Koji vs Nettskjema for Course Evaluation (2026 Comparison)

Nettskjema is the survey tool a huge share of Norwegian higher education reaches for by default — it is developed and operated by the University Center for Information Technology (USIT) at the University of Oslo, offered free to UiO and partner institutions, and trusted enough to act as a front end for highly sensitive research data. Koji is an AI-native course-evaluation platform built around moderated conversational interviews rather than static questionnaires. If you need a free, secure, Norwegian-hosted survey tool for general data collection — and your institution already has access — Nettskjema is an excellent and responsible choice. If your specific goal is course and teaching evaluation with qualitative depth, automatic thematic analysis, and closing-the-loop evidence for quality assurance, Koji is purpose-built for that. This is an honest comparison: where Nettskjema is strong, we say so plainly.

At a glance

Dimension	Nettskjema	Koji
Built by	University Center for IT (USIT), University of Oslo	Koji (AI-native course evaluation)
Core model	Online survey & form builder (Likert + open text)	AI-moderated conversational interviews
Data collection	Static questionnaire; same questions for everyone	Adaptive interview; AI asks follow-ups based on each answer
Open-text analysis	Manual — export to Excel/SPSS and code by hand	Automatic thematic analysis built into the collection layer
Qualitative depth	Depends on what students type unprompted	Probes vague answers in the moment ("what made the labs hard?")
Bias-aware moderation	Standard survey wording	Standardized AI moderation applied consistently across cohorts
Closing the loop	Not a built-in concept; handled outside the tool	Native action tracking against findings
Sensitive data	Integrates with Services for Sensitive Data (TSD)	EU/GDPR data handling; verify DPA and residency in procurement
Authentication	FEIDE / national academic single sign-on	SSO; LMS/SIS integration
Data residency	Norway (operated by UiO)	EU/GDPR-aligned hosting
Cost	Free for UiO and partner institutions with an access agreement	Commercial (subscription)
Best fit	Free, secure general surveying at Norwegian institutions	Deep, standardized, accreditation-grade course evaluation

Facts about Nettskjema are drawn from the University of Oslo's own documentation as of publication. Always confirm current features and access terms with USIT.

What Nettskjema is — and why Norwegian institutions rely on it

Nettskjema is a genuinely good tool, and it is important to be clear about that before drawing any distinctions. It is developed and operated by USIT at the University of Oslo, and it ranges from "basic forms for application, registration and quizzes" all the way up to being a secure front end for "highly sensitive research investigations." It offers approximately 100% uptime, no limits on the number of responses or forms, conditional branching, numerical validation, and export to Excel, tab-separated files, and SPSS-ready formats.

Two things make it especially trusted in Norwegian academia. First, it is recognized by Sikt (the Norwegian Agency for Shared Services in Education and Research) and its Data Protection Officer, and it integrates with the Services for Sensitive Data (TSD) for encrypted collection of health and other special-category data. Second, it is effectively free for staff and students at UiO and at partner institutions that hold an access agreement, and it authenticates through FEIDE, the national academic identity system. For a QA office that needs to run a registration form, a general student-experience survey, or a research questionnaire under GDPR without procuring anything new, Nettskjema is often the correct answer.

For course and teaching evaluation specifically, though, the design assumptions matter. Nettskjema is a form and survey builder. That shapes what it can and cannot do when the goal is understanding why students rated a course the way they did.

The core difference: a form versus a conversation

Nettskjema, like almost every survey tool, collects the answers to the questions you wrote in advance. If a student rates "assessment clarity" a 2 out of 5, the form records a 2. Whether you learn anything actionable depends entirely on whether that student chooses to type an explanation in a free-text box — and, if they do, on someone later reading and coding hundreds of those comments by hand.

Koji inverts this. Instead of a fixed questionnaire, each student has a short, AI-moderated conversation. When a rating is low or a comment is vague, the AI asks a follow-up in the moment — "you mentioned the assessment was unclear; was it the brief, the marking criteria, or the timing?" — so the reason is captured while the student is still engaged, not lost to an empty comment box. The same standardized moderation is applied to every student, which means the depth does not depend on how articulate or motivated a particular respondent happens to be.

This is the distinction that matters most for evaluation. A survey tells you that satisfaction with feedback dropped this term. A moderated interview tells you why, at a level of specificity you can act on.

Analysis: manual coding versus automatic themes

Nettskjema's strength is clean data export. You can pull results into Excel or SPSS and analyse them with whatever methodology your institutional-research team prefers. For closed questions this is fast and rigorous. For open text, it means manual coding: someone reads the comments, develops a coding frame, tags each response, and checks inter-coder reliability. That is real, skilled work — and at the scale of an institution-wide evaluation round, it is often the reason qualitative feedback goes unread.

Koji performs thematic analysis automatically on the conversational data it collects, clustering responses into themes with representative quotes and prevalence, and produces this consistently across cohorts and terms. The point is not that automation replaces academic judgement; it is that it makes the qualitative half of your evaluation actually usable at scale, and comparable from one term to the next.

Standardization and bias-aware moderation

Because Nettskjema is a build-your-own-form tool, the quality and neutrality of an evaluation depend on whoever authored the form. Wording drifts between departments; a leading question in one faculty's template quietly biases its results; comparability across units is only as good as the discipline applied to questionnaire design. This is a governance problem, not a Nettskjema flaw — but it is one the tool does not solve for you.

