Exams and related arrangements

There are different ways to organize an examination:

• A on-site examination is held on a specific date and time in University premises under invigilation. The students are physically present on site, but the examination is completed in  Moodle, using the student’s own device (laptop or tablet) or paper exam. As the teacher, you decide whether the student can use additional materials (e.g. notes or an online dictionary) or aids (e.g. a calculator).
• A digital remote examination is held either on a specific date and time or within a specific time period and is organised in an electronic learning environment, usually in a venue selected by the student.
• The Examinarium exam is created in the electronic Exam system, after which the student can take the exam in camera-monitored facilities flexibly within the examination period.
• Examinations can also be organised as oral tests or competence tests.

As a teacher, you are responsible for the organisation and supervision of exams related to your teaching. You must notify students of course examination dates and the number of retake opportunities no later than at the beginning of each course. Information on allowed materials and tools must be provided in advance.  If there are compulsory or pass-fail parts of the examination that will determine whether the answers to other parts will be marked, students should be informed well in advance of the examination.

As a teacher, you are also in charge of ensuring that the exam is conducted properly, and you must take action in case any disturbances or cheating occur. See Regulations (Flamma)

In addition, you must organise possible individual arrengements for students if they ask for them, see page Individual arrengements.

If a student has registered for the course, they are normally not required to register separately for the exams organised by the teacher. However, if registration for the exam is required, you must inform the students of this clearly.

In addition to the actual course or final exam and other teaching-related exams, students must be allowed to retake the exam at least once. You may organise the retake yourself, in the Examinarium for example, or you can agree with a student planner to organise the retake in a general examination.

At general examinations, teachers can organise backlog and retake exams as well as exams not related to teaching, such as book exams. General examinations are organised by Teaching and Learning Services (Exam services).

Book exams and other exams not related to teaching can be available at several different general examinations.The student may register to take an exam that is not related to teaching more than once. Failing to show up at a book exam a student has registered for does not result in any sanctions or quarantine. The student can attempt to raise the grade of completed studies no more than twice.

The general examination schedule and the exams to be organised on each examination day are decided when planning the curriculum and teaching programme. Each faculty or degree programme may have their own regular examination days or the examination days may be shared by different units.

General examinations normally last four hours (except at the Faculty of Law where the examinations last five hours). However, teachers are allowed to limit the time used for their exams to, for example, two or three hours.

Examinations are organised by University of Helsinki exam services with co-operation with education planning officers and student advisers. Examination services are responsible for individual arrangements for general examinations.

Registration (students)

• Students must register for general examinations electronically through Sisu. The registration period begins no later than 20 days before the examination and ends 10 days before the examination. The registration period for summer examinations ends on 31 May.
• Students may not register for examinations after the deadline. As a teacher you cannot give students permission to attend a general examination session if they have not registered for it in the required manner. However, you can organize your own examination for the student.
• Students may not take more than two exams during the same examination day.
  • If the student has a good reason (such as graduation) to take more than two exams during the same examination day, as a teacher you can give permission to do so if the students asks for it. If you approve of this, please inform your campus' exam services.
• Students may cancel their registrations through Sisu during the registration period.

Submitting the exam questions (examiner)

• If there are students enrolled at the general examination for a course you are responsible for, you will receive an email asking you to submit the exam questions. You can see information about the enrolled students, such as their language choices, in Sisu under My teaching, Upcoming implementations. See more in Sisu instructions for teachers.
• Paper exam: submit the exam questions and any supporting material (reasonable number of pages) in a format that can be distributed to students (as an email attachment in Word or PDF). If you are allowed to use calculators or other aids and/or materials in the exam, you must inform students (e.g. on the course page) and the Examination Service of this when you submit the questions.

• Electronic exam in Moodle: Submit a link to the Moodle area for the exam to the Exams Service. If you are allowed to use calculators or other aids and/or materials in the exam, you must inform the students (e.g. on the course website) and also the Exams Service when you submit the Moodle link. 

  The exam is created in the Moodle exam activity. Moodle-team helps the teacher to create the exam if needed.

  The exam service checks and adds the necessary settings to the Moodle exam, e.g. the settings required to use the Safe Exam Browser (SEB) (if it is an SEB exam).

At the general examination

• General examinations are invigilated by members of the exam invigilation group coordinated by the exam services. Exams must be invigilated by at least two people or as many as is deemed sufficient. The invigilators are responsible for practical arrangements and guiding students during the exam. They also address any disturbances or cheating.
• Students must return all answer papers and other papers related to the exam (draft papers, etc.) when they leave the exam room. The question papers are normally collected when the students return their answer papers, but some degree programmes allow students to take the questions with them. If you want the students to also return the question papers, please include this on the question paper.

After the general examination

• Exam services will inform the examinator about possible disturbances or other matters.
• Exam services will send the answers of paper and pen examinations or information about participants on digital examinations according to your faculty's decision.
• As a teacher you will grade the exams and publish exam results. Please see Grading exams, grade registration and publishing below.

