eXtensible Business Reporting Language, XBRL, was the topic of a presentation at the Mississippi Society of Certified Public Accountant's annual Educators' Symposium.

Dr. Mark Lehman, Associate Professor of Accountancy, provided participants with an introduction to XBRL concepts and demonstrate newly-developed software to "markup" a financial statement for submission to the Security and Exchange Commission.

"XBRL is a markup language similar to the HTML that drives web page design," according to Dr. Lehman. "But instead of instructing the computer how to display the information, XBRL provides details about what the information is so that database query engines can perform automated searches."

Dr. Lehman also demonstrated DragonTag, a program created by Rivet Software. Participants, mostly accounting educators, were given guidance on how to begin introducing their students to XBRL. "Like the early stages of web development, we heard about the future of HTML for several years before software was introduced to make the process user friendly. For XBRL, that time is now," stated Dr. Lehman.

The MSCPA Educators' Conference was held in Jackson on November 2, 2006.