Metropolia University Identity Verification

[mariobros1985]

Hi everyone,

I've been wanting to take some courses from Metropolia in the near future for the BACS degree I'm wanting to finish at TESU and was looking at the wiki about registering for classes there. I wanted to ask if I can use something else besides a passport for verification such as my state-issued driver's license (I'm here in the US, fyi)? Also, if I do need a passport, it has to be a passport book and not a passport card, right? The reason I'm asking all of this is because my passport expired several years ago and I might need to shell out some cash to renew it just for this purpose.

Besides that, I was looking at bypassing this verification by signing up for a free class at XAMK and finishing it in order to get access to the HAKA system (I heard that the identity verification at Metropolia isn't necessary if you already have access to HAKA). Do I need to do the exact same verification as Metropolia that I mentioned in order to get access to any XAMK course and/or HAKA? Otherwise, it defeats the purpose of bypassing the verification and I would need to renew my passport anyway.

[sarahmac]

Hi everyone,

I've been wanting to take some courses from Metropolia in the near future for the BACS degree I'm wanting to finish at TESU and was looking at the wiki about registering for classes there. I wanted to ask if I can use something else besides a passport for verification such as my state-issued driver's license (I'm here in the US, fyi)? Also, if I do need a passport, it has to be a passport book and not a passport card, right? The reason I'm asking all of this is because my passport expired several years ago and I might need to shell out some cash to renew it just for this purpose.

Besides that, I was looking at bypassing this verification by signing up for a free class at XAMK and finishing it in order to get access to the HAKA system (I heard that the identity verification at Metropolia isn't necessary if you already have access to HAKA). Do I need to do the exact same verification as Metropolia that I mentioned in order to get access to any XAMK course and/or HAKA? Otherwise, it defeats the purpose of bypassing the verification and I would need to renew my passport anyway.

Having access to Metropolia's system with your own user account would make things easier.

I would simply ask Metropolia (avoinamk@metropolia.fi). "Hi, I want to enrol for some online open u courses and will need to electronically verify my identity by secure email. I do not currently have a passport, mine is expired, are other forms of photo ID like my driving license acceptable?"

At the end of the day, they are the only ones who can tell you.

I am going to lean toward technically no, because the driver's license is state-issued and not a federal ID. So no country has to recognize it as a valid ID document outside of the US. If they do it's a courtesy.

Btw, the passport card is only for use in Canada, Mexico, and some Caribbean regions, and travel to overseas US territories.

But. The people doing the ID check are real people. It's not like it's an algorithm, it's a person sitting in the student services office. They may be willing to work with you. If you say your passport is expired, but can you use your current driving license along with a scanned copy of the expired passport, they may be fine with it. They also might not be, but I think it is worth a try first.

[mariobros1985]

Hi everyone,

I've been wanting to take some courses from Metropolia in the near future for the BACS degree I'm wanting to finish at TESU and was looking at the wiki about registering for classes there. I wanted to ask if I can use something else besides a passport for verification such as my state-issued driver's license (I'm here in the US, fyi)? Also, if I do need a passport, it has to be a passport book and not a passport card, right? The reason I'm asking all of this is because my passport expired several years ago and I might need to shell out some cash to renew it just for this purpose.

Besides that, I was looking at bypassing this verification by signing up for a free class at XAMK and finishing it in order to get access to the HAKA system (I heard that the identity verification at Metropolia isn't necessary if you already have access to HAKA). Do I need to do the exact same verification as Metropolia that I mentioned in order to get access to any XAMK course and/or HAKA? Otherwise, it defeats the purpose of bypassing the verification and I would need to renew my passport anyway.

Having access to Metropolia's system with your own user account would make things easier.

I would simply ask Metropolia (avoinamk@metropolia.fi). "Hi, I want to enrol for some online open u courses and will need to electronically verify my identity by secure email. I do not currently have a passport, mine is expired, are other forms of photo ID like my driving license acceptable?"

At the end of the day, they are the only ones who can tell you.

