Impact of the Covid-19 Pandemic on the Use of Microsoft 365 and Learning Outcomes at the Technical University of Moldova

Abstract

Faced with the restrictions imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic, universities, as providers of higher education, have been forced to provide their students exclusively through a digital interface. For this, the institutions were challenged to select resources and platforms to support online education. The World Health Organization (WHO) advocates for research focusing on the impact and prediction of post-Covid evolution on education, in order to obtain adequate explanations for these challenges. The Technical University of Moldova (UTM) is the only technical higher education institution in the Republic of Moldova. TUM invests continuously in information technology infrastructure, as well as in the digital education of both students and academics. The aim of the study is to evaluate the university potential, from the perspective of digital technologies, in providing now, but also in the future, e-Learning. The most dominant form of providing learning content to TUM, during the pandemic, was online lectures via real-time video conferencing, which is confirmed by the continuous increase in the number of active MTeams users. And e-Learning did not negatively influence students' learning. The obtained results show that TUM has demonstrated its potential to ensure the continuity and good development of the teaching process during the pandemic, maintaining the good quality of studies.