This past spring, the Examination Information System (EIS) repeatedly caused headaches for students. During the joint entry exams for Tallinn and Harju County state high schools, test results were disregarded due to technical glitches in the EIS, which led to the cancellation of the tests. Additionally, the EIS became very slow during the Estonian language e-exam, prompting the Education and Youth Board (Harno) to extend the exam time.

The Ministry of Education has now announced a public procurement to find a developer who will analyze the solutions needed for e-exams and further develop the existing examination information system and its related interfaces.

Arturas Matšenas, IT project manager for e-exams at the Ministry of Education and Research, told ERR that the technical audit of the EIS suggested it would be more practical to create a new system altogether. However, the conditions of the current procurement still call for the further development of the existing examination information system.

"The reason for this is that due to current business processes, it is not possible to shut down the system immediately, despite the software reaching the end of its lifecycle. We have made preparations so that a new partner can take over the development," said Matšenas. Until the new system is established, the existing one must be relied upon.

The new development partner will also be tasked with starting the analysis and mapping out how to transition to the new information system with all stakeholders. This involves a technical assessment to determine which parts of the system will be transferred and which components will be developed from scratch, with plans to start developing the new system while ensuring a smooth and uninterrupted transition.

In response to the lessons learned in spring, the ministry has included requirements for work execution standards in the procurement documents. These standards should help prevent similar and other issues from arising, according to Matšenas.

"These requirements comply with the best practices of modern software development, testing, delivery and, if necessary, rollback in the event of risk realization," he explained. "The requirements are designed to ensure the smooth functioning of the entire software lifecycle according to contemporary standards. This also includes the potential handover of the software to a new development partner in the future, reducing the risk of errors."

The examination information system consists of three parts: the public view application for the public, test-takers and teachers; the internal view application for Harno and ministry employees and the template module for Harno and school employees.

The procurement conditions stipulate that the system's development will continue to function as an application for conducting cross-level exams and tests. If necessary, functionalities will be added to better meet the needs of e-exams, and conditions will be created for the use of the most innovative assessment methods.

The EIS applications are developed in the Python 3 programming language.

The duration of the procurement is 48 months, with a cost of €1.2 million, and bids can be submitted until noon on September 9.

The winner will be chosen based on seven criteria, with the highest weight of 30 percent given to the cost per work hour. Additionally, the software developer's work experience, additional qualifications, the software architect's work experience and the analyst's work experience will also be considered.

The EIS was created in 2009 initially only for basic school state exams. Later, standard-determining, vocational, entrance and other exams were added.

In recent years, about €300,000 has been spent annually on developing the EIS, and five employees from the Ministry of Education's technology management department worked on it. However, in the spring, HTM Deputy Secretary General Henry Kattago confirmed that the plan for this year is to transition to an external development partner.

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