Outline of the presentation

RAKETTI-project, changes in admission procedures and the new admission system23.9.2014llmari Hyvönen Department of higher education and science policy

Outline of the presentation • Backdrop • Finnish higher education system and the main ”players” in student administration ICT and services in Finland • Changes in admission procedures and the new admission system: KSHJ-project 2010-14 • RAKETTI –project 2008-14 • Initial aims • SIS • Data-warehousing, reporting, data-flows, interoperability • Enterprise architecture • Changes in the environment along the project • Results • SIS • Data-warehousing, reporting, data-flows • Legacy of the project • The second wave of changes to the admission system (2014-16) • Applicant fees

Finnish universities and polytechnics • Higher education institution network covers the populated parts of the country • 14 universities (four in the great Helsinki area) • 24 polytechnics • Student enrolment altogether ca. 316 000 University (blue) Polytechnic (green) Research institute (red)

Ministry of Education and Culture Role in higher education, in short: • Steering of HE • Negotiations and performance agreements • Written feedback • University visits • Information exchange • Steering and buying services from CSC to HEIs • Steering of the National Board of Education, OPH • No state agency for higher education

National Board for Education (OPH) • Main responsibilities in development of pre-primary, basic, general upper secondary, vocational upper secondary and adult education. • Develops and maintains admission systems (and some services related to them) for secondary and higher education

CSC — IT Center for Science Ltd • 100% state owned non-profit company • Administered by the Ministry of Education and Culture • CSC provides IT support and resources mainly for academia, and research institutes • Main services for HE (paid from state budget) • High performance computing • Funet (Netowrk services for HEIs, connections to NordUnet, Geant,…) • Information & storage services for Science & Culture • Architecture & interoperability services (developed in RAKETTI project, now maintained) • Some student administration related services for HEIs/consortia (Oodi ,..) • CSC was responsible for the RAKETTI project

Short history of joint admission in Finland • Polytechnics, joint admission since 1996, electronic joint admission system since 2000 • Universities, since 2008 (only applications in common timeline) • Universities International programmes: University Admissions Finland –consortium’s service (international programmes, 10 universities), since 2007 • This was the situation until this fall 2014…

Why the reform: HE application and admission until last spring • Five national joint application and admissions systems for higher education run by National Board of Education (for different target groups) [ca. 8 FTE; 1,7 M€/year]. Paid from the state budget • Some other application and consortia based admission services (University Admissions Finland for example); many admissions done solely by universities (especially masters’ level students) • Lots of (national) services for presenting offered education opportunities • Unsatisfactory data integration between HEI’s and national services

Why the reform: More applicants than places • Number of new study places per year around 56 000 • Number of applicants for polytechnics around 104 000, 38 300 accepted, 33 500 new entrants • Number of applicants for universities around 82 000, 25 000 accepted, 23 100 new entrants • 26 000 applies for both sectors, around 3 000 accepted to both sectors • 1/3 already have a degree or a study place • Entrants are relatively old: a bottle-neck before entering HE  Main political goals for the change: more first-timers in, younger in, younger out longer working careers with degree • Number of international degree students around 15 000 (less than 4% of degree students), apply via joint system or by using joint admission system UAF or HEIs own systems

2013 new students and their background (previous study rights / degrees)

Many programmes & different admission criteria in HEIs • around 1 000 choices/programmes in joint admission systems • polytechnics have agreed on some common admission criteria (based on recommendations by the polytechnics’ rectors’ council), • universities have more variety • HEIs have autonomy on admission criteria • principle of equality by law: equal criteria must be applied • specific grounds for exceptions defined in the law: language, educational background, • and now as a result of the current reform: based on whether or not the applicant has degrees or study rights in Finnish HEIs (quota for those who don’t)

Background & timeline of the changes Several surveys and working groups since 2003 Two working groups appointed by the Ministry to launch the admissions reform 2008, 2010 Government decision, 2009 (5M euros for 2010-2013) Steering group, 2010 Government programme 2011 Education and Science 2011-2016 –development plan Government proposal for Parliament concerning changing Universities Act, Polytechnics Act, other legislation (registers) and changes to several Decrees already describes the second phase too Changes of the first phase passed the parliament in 2013 New joint admission fall 2014

Reserving places for those who have neither a degree or a study right in Finnish HEIs • From fall 2014 HEIs have a right to reserve a part of the study places for those who don’t yet have a place • However, according to the law not an immoderate amount of the places. The amount that has an effect on the results but is not immoderate is something the HEIs will have to consider. Now other guidelines for defining quotas • This brought about the need to check from HEIs systems whether an applicant has study rights or finished degrees in Finnish HEIs • This was solved in the RAKETTI project, and had a big effect on the project as a whole

