This paper introduces the three core areas of finance -- financial management, investments, and capital markets and institutions. The paper also examines applications of corporate finance concepts to personal finance.

Lectures

The lectures will be delivered in FLEXI. Whilst I encourage in-person attendance, you can also join online via the Webcast option in Panopto for a live lecture broadcast (Please refer to the "FLEXI Information" section on Moodle for the details). Students are strongly encouraged to attend lectures in person or watch the live stream (Webcast) of the lecture each week. Lecture attendance will need to be recorded and this will be enabled during a short window in each lecture, to be announced by your lecturer during the lecture. Note that the window for recording your attendance may not necessarily be at the same time for each lecture. The lecturer has an extra credit policy for in-person and online live attendance (see the "Lecture Attendance" section on Moodle for the details).

The lecture will be recorded via Panapto, and the video will be available on Moodle after the lecture. Students may use the videos as a tool to review the contents.

We will discuss one chapter per week (see Timetable below for the details). To help your learning, I will chunk down the contents of each chapter into multiple sections. Each section will cover one or two specific topics for around 10-20 minutes.

In the lectures, I will provide quick access to the whys and hows of dealing with the questions in finance. I will offer easy-to-understand information, including equations and examples that can be quickly applied to the problems of finance.

The PowerPoint slides are uploaded onto Moodle for students to download before lectures. The slides with handwritten notes will also be uploaded to Moodle after each lecture. I hope the slides with notes may save your time in copying my notes, so they can concentrate on understanding the course materials during the lectures.

Tutorials

The tutorials will be scheduled on-campus and online (The students need to do the tutorial selection through Moodle). The students are encouraged to attend the scheduled tutorials on campus.

All students should attend one tutorial session each week. These sessions are conducted by tutors who are senior students. Tutorials normally include revision of lecture material and exemplar questions for the tests. The tutors will be available to assist students in completing these tutorial questions and to answer any other questions about the topic.

The PowerPoint slides are uploaded onto Moodle for students to download before the tutorials. The slides with answers will also be uploaded to Moodle after each tutorial.

Extra credit:

I strongly encourage students to attend lectures in person or watch the live stream of the lecture each week because the regular study may help their learning (i.e., avoiding the unstudied contents to accumulate up).

Students who achieve a 75% attendance rate and above will receive 5% bonus points for their tests. We have two tests, Test I and Test II. Extra credits for lecture attendance before (after) teaching recess will be accounted into Test I (Test II). The maximum mark for Test I and Test II is 100%.

We have the same extra credit policy for tutorial attendance, i.e., 5% extra credits for each test and a 75% attendance threshold.

To record lecture attendance, the lecturer will use the "Attendance Module" on Moodle (see "Lecture Attendance" Section on Moodle for the details).

To record tutorial attendance, the tutors will do a roll call in the class.

Content/Foundational Skill

Both critical-thinking and problem-solving questions will be included in Test I, Test II and Group Assignment.

The critical-thinking questions (i.e., short essay questions) will be evaluated by Communication Skills, Professionalism and Innovation. There is an expectation that students demonstrate academic integrity when they attempt the assignments in this paper. Moreover, referencing academic research articles to answer the questions will be rewarded in terms of marks (But referencing non-academic websites, such as Investopedia, will not have a reward). The design is to motivate students to achieve effective academic reading. The critical-thinking questions also allow for the evaluation of effective academic reading by students as their answers will demonstrate their understanding of the concepts explored in the paper. And the short essay questions require students to demonstrate their business writing ability.

For the problem-solving questions (i.e., calculation questions), students are required to show all their workings. These questions require students to perform calculations on data and then to demonstrate their understanding of the numbers calculated, thus equipping students with numeracy skills/using data.

Lecture slides, tutorial resources and related teaching materials will be available in Moodle.

The course has 36 (3 X 12) contact hours (lectures and tutorials). The rest of the 150 hours expected workload in this 15-point paper can be distributed as follows: 20 hours to complete the Assignment, 20 hours to prepare for and attend Quizzes, 34 hours to prepare for and attend Test I and 40 hours to prepare for and attend Test II.

There is a significant interrelationship between finance and non-finance areas. First, finance and accounting are related since accounting information is needed for finance decisions. Second, finance and economics are related because economic activity and policy affect finance decisions, and vice versa. Finance and management are related because the management decisions, such as setting salary, hiring new staff and paying bonuses must be coordinated with finance. Finance and information systems are related because finance decisions rely on information. Last but not least, there are the four p's of marketing, product, price, place and promotion. Clearly, the price and promotion, e.g., advisement are related to finance.