DDMV2 – Data driven assessment of qualifications to Master's programmes
KTH handles 16,000 applications for Master's programmes annually. This project continues from previous projects and involves ensuring that the assessment of qualification process is transparent and legally secure as well as further reducing the processing time by providing systems support.
Project context
KTH has approximately 16,000 applicants to its Master's programmes annually. In the admission process, all applicants' eligibility must be assessed. When the number of eligible applicants exceeds the number of available places, which is usually the case, an assessment of qualification is also carried out. At some of KTH's schools, administrative support is provided to the programme director (PA) in this work, but in different ways and to different extents. At some schools, no administrative support is provided at all. The working time – regardless of for whom – for assessment and merit assessement is unreasonably high. The procedure requires that a number of documents per applicant are manually retrieved, opened and assessed in the NyA system. Since approximately only one tenth of applicants begin their studies at KTH, it is of utmost importance to reduce the working time per applicant without either losing the quality of the students we admit or reducing legal certainty.
The previous project Data-driven assessment of qualifications DDMV1 (2322-SCI) within Future Education has shortened working hours significantly by increasing the degree of digitalisation. Some data is retrieved from NyA, applicants fill out a web form (the so-called Summary sheet) and a decision support for PA (the so-called PA view) has been created via an underlying merit assessment model. The solution was used in sharp mode, evaluated and documented during the admission process in 2024 (February-April) by 27 programs at KTH. The solution provides a high degree of commonality and transparency in terms of assessment criteria, which increases legal certainty, but also allows programme-specific adaptation.
Due to the statement from Swedish Higher Education Authority (UKÄ) 2021 regarding KTH's use of ranking lists in the merit assessment work, the VS project Merit assessment Master was initiated. A number of workshops were held during the autumn/winter of 2022-2023 supplemented by a SWOT survey. Based on the discussions in the workshops, it was determined that expanded and equivalent administrative support is desirable. This relieves the faculty and ensures transparency and equivalence in the assessment work. Adapted operational support is required, meaning that the needed support must be analysed, resourced and implemented at all levels.
The two initiatives were merged already during DDMV1 and this project is a continuation of the work.
Purpose (outcome)
The purpose of the project is to increase legal certainty and efficiency in the merit evaluation process through clarity and increased transparency. The impact targets are:
- Further reduction of work for both administration and PA in the admissions process in 2025 (February-April), by increasing digitalisation compared to DDMV1. Followed up via time comparisons.
- An improved merit assessment model in terms of accuracy and validation. Followed up via statistical analysis of the model.
Project results (output)
- Programme-specific web form for applicants (so-called "Summary sheet") further developed, tested and published ahead of admission in 2025 for all participating 28 programmes at SCI, ITM, EECS, CBH and ABE.
- Applicants’ evaluation of web form (see Result below)
- Programme-specific decision support for programme directors (PA): further developed Excel programme (the “PA view”) for managing data from the web form.
- A further developed statistical merit assessment model (“MVM”) based on how previous students have performed at KTH and on what background these students had (see Results below).
- Additional data on international universities to MVM (“University List”). Process improved and systematised for all schools for when a university is not on the list.
- Import interface to NyA for data transfer of admission decisions per program (no longer manual entry per student).
- Training for VS staff
- Sharp use within 29 Master's programmes of developed systems and routines during the 2025 admissions process with evaluation and documentation (February-May).
Time plan
Start date: 2024-06-01
End date: 2025-05-30
Project documentation
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Result
- Student evaluation of web form (contribution to 6:th SoTL, Scholarship for Teaching and Learning May 2025)
- Merit evaluation model (contribution to 10th Development Conference for Swedish Engineering education Nov, 2025): Result_2406-KTH_Meritvärderingsmodellen-USI10-2025-11.pdf (Swedish)