Students benefit from being able to choose where to sit exams

Students in Finland can sit examinations in multiple locations, regardless of the university in which they are enrolled, under a new and developing scheme aimed at enhancing flexibility and removing constraints to learning and the need for travel.

The scheme, called EXAM Visit, is part of a series of measures aimed at digitising higher education in the country and building cooperation and networks between universities.

Finland already has an advanced system of partnerships between institutions, which is collaborative rather than competitive.

Where competition exists, it is largely over quality of education, but economies of scale mean that it is more cost-effective to share IT and digital services, especially in a country which has a small population, and universities are located over a large geographical area.

Under the Finnish University Act, higher education institutions are encouraged to collaborate in cross-institutional ways to give students access to a wider range of study programmes and experiences. Some government grants may be dependent upon such willingness and evidence of collaboration.

Remote exams, literally

The move to facilitate the completion of examinations remotely allows a student to schedule a time to sit an online test at any university that is convenient to them, at any given time.

The CSC IT Centre for Science, which is part-owned by the Finnish state and partly by universities, provides digital services to Finnish universities and hosts EXAM Visit on behalf of a consortium of universities that are signed up to the scheme.

It offers, as an example, a student teacher who studies in Rovaniemi, lives in Tampere, has a summer job in Helsinki, and whose boyfriend lives in Jyväskylä the opportunity to sit the exam online in whichever location they happen to be, removing the need for travel or causing a delay to their studies.

Topi Litmanen, CSC’s development manager, education technology services, said: “To prevent cheating, examination questions and tasks are randomly generated from a large bank of resources, and strict identification measures are in place to ensure that the candidate is who they say they are, using a student ID card.

“In addition, there is a system of video surveillance in place to observe the student as they take the exam, and they are not allowed to bring in paper or electronic devices.

“Universities set aside a specific place where the examinations can be taken.”

Previously, he said, universities could provide a paper version of an examination across different institutions, but this came with a cost implication for students. While the digital system was designed with convenience and practicality in mind, helping students to complete their studies within a set time period “sits in the background” of the scheme, Litmanen added.

There is an ongoing move in Finland financially to incentivise students to achieve their degrees within a set period of time so that they are ready to enter the workplace at a time of national labour shortages, or to embark on higher level studies.

Currently, 28 Finnish higher education institutions are signed up to the digital exam consortium which has been in development since 2014, and 22 of these universities now offer EXAM Visit facilities.

The system is said to be particularly effective with lifelong learners, who can also dip into courses from different institutions, but it is open to any student who wants to use it.

In 2016, 26,000 exam entries were taken online, with the first EXAM Visit tests taking place in 2019, when there were 170,000 online entries in total, 1,200 of which were remote.

However, by 2023 this had grown to 286,000 online exams, of which 24,800 were EXAM Visits taken at institutions other than the one at which the candidate is enrolled.

Wide range of services

The CSC is one of the most digitally advanced and sophisticated collaborative higher education institutional systems in Europe and either runs, or hosts, a number of services for universities, including a library of learning resources for medical education, MEDigi, which is used by the staff in all Finnish medical faculties.

In 2013, it launched RIPA, a cross-institutional network and standardised data exchanges system which allows Finnish higher education institutions to transfer information on learning opportunities, student enrolments and completed courses. This is fully integrated with local student information systems.

Among the services that CSC hosts is Digivisio, a broad program that is led and steered by Finnish higher education institutions. It allows for e-learning to take place and offers flexible access to a wide range of educational programmes. The service has attracted interest from other European countries as a model of a digital transformation programme.

It also runs the Finnish end of EMREX, a Europe-wide service for transferring study records used by more than 1,700 higher education institutions based around the continent.

This enables universities to digitally transfer achievement records from overseas, as well as provide an international application process, and enables the sharing of information about student outcomes with employers and others.

International collaborations

Hanna-Mari Puuska, CSC director for digital service ecosystems, said the organisation was open to creating collaborations with higher education institutions and organisations in Europe, so it could share its expertise and experience.

“We have had some interest in our EXAM Visit scheme, with universities asking how we do it, but we are looking for opportunities in which we can share our solutions to some of the challenges that universities face, which they may find valuable,” she said.

“They are always particularly interested in the collaborative aspects of our work, and how universities do this, as it might not be the case in their own countries.”