DigiOne – a unique edu­ca­tion­al col­lab­o­ra­tion launched by five cities

The cities of Oulu, Espoo, Tam­pere, Turku and Van­taa are start­ing a col­lab­o­ra­tion called DigiOne. The objec­tive is to cre­ate a dig­i­tal plat­form that brings ser­vices for learn­ing and edu­ca­tion togeth­er. The aim is to grow an ecosys­tem in the field of edu­ca­tion around the ser­vice plat­form, to which all actors in the field of edu­ca­tion can join.

Infor­ma­tion and sys­tems in one loca­tion

The DigiOne col­lab­o­ra­tion, launched by the City of Van­taa and fund­ed by Busi­ness Fin­land, is build­ing a user-friend­ly and inter­op­er­a­ble dig­i­tal edu­ca­tion ser­vice plat­form. DigiOne is a nation­al dig­i­tal ser­vice plat­form that brings togeth­er edu­ca­tion sys­tems and, in a user-friend­ly way, all the infor­ma­tion, sys­tems and ser­vices used by teach­ers, learn­ers, prin­ci­pals, guardians and admin­is­tra­tors.

The cities of Espoo, Oulu, Tam­pere, Turku and Van­taa as well as Kun­tien Tiera have made a co-oper­a­tion agree­ment where­by the par­ties will joint­ly devel­op and build a new com­mon ser­vice plat­form and ecosys­tem on an equal foot­ing, sim­i­lar to the alliance mod­el. The aim is to cre­ate an enti­ty that expands into a nation­wide solu­tion. Lat­er, all inter­est­ed edu­ca­tion providers can join the DigiOne ser­vice plat­form and ecosys­tem in stages.

“DigiOne is a sig­nif­i­cant and unique exam­ple of coop­er­a­tion between cities. Oulu is renowned as a city of edu­ca­tion: we have a strong edu­ca­tion­al field, which is why we want to be at the fore­front of devel­op­ing a dig­i­tal ser­vice plat­form for learn­ing and edu­ca­tion,” says the May­or of Oulu Päivi Laa­jala.

”At the moment, infor­ma­tion is scat­tered across sev­er­al sys­tems. There are no nation­al data mod­els, so knowl­edge-based man­age­ment takes places in silos instead of being learn­er-cen­tric. We want to take part in shap­ing the ped­a­gog­ic tran­si­tion and ensure that ser­vices meet the needs of every­day life and are tru­ly easy to use,” adds Mika Pent­tilä, the direc­tor of Edu­ca­tion­al and Cul­tur­al Ser­vices of Oulu.

Ini­tial­ly ser­vices for basic edu­ca­tion and gen­er­al upper sec­ondary edu­ca­tion

The par­tic­i­pat­ing cities want to include in the ser­vice plat­form as many ser­vice and sys­tem sup­pli­ers, munic­i­pal­i­ties and cities as pos­si­ble, as well as oth­er actors in the field. The desire is to cre­ate an edu­ca­tion-focused ecosys­tem around the dig­i­tal ser­vice plat­form that cov­ers ser­vices through­out the learner’s life­cy­cle.

Dur­ing the project, ser­vices will be pro­vid­ed for basic edu­ca­tion and gen­er­al upper sec­ondary edu­ca­tion. The aim is lat­er to build ser­vices for ear­ly child­hood edu­ca­tion and voca­tion­al train­ing to ensure a healthy learn­ing path.

The need for devel­op­ment is based on the changes required by the cur­ric­u­la and the new and rapid­ly evolv­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties brought by dig­i­tal­iza­tion, and dur­ing the excep­tion­al cir­cum­stances of the spring of 2020, it has become even more pro­nounced that these need to be uti­lized.

In the future, it will be even more impor­tant that infor­ma­tion flows between ser­vices and that infor­ma­tion is avail­able to sup­port man­age­ment, deci­sion-mak­ing, and research.

“DigiOne is a major project to pro­mote the dig­i­tal­iza­tion of teach­ing and learn­ing and the inter­op­er­abil­i­ty of infor­ma­tion. The project will also enrich the nation­al debate. It is great that DigiOne is being built in exten­sive coop­er­a­tion with var­i­ous actors and stake­hold­ers,” says the direc­tor of the Nation­al Board of Edu­ca­tion Olli-Pekka Heinonen.

Qual­i­ty and sav­ings

Coop­er­a­tion in the munic­i­pal field enables new types of ser­vices that uti­lize dig­i­tal­iza­tion and pro­mote the qual­i­ty of edu­ca­tion­al ser­vices. Sig­nif­i­cant over­all sav­ings can also be achieved through new ser­vices and col­lab­o­ra­tion. The ben­e­fits of dig­i­tal­iza­tion can be bet­ter exploit­ed when munic­i­pal­i­ties car­ry out devel­op­ment and pro­cure­ment togeth­er instead of build­ing their own plat­forms and ser­vices.

For fur­ther infor­ma­tion: digione.fi