Pandemic Shift: Impact of Covid-19 on IS/Microsoft Office Specialist Excel Certification Exam Classes: Remote Testing and Lessons Learned

The corona virus (Covid-19) caused serious havoc on society impacting all industries resulting in major changes in business practices, operations, and policy. In the case of academia, at a moment’s notice, all universities that used face to face instruction were forced to move to an online format and make serious modification to successful courses. This paper documents a successful certification course structure and reports the experience and results of moving that course in Excel comprehension (certification) from traditional face to face to online. In addition, this paper provides a discussion into the strategies used for remote testing and teaching. Overall, the Covid-19 sections were not as successful as previous traditional sections. This paper concludes with lessons learned that can be helpful for future remote or online course deliveries.