For more information on the organisation of general exams, please contact the exam services on your campus and or education coordinator in your faculty.

See also General examinations in studies.helsinki.fi.

Examination in the Moodle learning environment is either that student's has access to other websites or documents on the device is not restricted, or the student has access only to the Moodle examination area (quiz) and any websites or material added there. This is done by adding the Safe Exam Browser (SEB) program and its required settings to the quiz activity.

The student must have a device (laptop or iPad) which to take the exam. It is the student's responsibility to download any software required to take the exam to their device well in advance of the exam. The student should also test the software before the examination. For SEB examinations in General Examination, the Examination Services will instruct students to download the SEB software and test its functionality before the electronic examinations. Instructions for downloading and testing the SEB software can be found in the Student Guide

Exam Services will assist the teacher with SEB settings if necessary. Examination Services make sure that the necessary number of spare devices are available at the General Examination. Examination Services will also make individual arrangements for General Examination. In the case of a teacher-organised exam, you must provide the necessary spare equipment. See You can borrow a Lenovo laptop from Laptop Lender

Quiz or assingment activity

The exam can be taken in Moodle with assingment activity or quiz activity. If the exam has SEB, the exam must be taken with quiz activity. Learn more about the Safe Exam Browser (SEB) via the Moodle course : SEB exams. If necessary, please contact the Moodle team or your campus Exam Services.

The quiz activity provides you with a selection of different question types, most of which are automatically graded questions. In addition, the activity allows you to create essay questions that you grade yourself. If the exam contains only essay questions and does not use SEB, you can also use the assignment activity instead of the quiz activity.

For General Examinations, an quiz activity is desirable and is mandatory if the exam uses SEB. In General Examination, the Exam Services will check the necessary settings for the exam.

Remote examinations

Exams held in Moodle are normally home/open book exams that students can take anywhere using their own computer, with course literature and the internet freely at their disposal. The exam can be, for example an essay exam/a writing task, a multiple choice exam that Moodle evaluates automatically or an exam with different types of questions. Moodle can be used for submitting different types of files, so the task/exam assigned to the student can also require them to, for instance, submit a video they have created.

More information: Data protection instructions for monitoring remote exams

Support for creating exams in Moodle

• Moodle instructions
• SEB exam instructions for teacher 2023 - Moodle area
• Quiz activity - Moodle's official documentation 

• Pedagogical and technical support : Moodle team 

   

Examinarium is an electronic examination system that allows students to complete examinations whenever they choose within the given examination period. The teacher creates the exam in the system in advance, after which the students complete the exam in a specific examination facility equipped with computers, closed network and a recording camera surveillance system.

Examinarium exams are particularly suitable for literature exams and other exams with long exam period, but also for small and middle-sized course exams and retakes. Examinarium makes studies more flexible and releases the teacher from the duty of organizing separate examination events throughout the academic year.

At the University of Helsinki there are examination facilities on every campus. Some of them are equipped with drawing tablets and special software.  The exam facilities are open in accordance with the opening hours of the buildings all year round (some also during evenings and weekends). 

The University of Helsinki is taking part in the exam visit, which means that students can, with certain restrictions, take their examination in the EXAM facility (known as Examinarium at the University of Helsinki) of another university.

The exam procedure in Examinarium

1. The teaching must first be created in Sisu (all exams are connected to teaching in Sisu).
2. The teacher creates the exam in the system and publishes it.
3. The student signs up for the exam or course in Sisu. After this, they can reserve a place in the exam system.
4. The student takes the exam in an exam facility (the teachers receive a weekly message from the system stating the number of students signed up for an exam and exams that need to be assessed).
5. The teacher assesses the exam in the exam system (and grades marked as whole course grades are in most cases automatically transferred to Sisu.).
6. The student receives a message about the evaluation by e-mail.

Further information and support for organising exams through Examinarium:

• Examinarium user instructions
• News and bulletins related to Examinarium
• Pedagogical and technical support from Educational Technology Services or exam services at your campus (see contact information below)

Grade the exam in accordance with the curriculum, either using a scale from 0 to 5 or pass–fail. Click here for more information on assessment criteria. 

Examination papers are not graded if the student fails to register for the examination appropriately or does not hold the right to complete the examination. Studies completed by students are evaluated in Sisu, Examinarium or Moodle, depending on the platform and evaluation method you use. Click here for more information on registering grades.

• Teaching related regulations and decisions (Teaching and examinations) (Flamma)
• Regulations (Flamma)
• Teaching related regulations and decisions / (Degrees and studies) (Flamma)
• Regulations regarding grading and examinations
• Cheating and plagiarism
• Individual arrangements in teaching, learning and examination situations

For more information on organising general examinations, please contact the exam services at your campus:

• City centre: citycentre-exams@helsinki.fi
• Kumpula: kumpula-exams@helsinki.fi
• Meilahti: meilahti-exams@helsinki.fi
• Viikki: viikki-exams@helsinki.fi