Five different joint application systems Applicant can be accepted to many programs Can accept only one Jointapplication to universities Uni 1 4 1 4 Uni 2 7 8 2 9 3 7 9 1 5 2 4 6 8 1 Uni 3… 5 Fourdifferentjointappl. and admissionsystems to polytechnics • oneoffered in a jointadmission 1 1 4 2 1 3 ? Subjectorprogram etc. Joint HE admissionsuntilspring 2014

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEYkAAEF_pI

From fall 2014- One joint application to all HEI’s in Finland Joint application and admission to universities and polytechnics not admitted to 1st choice 1 One program will be offered 2 System will also be used in marketing other than degree programmes and for admitting students to those 3 1 5 2 4 6 4 3 Applications to lover priorities will be withdrawn automatically 5 6 Joint HE admissions from fall 2014 on

Opintopolku.fi - Studieinfo.fi • Data storage for learning opportunities • Portal for learning opportunities • Student Admission System • The same system for secondary, higher and adult education! • Future plans: Registry for all achievements (degrees etc.), for HE this is done (in a way)

The situation in 2008: Student Information Systems • No common ”national” system • Oodiin most universities but not all. A system owned by the university consortium. Went into production in 1999 • Winha (a product owned by of CGI, (aka Logica aka WM-data aka Novo-group..) used by most polytechnics • Some other systems, mostly developed in house in HEIs • In 2008 these were both in the end of their lifecycle • Many studies were done in both sectors as to what should be done • The idea and goal: New common system for both HE sectors

Outline of the presentation • Backdrop • Finnish higher education system and the main ”players” in student administration ICT and services in Finland • Changes in admission procedures and the new admission system: KSHJ-project 2010-14 • RAKETTI –project 2008-14 • Initial aims • SIS • Data-warehousing, reporting, data-flows • Enterprise architecture • Changes in the environment along the project • Results • SIS • Data-warehousing, reporting, data-flows • Legacy of the project • The second wave of changes to the admission system (2014-16) • Applicant fees

Reporting, data warehousing, data flows(situation in 2008) • Demands of interoperability of HEIs systems • Demands of effective administration & leading at the HEIs • Need for Institution wide Data Warehouses in HEIs combining, Student, personnel, financial, etc. data • A common project of some universities was on its way in 2008 • Demands for steering and evidence based policy at MoEC • Commensurability of data! • Takes a long time to get the data: more timely data wanted • data flow from HEIs to statistics Finland to MoE • Party data collection by MoE (at a sum level) • Output oriented funding scheme for HEIs & performance indicators • Situation: many government agencies collect ”almost the same” data (MoEC, Statistics Finland, FPA,…)  a need for a common data model and a ”common datawarehouse”

Universities core funding from 2013

The need for ”Enterprise architecture” • A need for better and more coherent planning of administrative systems at the level of the Higher education system and individual HEIs • New methodology coming to Finnish public administration in the end of last decade • General need for efficiencyand quality of services, ”less of same work done multiple times”:  Idea for “enterprise architecture” for the whole of Higher education system • However, not straightforward to apply in a complex environment of heterogeneous autonomous organizations

Developments 2008-14 • University reform 2010 • Greater autonomy • 1.1.2010 universities became legal persons separate from the State, either as corporations under public law or foundations under the Foundations Act. • Universities took the place of the State as employers • Lighter and more strategic level performance agreement procedure between MoE and universities • Act on Information Management Governance in Public Administration (2011) • Background: a lot of interoperability problems between different systems • Enterprise architecture methodology for interoperability for public sector • The law does not apply to universities; i.e. university autonomy extends to information systems • Polytechnic reform 2014-

No common student information system(for all at the same time at least) • By about 2011/12 it became clear that a common SIS for all HEIs is not a feasible goal • Why? • A lot of planning and work was done with HEIs • In the end different HEIs had different goals • A lot of ”secondary” student information systems and add-ons in HEIs • Lack of ability to decide; MoEC can not force the issue • The other developments effected the discussion (expanding autonomy of universities) • But still, why? (Why in Sweden and not Finland?) • However a common data model and high level reference architecture (processes, data, systems) was done and will be maintained and developed further. • New consortia projects: Peppi, OTM, … • (A common reasearch management system was also in the plans, but the story is the same with this)

