Cross-Institutional Study Information Service for Higher Education

Cross-Institutional Study Information Service is a centralised information sharing service for higher education institutions in Finland. The service lets higher education institutions exchange information on courses, registration for courses and course assessment in a standardised format enabling cross-institutional studies and higher student mobility. The goal is to allow more flexibility and opportunities for students, to reduce overlap in teaching and to use teaching resources more effectively.

The co-operation is based on a framework agreement signed by all higher education institutions in Finland. Based on this, the higher education institutions will make separate teaching co-operation agreements where they agree on the specifics of the co-operation, for example, which students can utilise the service and for which studies. The details of these agreements are entered into the service and it will then automatically pass on information based on what has been agreed.

The students and staff of higher education institutions use the service through their own student information systems (currently Peppi and Sisu). Thus they can stay within the system they are already familiar with and don't need to log into another service at all. The student information systems interact with the Cross-Institutional Study Information Secvice through a secure API. Using this API they can send and receive messages about study opportunities, enrollment and assessment.

The service is owned and managed by CSC - IT Center For Science LTD with nearly all higher education instutitons in Finland as customers of the service. Service management and development is guided by the service steering group which includes representation from four different administrative higher education co-operation networks: OHA-Forum (university study adminstration), AMK-OHA (universities of applied sciences study administration), FUCIO (university IT services) and AAPA (universities of applied sciences IT services).

For more information you can contact us at ristiinopiskelupalvelu@postit.csc.fi.