Microsoft Office Product Certification - a Guide to Assist Faculty

Microsoft Office Product Certification - A Guide to Assist Faculty

Bryan School of Business and Economics

The University of North Carolina at Greensboro

Introduction
The Bryan School of Business and Economics is offering its studentsthe opportunity to become certified in Microsoft Office Suite products at no cost to the student. The certification is from a site license fromCertiport, the company endorsed by Microsoft as the sole provider of Microsoft Specialist (MOS) certification exams. The MOS certification exams are offered for Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, Outlook and Notes. In addition to MOS level certification, Expert level exams and certification are offered for Word and Excel. At the current time, the Bryan School is mainly focused Excel certification, however, the other exams are available as well.

Each time a student “sits” for an exam and either passes or fails an exam, the Bryan School uses one of its licenses. The number of licenses is limited to 500 licenses ayear; therefore, it is important that students who sit for a certification exam are well-prepared to pass the exam. Research has shown that students are more likely to practice the certification exams if they can practice taking exams similar to the actual certification exam. In addition to taking the certification exam, the Bryan School has purchased a site license for students to practice taking MS Office product practice exams. The software is from GMetrix, and it is recommended by Certiport as an important tool to help students prepare for the certification exams.
Certification Process in the Bryan School

A process has been developed for Bryan School students to become certified. For purposes of MS Office product certification, a Bryan School student is defined as a student working to complete a degree program or certificate in the Bryan School. Temporarily, because license usage is not near capacity, the Bryan School is also permitting students to take the practice exams and sit for the certification exams that are not enrolled in Bryan School programs or certificates. But these students should be taking ISM 110, 210 or other courses offering credit for learning Excel.

The first step is that students request a free practice exam access code at the Bryan School MS Office product certification web page. Upon requesting the code, the student receives an email with the code and instructions for downloading and installing the software. After successfully installing the software and logging into the software, the progress of the student when taking the exams can be monitored to see how many attempts have been taken and the scores received on practice exams taken. The code permits up to 100 uses which is likely more than sufficient for most practice applications, but this limit can be increased if needed. The practice software allows students to take the exam in either a testing or training mode. The student receives immediate feedback from each practice test taken including a final overall score. Once the student feels confident that a score of 80 or higher can be earned, the student can take the next step and request a “Final Code” to take a qualifying practice exam. After receiving this qualifying practice exam code, the student is allowed three (3) attempts to earn a score of 80 or higher. Students receiving a “passing” score are added to the list of those eligible to take the actual certification exam, generally offered once a month. The exams are being administered in the 221 Bryan and 211 Bryan School computer labs using Console 8 software that has been installed on each computer.

Using G’Metrix in the Classroom

Bryan School faculty are encouraged to help students become certified in MS Office products, especially Excel. For a faculty member that wants to offer custom practice exams, covering certain topics in Excel, you will need to access theG’Metrix administrator portal login. This will permitthe creation of custom exams and allow the faculty member to monitor each student’s progress. Please contact Daniel Winkler if you would like to be added as an administrator so that you can implement practice exams in your classes. You will be able to give your students access codes to take practice exams outside of class, and also, access codes for in-class exams. The following videos will help you learn how to use the G’Metrix software:

Part 1: Introduction to G’Metrix

Part 2: Creating a Custom Test

Part 3: Groups and Reports

Part 4: Student View of Practice Exams

In addition to these videos, useful webinars are available at the Certiport web site.

If you do not want to use the G’Metrix software, but would like to give extra credit for making a grade of 80 or higher on the practice qualifying exam, please contact the Bryan School G’Metrix administrator at with the names of the students in your class who have claimed to pass the practice qualification exam. You will receive verification that these students have passed. If you want to give extra credit to students who pass the actual certification exam, please contact Daniel Winkler with the names of students claiming to have passed the actual certification exam including the dates when the students took the exam.

Conclusion
Thank you for your interest and support to help our students acquire MS Office certification. Many general questions about the certification process are answered on at FAQs on our Bryan School MS Office product certification web page. If you encounter any difficulty installing the G’Metrix software please contact . If you have questions about the use of G’Metrix or the administration of certification exams in the Bryan School please contact the Bryan School G’Metrix administrator at .