Abstract:

At the end of the 2019 year, the national office of the World Health Organisation in the Republic of China registered a press release of the medical committee of the city of Wuhan on cases of "viral pneumonia". In several months this new viral disease becomes COVID-19 pandemic that causes a crisis of planetary proportions that fundamentally changes the known and usual postulates of human existence, life, work, and consequently educational processes.

In March 2020, in line with global epidemiological trends all teaching activities at higher education institutions has been cancelled. At the School of Economics and Business (SEBS) that was a sign to suspend all traditional face-to-face teaching models. Management of SEBS made necessary decisions, legal base, and operational steps to assure academic continuity and activate emergency remote teaching through switching to the learning management system and virtual classroom platforms.

This paper is presenting research on validating educational strategies implemented during a forced national-wide lockdown, by exploring factors that determine the satisfaction of SEBS students with Emergency Remote Teaching settings implemented with a Moodle LMS and Big Blue Button Virtual Classroom. Research data are acquired by using an online survey instrument with more than a thousand respondents, and statistical analysis was applied to determine the relationship between these questions, giving results similar to those obtained through data science tools.

Such insights about student feedback represent useful information for teachers and management of higher education institutions on how to make a successful transition from Emergency Remote Teaching to real online learning.

Keywords:

Effectiveness of online education, online instructional methods, student perception, emergency online teaching, quality of online education, COVID-19.