Developing reporting and data warehousing • 2008: • Idea: to have a common EDW –data model and CSC:s ”data warehouse as a service” for HEIs + upload data from these to the ministry’s data warehouse • 2010: • EDW model done and in use by some HEIs However, lack of interest for the service. The EDW model too broad for use outside HEIs  need to think again… • 2010/11: Needs of the reforming admission procedures • Way to go: Define a subset of the student data needed centrally and require the HEIs to store it in a central data warehouse by law • Make it extendable by agreement • Make it usable for other purposes as well

Building national VIRTA “data warehouse“ (tietovaranto/Informationslager) for higher education institutions • HEIs can have quotas for applicants with no study rights/degrees in Finnish HEIs  the admission system needs the data • Contents by law: degrees done, other credit, study rights in HEIs • Must do for all the universities and polytechnics • RAKETTI-VIRTA project 2012 - 14 • At the same time, provide possibility to use data warehouse for direct collecting of data by Statistics Finland and the Ministry of Education and Culture.

HEI is responsible for the transfer of information and about the contents as the Registrar Information is released automatically on legal grounds or per decision of the Registrar Ministry of Education and Culture as a service provider (National services Statistics Finland Goverment, HEI’s) Conversion of information to common data model and XML-spesification File transfer to central service at least once a month (or up to daily updates) Central service offers real-time ws-interface to external services upload files for statistical use

Data flows from HEIs to VIRTA and onwards (and back to HEIs) Statistics Finland MoEC FPA HEI … 2. Data for national services HEIs Admissions, Statistic portal Vipunen, etc. 1. Data for government agencies VIRTA a servicefor yearlyenrolment 3. HEIs own systems (or consortia systems) 4. Archiving (futurepossibility)

What is VIRTA, legally speaking? • Centralized system of copies of student information related information belonging to the registry of each HEI • It is not a personal data file (personregister) in the sense of the Personal Data Act. • A centralized system, but no central controller of the content. The data is logically a part of the HEIs personal data file • HEI is in total control and has full responsibility about information in it’s registry, including the copies in VIRTA • The contents can be broadened by agreement • Mobility data. Also research information: collecting publication data is planned.

After RAKETTI: What remains and is maintained? • Reference architectures for student administration & research administration • Common data models & interoperability specifications • VIRTA • Performance agreements 2013-16 include the agreement to develop these together. • IT is also stated that HEIs decide on their systems based on their own strategies. Unless: • the law states otherwise naturally; student admissions, the national data-warehouse, or • something follows from the reporting demands of MoEC & others. (By law the HEIs must provide the information requested by the Ministry for the purpose of evaluation, development, statistics and other information needed for monitoring and steering insofar as this information is not otherwise available)

Steering of it all… • At the level of HE system: new permanent ”steering model” for CSCs services & architectures of the Higher education system • MoEC buys from CSC, but what do the HEIs need? Not all need the same! • Many groups need to be involved • HEI rectors & vice rectors • HEI CIOs • HEI student / research administration personnel, etc. • Other developmets • Finnish Open Science initiative: http://openscience.fi • Developments at the level of Public administration • A common data-exchange bus (co-operation with Estonia) • Public sector ICT Strategy (2012) • eServices and eDemocracy (SADe) Development Programme (2010- • (Establishing and) stabilising the EA function • Centralizing IT services for Ministries government offices (does not directly effect HEIs)

KSHJ second phase 2014-16 • The government program 2011 stated that the whole common admission will be reserved for ”first timers” • Not practical, as all others have the right to apply and be elected • The second phase is implemented so that (draft proposal) • HEIs are obliged to reserve places for first timers. • A change of program/university –application defined in the law(“överflyttandestuderande”) The applicant will give up the previous study right if chosen. • Applicant fees introduced for those who have completed their admissibility granting degree in a foreign country (i.e. not Finland). Fee not based on nationality, but the country of the degree. Fee charged by National Board for Education to be handled in the central system (studieinfo.fi). • Some other minor developments • In effect in spring 2016. • The government will give a proposal to the parliament this fall

Thanks! ilmari.hyvonen@minedu.fi • Backdrop • Finnish higher education system and the main ”players” in student administration ICT and services in Finland • Changes in admission procedures and the new admission system: KSHJ-project 2010-14 • RAKETTI –project 2008-14 • Initial aims • SIS • Data-warehousing, reporting, data-flows • Enterprise architecture • Changes in the environment along the project • Results • SIS • Data-warehousing, reporting, data-flows • Legacy of the project • The second wave of changes to the admission system (2014-16) • Applicant fees

Outline of the presentation