Newsbank

Clever Accounting

Do you think graduates could pay more towards their loans?  Did you realise that your loans are protecting the NHS and education funding?  

A Times Higher Education article discusses the impact of the Government's accounting methods in regards to student loans and numbers.  (Morgan, 2013).

You can access the article directly from the THE or through LexisNexis.  Both have links from our catalogue or the Digital Library pages.

Just as an aside the article also cites another paper from Contemporary British History and is a good example of where a reference at the end would be helpful.  However the cited article is available on open access from Taylor and Francis: you can find it using GoogleScholar and I've referenced it for you below.  

Morgan, J. (2013) "History Boy Lauds Clever Accounting", Times Higher Education, No. 2 (101) 16-22 May, p7.

Hillman, N. (2013) 'From grants for all to loans for all: undergraduate finance from the implementation of the Anderson report (1962) to the implementation of the Browne report (2012)'. Contemporary British History, DOI:10.1080/13619462.2013.783418  Online. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13619462.2013.783418  [Accessed online 29th May 2013]

Auditors can't hide from FAME.

FAME now includes wide-ranging coverage of senior auditors.  You can now search for companies by the individual who signed of the most recent audit using all or part of a surname.

 Over 113,000 company VAT numbers and the accounting reference date (indicating when the next set of annual accounts is due to be filed) have been added to Fame. To view this information click on the ‘Legal and accounts info’ tab in the company report.   

Access to FAME via the Library catalogue, or from the Accountancy Subject Guide pages on LRWeb. 

High Street not dead shocker

According to the BBC Business Website (2013) 90% of shopping in the UK was done in stores and shops, as opposed to online.

Several online retailers, such as Oak Furniture Land, which began life online in 2003 have opened warehouse stores where customers can browse their products.

This trend towards 'showrooming' has also worked for fashion chains, such as Top Shop where customers wish to see the merchandise before they buy.

Do you think that one day booksellers may return to the Luton streets ? John Smiths have successfully opened a store in the Luton Mall after Waterstones closed a while ago. The former Waterstones store was replaced by the 99p Shop !

For more stories like this, try a search for "showrooming" on the Newsbank database, available through the library catalogue.

Reference

Wearn, R (2013) Online shops take stock and move into the High Street [BBC News Business]
http:www.bbc.co.uk/news/business~2240652 accessed on 15th May 2013