Creating and Assigning Problems


We will show you how to construct your own solutions by working though a complete example.  The description here is based on the worked example under the How To section of this site.  As in that example, we will use Coca Cola as the company, and work through the topic “Fundamental (Sustainable) Growth.”  This topic illustrates some of the main uses of the Cell Editor.

So: select Coca Cola (KO) as the company, and then select the latest 10-K (which at the time of this writing was the Feb 2012 filing), and select Fundamental (Sustainable) Growth as the topic of study:


We will calculate the ROE and sustainable growth for Coca Cola on the date Dec 31, 2011, which is the latest period in the Feb 2012 10-K filing, as shown, for example, in the Consolidated Statements of Income:



So: Drag and Drop the Date Dec. 31, 2011 (with the orange background) and drop it into the blue area of the calculator.  You should see:


You can see the default value of every input field (green background) is zero.
The first field needed is the Consolidated Net Income.  This is reported on the income statement, outlined in black here:


So just drag and drop the number into the cell in the calculator, to get:


Coca Cola reports its Net Income to NCI (Non Controlling Interest) on the next line (outlined in red above), so drag and drop that into the appropriate cell.  The calculator now looks as follows:







Next, we need the Average Shareholders Equity.  The average means we take the average of the beginning of year and the end of year values (i.e. the average of Dec 31, 2010 and Dec 31, 2011).  The shareholders equity is reported on the balance sheet, so select that statement in a viewer and scrool down to see:


We have to calculate the average of 31635 and 31003.  To do this, drag them both into the calculator cell for Average Shareholders Equity.  You should see the following in the calculator and in the cell editor:



You can see that Coca Cola reports dividends as a negative number; other companies report this as a positive number.  The software expects a positive number, so after dragging and dropping the value to the calculator cell, we have to fix the sign in the Cell Editor; this is easily done by clicking the minus sign in the cell editor; it simply changes the formula to the negative of the formula and adds parentheses.  In our case, the result of clicking the minus sign is:





The formula has been adjusted to the average, and the result, 31319, transferred.
Next, we need the field Dividends Paid.  These are reported on the cash flow statement:



You can see that Coca Cola reports dividends as a negative number; other companies report this as a positive number.  The software expects a positive number, so after dragging and dropping the value to the calculator cell, we have to fix the sign in the Cell Editor; this is easily done by clicking the minus sign in the cell editor; it simply changes the formula to the negative of the formula and adds parentheses.  In our case, the result of clicking the minus sign is:




And we are done: the sustainable growth for Coca Cola is 13.64%, and the return on equity is 27.37%
Now, save your construction, using either the File menu or by clicking the Save icon in the toolbar:


You will be prompted for a file name and will be able to choose a folder where you save the file.  For this example, we will save it as follows, where we put in a description of the company and the topic in the file name to be able to easily identify it:


Now, this file with your construction can be used as a self-assessment (equivalently, worked example) file for your students, or you can use it to grade student submissions of the same problem.

Distributing it as a Self Assessment File

To use it as a self-assessment file, upload the file through e.g. Blackboard or other course management software, or email it as an attachment to your class.  The students download and save the file, and then open it from the Self-Assessment in as follows:



They can now practice the steps contained in your solution, using different levels of hints:





The steps the students would now follow are described in the How To section of this site.

Using it as solution for grading

This is extensive enough that we describe it in a separate item on this site, Grading under the Instructors menu.