Taking exams in Examinarium electronic exam rooms

The instruction belongs to the following themes

By selecting a degree programme you are able to see the general content as well as the possible degree programme-specific content. You do not have to select a degree programme to see the Open University's instructions.

You can take certain exams electronically at a time and exam room of your choice. The exams are taken on a computer and supervised via recording camera equipment installed in the rooms. Watch the introduction video about Examinarium.

Quick instructions

  • Register for the exam.
  • Read the instructions below.
  • Reserve a time in your preferred room for taking the exam – if your plans change and you are unable to take the exam at the designated time, please remember to cancel your reservation.
  • Enter the exam room − note the room-specific instructions.
  • Take the exam. You will receive an automatic email after the instructor has scored your exam. Your score will be posted on Sisu.
  • Login to Examinarium

Registering for an Examinarium exam

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First sign up for the exam or course in Sisu (If the course is organized by Open University, use the registration link in their study programme.)

If you are registering for a personal exam, use your university username to log in to Examinarium (to have your username registered on the system) and then contact the examiner.

Take any requirements for individual arrangements into consideration, as not all exams can be taken on Examinarium.

To find out what exams are available, log in to Examinarium.

  • If the exam is not displayed on the desktop, click on the Exams tab. The system will only display registration information for exams for which you have registered for the corresponding course on Sisu and which the instructor has entered in the system.
  • Choose an exam by clicking its name. Confirm it is the correct exam and click on Register.
  • If there are optional sections in the exam, tick the sections you are planning to take in your exam (see more detailed information under title "Things to keep in mind when making exam reservations"
  • Choose your exam room. 
  • Choose a time from the calendar view. You can register for a time that is no more than 30 days from the current date.
  • Check the opening hours of the exam rooms.
  • Finish by confirming your registration.

You will receive an email to confirm that your exam registration was successful. Your registration will also be displayed on the Examinarium system. When entering the exam room, you need to remember the computer letter/number assigned to you by the system, and your university user name and password.  If you do not receive a confirmation email, the registration process may have been incomplete. Check whether your registration is indicated for the exam in question. 

Things to keep in mind when making exam reservations:

  • Students are not allowed to leave the exam room during an exam.
  • You can only have one reservation at a time for each exam.
  • If you wish to take several exams in a row on the same date, you can allocate time for meals, bathroom visits and breaks between the exams.
  • If your plans change and you are unable to take the exam at the designated time, please remember to cancel or reschedule your reservation. 
  • Aborted exams often prevent students from making new reservations (depending on the number of attempts allowed by the examiner). If this happens to you, you need to contact the examiner to request a new attempt. The examiner may apply the general university examination guidelines to the Examinarium system and impose a waiting period on a student who has two or more no-shows or aborted exams on their record.
  • If completing the exam requires Finlex or additional tools for drawing or calculation (programs and drawing tablet), the system will offer you examination times only in those exam rooms that meet the requirements. Find more information from the room-specific instructions below. Windows-calculator and LaTeX editor are available for use in all Examinarium computers.
  • The exam may include optional sections, for example alternative book packages. If the exam has optional sections, choose the section(s) during the exam booking and only the questions in the chosen sections are shown to you during the exam. The sections you selected are shown in the reservation information. You can change your selection before the exam by editing the reservation (exam room and time has to be selected again).
     

Cancelling an exam reservation

Make sure to reschedule or cancel any reservations you are unable to show up for. Follow these steps to reschedule or cancel a reservation:

  1. Rescheduling a reservation before the exam date:

    1. Log in to Examinarium
    2. Find the correct exam in the"Reservations" list and click "three dots" -button and “Edit reservation”. Choose a new exam time and confirm your reservation. The new reservation will be displayed on your desktop and you will receive a confirmation email.
  2. Cancelling a reservation before the exam date:
    1. Log in to Examinarium
    2. First delete your electronic exam reservation. Find the correct exam in the "Reservations" list and click "three dots" -button and “Remove the booking”
    3. If you don’t intend to take the exam in question at all, you can also cancel your registration for the exam.

Entering the exam room

Check your confirmation email or the Examinarium system to confirm the room and computer you are taking the exam on. You can’t take the exam on a computer other than the one assigned to you by the system.

When entering the exam room, you need to remember your university user name and password in order to login to the exam system.

The hours of service of the exam rooms depend on the opening hours of the building. Some buildings may close early on certain days, such as the eve of a public holiday, so make sure to always check the opening hours of the room you have registered for!

Get to the exam room early. Your exam time will be counted down from the start of the time slot you have registered for. Enter the exam room and take a seat at your designated computer no more than five minutes before the start of your exam to allow previous examinees to finish their sessions.

