WISEflow CEO regrets: "We’ve missed the mark"

There has been anything but flow in the grading of this summer’s exams. Not because of the students’ efforts, but because of the system tasked with gathering all exam-related logistics in one single digital platform.

WISEflow, as the system is called, has become the subject of a sea of complaints and great frustration among lecturers and external co-examiners, who have been particularly critical of its user interface.

“Why isn’t it possible to just go directly to one student, enter a grade, and then immediately move on to the next one? How hard can it be!? Apparently very difficult...  I've counted 10 different steps/clicks to get to the next student. In total, I had to use 283 clicks to enter grades for 24 students. It takes the same amount of time as reading a medium-length exam paper," Associate Professor Peter Bakker wrote in a column in Omnibus earlier this summer.

COLUMN: WISEflow? It took me 283 clicks to enter 24 students' grades into the system

Peter Bakker’s column, however, is merely the tip of a mountain of frustration that has rapidly accumulated in the inboxes of study administration offices across the faculties.

"There has been a massive storm of complaints and frustrations, and the criticism of the user interface is fully justified," says Trine Kvitzau, head of study systems.

She receives regular updates on the situation and has more or less followed the stream of complaints and frustration in real time.

The AU studies administration team at NatTech has, like the other faculties, gathered the frustrations that lecturers and external co-examiners have reported throughout the summer. And the list is long:

Lack of user-friendliness, too many clicks, confusing navigation, poorly adapted to the co-examiners' workflows, several functions are perceived as superfluous, risk of errors, and several co-examiners describe the system as "the worst exam system they have used,". Some have even given up on registering grades altogether, while others have expressed reluctance to take on future examiner assignments.

"In addition to the user-friendliness (or lack thereof), we have also received at least 51 inquiries from external co-examiners who have been unable to find our form for claiming travel expenses,” the study administration at NatTech writes to Trine Kvitzau at the end of their status on WISEflow.

The issues must be solved - now

The reason for the massive frustrations is due to the transition from one version of WISEflow's assessment tool to another.

"Back in the autumn, it was clear that improvements to the system were needed. But when we got the update in March, we unfortunately had to conclude that the user interface in the new version is lousy. It's annoying, and I was quick to get in touch with the supplier and make them aware of the problems," says Trine Kvitzau.

However, this could not prevent a large number of teachers and co-examiners from having to use a system where the user interface was anything but satisfactory. 

"The general dissatisfaction with things that do not work must be fixed and resolved before winter. It won’t do for it to take this long and be this difficult. And it needs to be improved significantly for the external co-examiners, who only use WISEflow a few times a year and therefore require a system that is exceptionally intuitive to use,” says Trine Kvitzau.

CEO: "We’ve missed the mark"

Developed by UNIwise, WISEflow has been adopted by educational institutions across much of Europe since 2012. The system serves more than 150 educational institutions with well over a million students, but CEO Henrik Løvig readily admits that the new version of WISEflow's assessment tool, which was implemented at Aarhus University in March, is not good enough.

"With the new version, we have to admit that we’ve missed the mark completely. We understand and acknowledge the frustrations. We are working at full speed to correct the problems. That is our absolute top priority. Improvements have already been made, and many more will be introduced throughout the autumn to ensure that these problems do not recur when the winter exams start,”  says Henrik Løvig.

He explains that improvements to the user interface are already being tested by employees at AU and other educational institutions, and that the feedback is "promising."

The goal is to reduce the number of clicks by two-thirds.

"The goal is to reduce the number of clicks by two-thirds, so that it does not take more than a few clicks per student to report a grade, depending on the exam and type of exam," promises Henrik Løvig.

Confidence in WISEflow remains

WISEflow has been developed as a system consisting of a number of basic elements that are necessary for all educational institutions. This is supplemented by institution-specific adaptations, which depend on local needs and opportunities.

"Universities are complex. There are a great many different parameters, national and international legislation, local priorities, different grading scales, and so on, and for that reason systems that can handle all of this also become complex. Our most important task is to make the complex simple to use, both for those who use the system often and for those who use it very rarely," explains Henrik Løvig.

AU and UNIwise are in close dialogue to resolve the issues, and Trine Kvitzau is still confident in WISEflow as a system and UNIwise as a supplier.

"We are talking about a professional supplier who fundamentally delivers an excellent system. In the latest version, the user interface for examiners is open to criticism, but problems are being solved, and we are satisfied with that," says Trine Kvitzau.

The university used to develop the necessary systems in-house, but that is no longer the case. Today, the university purchases standard systems that can be used in many different settings. According to Trine Kvitzau, this means lower costs and greater functionality, while the university’s role increasingly becomes one of maintaining a dialogue with the supplier about specific local requirements.

By far the most challenges at AU

The new version of the assessment tool has been rolled out to all users of WISEflow, but it has not given rise to nearly as much criticism elsewhere, according to Henrik Løvig.

"Several customers have welcomed the changes, which address specific improvement requests from them, but we naturally take AU's feedback seriously and use it actively in the improvement work that will benefit all customers. 

WISEflow was implemented at Aarhus BSS in 2012 and has been gradually introduced across the rest of the university since 2023. Trine Kvitzau says that WISEflow is actually among the systems that have been implemented with the fewest problems.

The work to rectify the challenges is in full swing at UNIwise, and CEO Henrik Løvig promises that the task will be a top priority in the coming months.

“We need to reduce the number of clicks required, and it must, of course, be easy to navigate the system and find what you need. Once we have achieved that, we will have come a long way,” he says.

This text is machine translated and post-edited by Mie Skov Jeppesen.