Study data will soon be found on higher education institutions’ common platform – with benefits for society as a whole

More up-to-date data for authorities and new services for learners are on the way. Digivisio is in charge of building a shared platform for higher education institutions in close cooperation with key stakeholders.

Semester enrolments, study attainments and records of exchange study periods are examples of learners’ important information that will soon have a new home on the higher education institutions’ shared data platform.

Up till now, such information has been collected in Virta higher education achievement register that was launched in 2014 and is approaching the end of its service life. This motivated the launch of the KOTI project under the leadership of the Ministry of Education and Culture. Study data will now be collected on the higher education institutions’ new shared platform, making it possible to send it on to the authorities and other parties that use learners’ data.

This reform will bring significant benefits by improving the quality and quantity of study data. It will also ensure that technical systems are able to respond smoothly to future data needs.

“The idea is that study data can be used more extensively in society. For example, they can be used for official reporting but, with the learner’s consent, also to enable different actors to provide them with better services,” says Vilho Kolehmainen, who leads the KOTI project.

It is important to note that the impacts of the reform will not be limited to the higher education sector. This is why interoperability is a cross-cutting objective of the work.

“Using national and international reference architectures in this project is essential,” Kolehmainen points out.

The reform will help authorities and learners

Study data are important for many authorities, including Kela, the Finnish Student Health Service and the Finnish Immigration Service. The higher education institutions’ funding model is also based on them.

The reform will improve data quality: data will be more commensurate, comparable and up to date. Whereas the higher education institutions now send all data to Virta once a day, only new and updated data will be transferred to the platform in the future – and also in real time.

“This means that the authorities and other users will have access to data that are as recent as possible,” Kolehmainen explains.

The fact that information on study attainments and studies offered will for the first time be stored on a single platform is also significant. This will open up opportunities for the higher education institutions to use analytics and offer better services to learners. For instance, learners can have a more accurate understanding of what their studies contain and get easier access to their personal information.

“An extensive foundation of data will make completely new services possible, such as recommending studies to a learner based on their previous attainments,” says Kolehmainen.

What role will Digivisio play?

The KOTI project, which aims to replace Virta, will be implemented through three sub-projects in 2025–2027. Digivisio is responsible for the first one, or building the data platform for the higher education institutions. This is a natural step because the platform will support continuous and flexible learning.

Digivisio is also responsible for HEDS/HEDI solutions. They determine which data are transferred and in which format, and how the data transfers between the platform and other services in Finland and abroad will be implemented.

“This will also contribute to building the European Higher Education Area,” says Jonna Piiroinen, Project Director of Digivisio.

Digivisio’s work will pave the way for the other two KOTI sub-projects. In the first one of these projects, the Finnish National Agency for Education’s KOSKI disclosure service will take on a larger role: almost all data from the higher education institution’s platform will be transmitted to the authorities through it. The second project led by CSC will build for the Ministry of Education and Culture a data service that supports compilation of statistics and similar.

A steering group and a national project group were appointed for the reform in August 2025. They ensure that all three projects will pull together, without producing overlapping or separate solutions.  So when could the reform be completed? While the launch of the higher education institutions’ data platform was originally planned for 2027, the precise schedule will become clear as the work progresses.

“The old Virta service will work until the service package can be deployed,” Kolehmainen notes.

New data platform responds to future challenges

Digivisio will work closely with such actors as Funidata, the Peppi consortium and the higher education institutions’ expert networks in this project. To make the most of the data platform, the higher education institutions should invest in improving the quality of study data and expanding them.

“That’s definitely the most important thing,” Piiroinen sums up.

The first dataset to be imported to the new platform will be the current Virta data. The content can later be expanded to meet the needs of higher education institutions and other stakeholders. For example, competence descriptions and micro-credentials can be added to the platform. The idea is that the data platform will also be able to adapt to its users’ wishes going forward.

“As the operating environment changes, information systems will be able to adapt,” says Piiroinen.