PROMOTING STUDY PROGRESS WITH ICTCASE: UNIVERSITY OF OULU

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Titta Koski, Aimo Rahkonen & Sanna WarisAcademic Affairs

26.6.2014

STRATEGY VALIDATES INFORMATION SYSTEM PROJECTS

• To support studies and councelling, UO decided to bring student oriented information systems up to date. • One of UO’s strategic goals is to improve study progress and

flexibility in studies.

• In order for students achieve to 55 credits, UO focuses on: personal study plan, optimised timetable, and information on teaching.• Starting point:

• Finland’s Ministry of Education and Culture has a funding model for universities: weight on students who have completeted min of 55 credits/academic year

• Need to get reliable figures from indicators that help decision making in order to achieve goals.

• Goals: • get new, improved and appropirate tools for planning the use of time

and studies,• in order to make studying times shorter, and• make the start of studies better than before.

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FIRST YEAR STUDY EXPERIENCE

• First year study experience and shorter graduation times have proven to have a clear connection to each other.• Using study plans and having an optimized timetable help

students progress and follow their studies, and get a good rythm of studying.

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Figure 1: 1st year credits 2010-2012

UO’S INFORMATION SYSTEMS IN EDUCATION

• UO has 13 information systems in education• Single sing-on system

• Some of the new informations systems are national projects, some are UO’s internal projects.

• In practise, interfaces to existing systems are made, therefore making the use of existing systems even move usefull.

• System architecture consists of several interconnected systems, allowing UO not to dependent on only one system or supplier.

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Study affairs and planning studies and teaching

Informing students Studying in a course

Other study related tools

*Information systems in Education

OPE

= functions for teacher, marked with green text

• Student contact information• Annual registration• Registration for courses and exams• Credits• Ordering unofficial transcript

• Study guides• Degree structures• Personal study plan, following your

study advancement• Course feedback

Study portal

Noppa• Course web pages• News to your email or RSS feed• Materials and instructions• Results

• Group work• Chat• Discussion are• Course materials• Returning course

work

• Feedback• Videos• Exam• Tasks• Shared documents

Schedule tool forstudents and teachers

Lukkari• Students’ electronic calendar• Easy to add lecture and exercise group times to

calendar• Changes in teaching times and places made

automatically• Private markings• Possible to send for comments to advisors

O365• Email• Office applications• Calendar• SkyDrive

Plagiarism detection tool

Urkund• Compares documents and

thesis, and flags similarities as a possible instance of plagiarism.

Exam aquarium

Exam• E-exams• Exams on paper

SoleMOVE• Tool for students applying

for international exchange and internship

• Grant application

Laturi• Tool for submission of

electronic diploma and master’s theses for review, approval and publication.

Guide for informations systems, ICT and studying facilities

Kompassi• information about independent

study facilities, workstations, study related information systems and academic studies

Wiki• Course materials• Course information

Learning Environment

OptimaRegister for student and study

information

WebOodi

OPE

OPE

OPE

OPE

OPE

OPE

OPE

Timetable planning tool

SLH• Planning and optimising university’s

timetable• Work loads• Model students• Course lists with group types, hours, student

amounts, and teacher information

SISU• Statistics related to education at

UO• Eg. Number of courses passed,

amounts of degrees, graduation potential

OODI

• Oodi is the master information system at the University of Oulu, where all new systems are connected to via interfaces. It is the core register for student and study information.

• Oodi is made up of two closely linked interfaces, WinOodi and browser operated WebOodi.• Information e.g. on students, their study rights, annual

registrations, courses and completed credits.

• Oodi users are officials, teachers, and students.

• Contains personal study plan tool OodiPSP.

• Used in 9 Finnish universities.

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TIMETABLING WORK

• SLH is a timetable system, making university level timetables for the entire academic year.

• Besides being a planning tool, SLH has multiple reports: courses, utilization rate of rooms, student’s and teacher’s work load during academic year etc.

• Starting point for planning a timetable for next academis year is the timetable from the current academic year • -> teaching information is transferred from Oodi

as an initial timetable.

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LUKKARI• Student’s calendar tool, that can be used to create one’s

own schedule.

• Courses can be added using Oodi PSP study plan tool or search function.• Private markings can also be added.

• Times and places update as changes are made to Oodi.

• Student can send Lukkari for comments to their advisor, if there is a need to discuss e.g. about work load. Advisor is able to see student’s schedule for a two weeks period, apart from contents in private markings.

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NOPPA OR OPTIMA? NOPPA AND OPTIMA?NOPPA: STUDY PORTAL FOR STUDENTS

OPTIMA: ONLINE LEARNING ENVIRONMENT

System Noppa Optima

Interaction One sided(teacher-student)

Interaction

Viewing materials without signing in

Yes No

Able to see course materials

File password protection possible e.g. in pdf files

Secure connection, access to registered students

Making and returning student work

No Yes. Possible to make different kinds of exercises and exams, videos etc.

Group work No Yes

Individual feedback No Yes

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INFORMING STUDENTS

• Office 365 for Education (O365) offers students Outlook email, cloud services e.g. Office Web Apps applications: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Lync, and calendar and SkyDrive Pro.

• University of Oulu’s Wiki Environment

• Kompassi Study Environment - Skills and Services portal contains information about independent study facilities, workstations, study-related information systems and academic studies in general.

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EXAM• Exam is a system to take e-exams in a camera supervised

environment ’Examinarium’– Autumn 2014: a) new system will be in use and b) training for teachers

starts

• Students can take an exam/renewal/thesis in Examinarium

• During pilot phase, e-exams are taken by using Optima.– Optima’s form editor used when making questions – questions are put in the system as a centralized service at this point

• Since 11/2013 about 500 paper exams taken in Examinarium.

OTHER STUDY RELATED TOOLS

• Laturi is a system for the submission of electronic diploma and master’s thesis.

• Urkund compares documents and flags similarities as a possible instance of plagiarism. Urkund is used by all students when they submit their thesis.

• SoleMOVE is a system for international student and staff mobility, international mobility agreements and reports

• Sisu Portal provides up-to-date and dependable statistics and figures for University of Oulu's staff and students. 

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IMPLEMENTING INFORMATION SYSTEMS

Implementing new information systems requires enormous amounts of discussions, considering different viewpoints, co-operation and once more, discussions.

• When implementing information systems, there are several introductions and training sessions organized for teachers and students on each system.

• To inform staff and students, university wide announcements

• User guides for every information system are available online, and each system has their own service desk supporting the use and helping users with problems.

• Requires Academic Affairs to work in close co-operation with both ICT administration and degree programmes.

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ACHIEVEMENTS

• The effects of promoting study progress work are already showing in 2013 (starting point 2011). • The amount of students who have 55 or more study

points is increasing after three years of use.

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Figure 3: Indicator: at least 55 cr completed

CHALLENGES

The true challenge is how to increase the number of degrees in general. How to get students to graduate when economy is low and situation in labor markets are poor?

• Opposition has more do with change in working culture rather than implementing a new information system.

• Users may experience new information systems as a burden• Sufficient training resources present a challenge

• In the other hand, getting to know and use new information systems is modern way of working and has made work more efficient and easier.

• Indicators that effect university’s results are available for all in Sisu portal.

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THANK YOU!

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Titta KoskiCoordinatorAcademic Affairstitta.koski(at)oulu.fi

Sanna WarisCoordinatorAcademic Affairssanna.waris(at)oulu.fi