We present an in-class scenario-based exercise by which accounting information systems students learn about the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission (COSO) 2013 Framework. Students are randomly assigned to groups of three to five, and each group receives a list of 17 principles and 17 scenarios. These scenarios are based on emerging technology environments and are designed to illustrate the key ideas in each of the five components. Each group categorizes the principles and scenarios into the five components. For each scenario, students are expected to (1) review the key framework components and principles, (2) understand how each component relates to real-world implementation scenarios, and (3) identify potential internal control weaknesses and risk mitigation. Discussions are video-recorded to evaluate the in-class exercise and fine-tune subsequent exercises. Ultimately, this exercise can help students understand the COSO 2013 Framework in emerging technology environments.

SYNOPSIS This paper aims at adopting process mining to evaluate the effectiveness of internal control using a real-life event log. Specifically, the evaluation is based on the full population of an event log and it contains four analyses: (1) variant analysis that identifies standard and non-standard variants, (2) segregation of duties analysis that examines whether employees violate segregation of duties controls, (3) personnel analysis that investigates whether employees are involved in multiple potential control violations, and (4) timestamp analysis that detects time-related issues including weekend activities and lengthy process duration. Results from the case study indicate that process mining could assist auditors in identifying audit-relevant issues such as non-standard variants, weekend activities, and personnel who are involved in multiple violations. Process mining enables auditors to detect potential risks, ineffective internal controls, and inefficient processes. Therefore, process mining generates a new type of audit evidence and could revolutionize the current audit procedure.

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