I am going to lean toward technically no, because the driver's license is state-issued and not a federal ID. So no country has to recognize it as a valid ID document outside of the US. If they do it's a courtesy.

Btw, the passport card is only for use in Canada, Mexico, and some Caribbean regions, and travel to overseas US territories.

But. The people doing the ID check are real people. It's not like it's an algorithm, it's a person sitting in the student services office. They may be willing to work with you. If you say your passport is expired, but can you use your current driving license along with a scanned copy of the expired passport, they may be fine with it. They also might not be, but I think it is worth a try first.

Thanks for the reply! I just remembered about possibly using my birth certificate and/or my US Naturalization certificate for verification. I'll ask them what they can accept besides a passport or if they're fine combining several forms of verification.

[sarahmac]

Hi everyone,

I've been wanting to take some courses from Metropolia in the near future for the BACS degree I'm wanting to finish at TESU and was looking at the wiki about registering for classes there. I wanted to ask if I can use something else besides a passport for verification such as my state-issued driver's license (I'm here in the US, fyi)? Also, if I do need a passport, it has to be a passport book and not a passport card, right? The reason I'm asking all of this is because my passport expired several years ago and I might need to shell out some cash to renew it just for this purpose.

Besides that, I was looking at bypassing this verification by signing up for a free class at XAMK and finishing it in order to get access to the HAKA system (I heard that the identity verification at Metropolia isn't necessary if you already have access to HAKA). Do I need to do the exact same verification as Metropolia that I mentioned in order to get access to any XAMK course and/or HAKA? Otherwise, it defeats the purpose of bypassing the verification and I would need to renew my passport anyway.

Having access to Metropolia's system with your own user account would make things easier.

I would simply ask Metropolia (avoinamk@metropolia.fi). "Hi, I want to enrol for some online open u courses and will need to electronically verify my identity by secure email. I do not currently have a passport, mine is expired, are other forms of photo ID like my driving license acceptable?"

At the end of the day, they are the only ones who can tell you.

I am going to lean toward technically no, because the driver's license is state-issued and not a federal ID. So no country has to recognize it as a valid ID document outside of the US. If they do it's a courtesy.

Btw, the passport card is only for use in Canada, Mexico, and some Caribbean regions, and travel to overseas US territories.

But. The people doing the ID check are real people. It's not like it's an algorithm, it's a person sitting in the student services office. They may be willing to work with you. If you say your passport is expired, but can you use your current driving license along with a scanned copy of the expired passport, they may be fine with it. They also might not be, but I think it is worth a try first.

Thanks for the reply! I just remembered about possibly using my birth certificate and/or my US Naturalization certificate for verification. I'll ask them what they can accept besides a passport or if they're fine combining several forms of verification.

Well, to be honest, birth certificate and/or US Naturalization certificate are kind of irrelevant since they aren't Photo ID... which is what they want. But hopefully they give you an answer as to what options you might have.

[mariobros1985]

Hi everyone!

So, I've got a bit of an update for any of you wanting to know more about how ID verification works with Metropolia.

Basically, they were quite slow to respond to my emails and at some point had to re-email them to get a response when they didn't respond after more than a week (almost 2). In any case, they responded that they do identity verification via an application made by Candour (candour.fi) and they DO require a passport for several reasons. First, there's a microchip in the passport that needs to be scanned with the NFC functionality within the phone. Second, they designed the app to only verify with a passport and nothing else. Also, they send you an invitation link to download and use the app only for the purpose of ID'ing you. This is a tutorial of how it works: https://youtu.be/WP78m5tC8XY

If you don't have an NFC-compatible phone and/or your passport is expired/don't have one and can't afford to wait for another one to be processed and arrive, then this may not work for you.

I guess I'll be getting a new passport after I apply within the next week or so (those long waiting times for processing a new passport don't look good, though).