Prepare for any potential problems by reading the electronic exam instructions in advance. The instructions are also available in the exam rooms. The exam rooms are supervised by recording cameras. See the bulletin on instructions for power outage.

You are required to bring your student ID card or official identification to your exams to verify your identity (in addition to video recording, the exam rooms are subject to random checks. Students are not allowed to leave the exam rooms during exams. (You are allowed to leave the room after submitting your exam.) 

Leave all your belongings into the locker, including mobile phone and smart watch. You can only take your ID or student card, the key to the locker and a bottle of water to the computer. The bottle has to be see-through and without any labels. Even if you have only a digital student card, the phone is left to the locker.

Room-specific instructions

The exam rooms are open throughout the year in accordance with opening hours of the building (with some exceptions).

City Centre Campus / Learning Centre Aleksandria (Fabianinkatu 28) The exam room will be closed from 22 April. A new exam room will be opened on the third floor of Kaisa building in early May.

  • Aleksandria fourth floor. Whiteboards available for making notes. Lockers are provided for examinees. 16 computers.
  • Aleksandria K133 ground floor. Lockers are provided for examinees. Access to Finlex Data Bank. 16 computers. 
  • During the teaching periods, the default examination times in Aleksandria are Mon–Fri 8.30–19.25 and Saturdays 11.30–16.25. Exceptions to the opening hours are entered in the booking calendar.
  • Kaisa House 4th floor, individual arrangements' facilities (2 rooms, 2 places) NB: only for students with a right to individual arrangements! See instructions for reserving the room for individual arrangements.

Kumpula Physicum (Gustaf Hällströmin katu 2)

  • The exam room is on the second floor in Physicum, room D211. 11 computers.
  • Lockers are provided for examinees inside the exam room.
  • Pen displays, Paint and Xournal++ for drawings and calculations in all computers. If your exam includes drawing  or writing calculations, read these instructions before the exam.
  • The possibility to use Matlab, Geogebra, ChemDraw, Origin, R or R studio –programs in exams that require additional tools for drawing or calculation.
  • Pens and papers for the moment available for sketching the answers (papers will be destroyed after the exam). 
  • During the teaching periods, the default examination times are Mon–Fri 8.00–17.25. Exceptions to the opening hours are entered in the booking calendar. 

Kumpula Chemicum (A.I. Virtasen aukio 1)

  • The exam room is on the first floor in Chemicum, room A122. 12 computers.
  • Lockers are provided for examinees outside the exam room.
  • Pen displays, Paint and Xournal++ for drawings and calculations in all computers. If your exam includes drawing  or writing calculations, read these instructions before the exam.
  • The possibility to use Matlab, Geogebra, ChemDraw, Origin, R or R studio –programs in exams that require additional tools for drawing or calculation.
  • Pens and papers for the moment available for sketching the answers (papers will be destroyed after the exam). 
  • During the teaching periods, the default examination times are Mon 9.30–17.25 (8.30–9.30 a.m. reserved for testing the drawing displays) and Tue–Fri 8.30–17.25. Exceptions to the opening hours are entered in the booking calendar. 

Viikki Biocenter 1 (Viikinkaari 9) 

  • The exam room is on the 4th floor. 8 computers.
  • Lockers are provided for examinees.
  • Whiteboards available for sketching the answers and making notes. 
  • During the teaching periods, the default examination times are Mon–Fri 8.30–17.25. Exceptions to the opening hours are entered in the booking calendar. 
  • Viikki (Biokeskus 1, 4th floor, individual arrangements' facilities (1 room, 1 place). NB: only for students with a right to individual arrangements! Scanner for drawings and calculations (part of the computer). See instructions for reserving the room for individual arrangements.

Viikki Infokeskus (Viikinkaari 11)

  • The exam room is on the ground floor (room K1084) in Info Centre Korona.
  • 6 computers. The computers are equipped with pen displays for drawings, writing calculations and making notes. If your exam includes drawing  or writing calculations, read these instructions before the exam.
  • The lockers are outside the exam room and require a smartcard (for example student card, Unisport card or HSL bus card).
  • During the teaching periods, the default examination times are Mon 9.30–19.25 (8.30–9.30 a.m. reserved for testing the drawing displays) and Tue–Fri 8.30–19.25. Exceptions to the opening hours are entered in the booking calendar. 

Meilahti Biomedicum 2B (Tukholmankatu 8 B)

  • The exam room is in Biomedicum 2b, room sh15. 16 computers. 
  • Lockers are provided outside the room.
  • During the national exams for specialist degree in Medicine and Dentistry this exam room is primarily reserved for examiners participating in these exams. Other reservations will be removed and directed to other exam facilities if necessary.
  • During the teaching periods, the default examination times are Mon–Fri 8.00–17.00. Exceptions to the opening hours are entered in the booking calendar. 

