Teaching E-Commerce in Support of Costa Rican SMEs due to the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

This article presents the experiences obtained with the integration of the course “EIF-439O Uso Estratégico del Comercio Electrónico”, taught at the School of Informatics of the Universidad Nacional de Costa Rica, with the project UNAPROPYMES, aimed at supporting Costa Rican small and medium enterprises (SME) due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Taking advantage of this juncture, it was possible to make changes to this course to use real cases for developing e-commerce prototypes, as well as to apply design thinking and user experience (UX). Furthermore, this situation allowed to open the course to students from other disciplines. The changes introduced to the course, the results obtained, and the lessons learned are discussed