While we're on the subject of Metropolia, I actually managed to finish a class (Introduction to Artificial Intelligence) since anyone can just register on the Viope platform they use for certain classes without any ID verification (see here https://vw4.viope.com/login?org=metropolia). After finishing the course, you need to contact their viopesupport@metropolia.fi email to get your grade and credit, though. Apparently, you also need to know your Metropolia username and have done ID verification to get credit, which I haven't yet. The class was pretty easy for the most part, though I had to make educated guesses on what they wanted a couple of times. The class was just reading the material and doing like between 4-8 questions on each section (nothing is proctored). I actually finished the class within a day and ended up with a 100% score for some reason even though I got like 2 questions wrong in the entire class. 3 ECTS is very fair for this class for the amount of work I put in.

I'm also currently doing the class called Artificial Intelligence with Python, also on Viope, and it looks a lot more involved with a mixture of practice problems, coding exercises, open exercises, and a learning diary.

I hope this was helpful for you guys.

---

Also, I wanted to mention that I tried using the XAMK HAKA login after my free class called Hospitality Management started to enroll in classes at Metropolia and it didn't work at all. I tried emailing Metropolia's support team, but they couldn't resolve my problem at all. My theory is that Metropolia is using something within the HAKA login to verify my identity, but it's either not present or not confirmed or something and the system crashes with a system error when it's not able to retrieve the verification or something like that. I don't know if anyone else was able to use the XAMK HAKA login, but it didn't work for me.

This is what lead me to use the alternative method of identifying myself with a passport.

[rachel83az]

Interesting. I was able to use the HAKA login just fine for Metropolia, though I did have to email them about it. I wonder if it's due to my HAKA account age or something else.

[mariobros1985]

Hey everyone!

So basically, I made forgot to mention that the Candour ID verification was told to me by Metropolia's student services coordinator. I forgot that I asked the same question about verifying my identity to the Open UAS Nonstop Program Coordinator, Virve Prami, and she actually told me to use secure email and to upload a scan of either my driver's license or my Certificate of Citizenship (I mistakenly said it was a Certificate of Naturalization earlier). I think this might be good news and I'll report back if they accept my documents (I submitted both just in case) and give me my student credentials to study.

[mariobros1985]

Hey everyone!

So basically, I made forgot to mention that the Candour ID verification was told to me by Metropolia's student services coordinator. I forgot that I asked the same question about verifying my identity to the Open UAS Nonstop Program Coordinator, Virve Prami, and she actually told me to use secure email and to upload a scan of either my driver's license or my Certificate of Citizenship (I mistakenly said it was a Certificate of Naturalization earlier). I think this might be good news and I'll report back if they accept my documents (I submitted both just in case) and give me my student credentials to study.

Alright, so I was given the login information instructions along with my username and default password that I changed. Basically, it's confirmed, I now have access to Metropolia without having to use a passport. I don't know whether the driver's license or the certificate of Naturalization or both together worked but that was enough to verify my ID. Just contact the Nonstop Program Coordinator, Virve Prami, who has her contact information listed on the nonstop courses page and you should be able to verify your identity without a passport (provided the ID has a picture of you). She was very helpful and nice, too. I hope this was helpful to anyone!

[mariobros1985]

Hey everyone!

So basically, I made forgot to mention that the Candour ID verification was told to me by Metropolia's student services coordinator. I forgot that I asked the same question about verifying my identity to the Open UAS Nonstop Program Coordinator, Virve Prami, and she actually told me to use secure email and to upload a scan of either my driver's license or my Certificate of Citizenship (I mistakenly said it was a Certificate of Naturalization earlier). I think this might be good news and I'll report back if they accept my documents (I submitted both just in case) and give me my student credentials to study.

Alright, so I was given the login information instructions along with my username and default password that I changed. Basically, it's confirmed, I now have access to Metropolia without having to use a passport. I don't know whether the driver's license or the certificate of Naturalization or both together worked but that was enough to verify my ID. Just contact the Nonstop Program Coordinator, Virve Prami, who has her contact information listed on the nonstop courses page and you should be able to verify your identity without a passport (provided the ID has a picture of you). She was very helpful and nice, too. I hope this was helpful to anyone!

So, I just noticed on my profile in the personal details section that my driver's license number was used, so I guess I can confirm that if you have a state-issued driver's license from the US, then this will work.