If you are interested in taking your exam in the facility of some other university, see the paragraph “Instructions for students going on an exam visit”.

Taking your exam

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Video: How to take an exam in Examinarium

1. Locate the computer assigned to you and follow these instructions:

  • Find the START EXAM icon on the desktop and use your login credentials to sign in.
  • If you are early, wait for the start of your exam.
  • The exam will begin automatically at the start of your exam time.
  • Navigation. The exam will have one or more sections, each containing one or more questions. Refer to the sidebar on the right for information on the number of sections and questions in your exam. The questions for each section are displayed on one page. To navigate between the sections, use the list in the sidebar or the green arrows at the bottom of the display.

2.Read the exam instructions.

3. Answer the questions in your preferred order.

  • If necessary, click the question title to display the answer field.
  • You can freely navigate between the exam’s different sections. This means you can start by entering notes for the questions and then go back to add more detail.
  • The system saves your answers automatically at one-minute intervals. You can also save your answers at any time by clicking the Save button.

4. Submit your exam by clicking “Save and submit exam” on the right.

5. Confirm exam submission.

  • The system will display a message confirming the submission of your exam and you will be logged out.
  • Your exam will be automatically submitted at the end of your allotted exam time if you haven’t submitted it by then. You will also be logged out automatically at the same time.

6. Close the browser window.

If you need to abort an exam, click “Abort exam” in the sidebar on the right. Aborted exams are not scored. Confirm that you wish to abort the exam, close the browser window and log out from the computer.

7. Restart the computer.

 

Problem situations

There are instructions for problem situations in the exam facilities. If the problem remains unsolved, leave the exam room (leaving the exam room aborts the exam attempt, if you have already seen the questions) and contact one of the following:

  • Interrupted exam: Educational technology services (edutech@helsinki.fi)
  • Computer related problems: Helpdesk 
  • Question relating the exam questions or instructions: contact the examiner

After the exam

You will get an email notification, when your exam has been assessed. In Examinarium, you will see the total score, the grade and the feedback of your exam. In the report of points per question, you can see how your points are distributed between the sections.  

You can see your exam questions and answers, if the examiner has enabled them to be published. If your answers are not available but you would like to have a look at them and go through the feedback you received in more detail, please contact the examiner. 

If the study attainment information in Examinarium states that the type of examination is “whole course grade”, the grade should appear in Sisu the day after the teacher has assessed your exam. Check that your grade is registered to Sisu correctly. 

If the examination is marked as a “partial course grade”, completing the course usually includes other mandatory assignments. Therefore these grades are not automatically registered from Examinarium to Sisu. The final grade of the course will be registered to Sisu later on. 

Please give feedback on electronic examining in exam room >>

Rules and accessibility statement for Examinarium

Individual arrangements for Examinarium exams

  • If you are entitled to additional time in exams, please contact your examiner. It is not possible to assign additional time into the Examinarium system, but the examiner can create a personal exam for you, that includes the additional time. If the duration of the exam with the additional time exceeds three hours, the alternatives for the examiner are to either divide it into two exams or take the exam outside the Examinarium system.
  • If you use a wheelchair, select  "Accessibility type" and "Pääsy pyörätuolilla" (Accessible with wheelchair) when making an exam reservation.
  • If you are entitled to an assistant or other individual arrangements during your exam, please check the instructions from page "Individual arrangements in examination sessions"

Instructions for students going on an exam visit

An exam visit means that you take an examination related to a course of your home university in the EXAM (known as Examinarium at the University of Helsinki) facility of some other university. Before embarking on an exam visit, read these instructions for students leaving for an exam visit and the instructions of your chosen target university (examination facility opening hours, access rights and other university-specific instructions) https://e-exam.fi/in-english/.

Booking an exam time from another university is done in the University of Helsinki Examinarium. In the "Choose room" section, select "Select room for exam visit" instead of the “Exam room on your own university”.

Not all examinations can be taken as exam visits:  

  • The software range on computers varies by university. For example, if the Finlex database can be used in the examination, you cannot take the examination anywhere else except the K133 facility at Aleksandria. The student should ensure the availability of drawing tablets and other software and only reserve the examination facility where such software is available. Correspondingly, you are not allowed to take an examination in a facility with access to forbidden software.
  • The target university is not obliged to make any additional or individual arrangements for the visitor.

If you have study rights to more than one university, the examination booking is made in the EXAM system and using the account credentials of the university whose examination you are about to take. University of Helsinki examinations are booked on https://examinarium.helsinki.fi (select the examination and, when choosing the room, select "Exam room reservation from external institution"). In the examination facility, log in to the EXAM system with your University of Helsinki account credentials.

Instructions for students coming in for an exam visit from other universities.

Any questions on exam visit? Please contact your home university.