Koji applies one standardized, bias-aware interview instrument identically across cohorts and departments. That consistency is what makes cross-unit and term-over-term comparison defensible — a property that matters a great deal when the same evidence has to stand up in a periodic programme review or an accreditation panel.

Closing the loop

"Closing the loop" — showing students and reviewers what changed as a result of their feedback — is a core expectation of the European Standards and Guidelines (ESG 1.9) and of NOKUT's expectations for Norwegian institutions. Nettskjema has no built-in concept of this; the loop is closed, if at all, in spreadsheets, committee minutes, and email. Koji tracks actions against findings inside the platform, so the audit trail from "students raised X" to "we changed Y" to "the next cohort reported Z" exists as a record you can hand to a panel. For QA-driven evaluation, this is frequently the deciding factor.

Data protection and residency

Here the two tools are genuinely comparable, and Nettskjema is very strong. It is operated in Norway by a public university, recognized by Sikt's Data Protection Officer, and — via TSD — is trusted for special-category data. If keeping data inside Norwegian public infrastructure is a hard requirement, Nettskjema is hard to beat.

Koji provides EU/GDPR-aligned data handling. As with any commercial procurement, you should verify the data processing agreement, storage and backup locations, and sub-processor list against your institution's requirements. GDPR compliance is necessary but not sufficient on its own; residency and sub-processor detail are what procurement should scrutinise. Koji's AI interview engine is the same one used across the wider Koji platform for user and customer research, adapted for education.

Where Nettskjema is the better choice

Be honest with yourself about the job. Choose Nettskjema when:

You need a free, secure survey or form tool and your institution already has access — there is little reason to pay for what you can run responsibly at no cost.
The task is general data collection: registrations, applications, event feedback, quizzes, or research questionnaires.
You are handling special-category data and want the TSD integration and Sikt recognition.
Your evaluation is primarily quantitative and your team already codes any open text efficiently.
A hard institutional policy requires data to remain in Norwegian public infrastructure.

Where Koji is the better choice

Choose Koji when the job is course and teaching evaluation and you specifically need:

Qualitative depth at scale — adaptive follow-up questions that capture why behind every rating, without manual coding.
Automatic, standardized thematic analysis you can compare across cohorts and terms.
Bias-aware, consistent moderation so cross-department comparison is defensible.
Closing-the-loop evidence — action tracking that produces an accreditation-ready audit trail (ESG 1.9, NOKUT).
Evaluation evidence built to satisfy quality assurance and accreditation reviewers, not just to gather scores.

Many institutions run both: Nettskjema for general surveying on a free, trusted national tool, and Koji specifically for the course-evaluation cycle where qualitative depth, standardization, and closed-loop evidence matter most. The two are not mutually exclusive, and choosing by methodology needed rather than by tool habit usually leads to the right split.

The bottom line

Nettskjema is a well-built, GDPR-strong, free survey platform that Norwegian institutions are right to trust for a wide range of data collection. It was not, however, designed to conduct moderated qualitative course evaluation, analyse open text automatically, or evidence closed feedback loops — because that is not what a survey builder is for. Koji is built precisely for that job. If you want scores and clean exports, Nettskjema will serve you well. If you want to understand and act on why students rate courses as they do, and to prove you did, that is where Koji fits.

Frequently asked questions

Is Nettskjema a good course evaluation tool?

Nettskjema is an excellent general survey and form tool — secure, GDPR-strong, free for Norwegian institutions with access, and trusted enough to front sensitive research data via TSD. It works for course evaluation in the sense that you can build a questionnaire and collect responses. Its limitation is that, like any survey builder, it captures only the answers to the questions you wrote in advance and cannot adaptively probe why a student rated a course as they did. Analysing open text means manual coding after export.

How is Koji different from Nettskjema?

Nettskjema collects static questionnaires; Koji runs short, AI-moderated conversational interviews that ask adaptive follow-up questions during the response, capturing the reasons behind each rating. Koji then performs automatic thematic analysis on that qualitative data and includes native closing-the-loop action tracking. With Nettskjema, analysis and loop-closing happen outside the tool, typically in Excel/SPSS and committee minutes.

Is Nettskjema free?

For staff and students at the University of Oslo and at partner institutions holding an access agreement, Nettskjema is effectively free — it is a public-university service operated by USIT. If your institution already has access, there is little reason to pay for basic surveying. Koji is a commercial subscription product; you would choose it for its course-evaluation-specific capabilities, not to replace free general surveying.

Does Nettskjema have AI or automatic text analysis?

Based on the University of Oslo's own documentation as of publication, Nettskjema does not offer AI-driven or automatic thematic analysis of open-text responses. Free-text answers are exported (to Excel, tab-separated, or SPSS formats) and coded manually. Koji's thematic analysis is automatic and built into the collection layer, which is what makes qualitative feedback usable at institutional scale.

Is Nettskjema GDPR compliant and where is data stored?

Yes. Nettskjema processes personal data in accordance with GDPR, is recognized by Sikt's Data Protection Officer, and — through the Services for Sensitive Data (TSD) — is trusted for special-category data. Data is operated in Norway by the University of Oslo. Koji provides EU/GDPR-aligned data handling; as with any commercial tool, verify the data processing agreement, storage locations, and sub-processors in procurement.

Should we replace Nettskjema with Koji?

Not necessarily. Many institutions keep Nettskjema for general surveying, registrations, and research data collection on a free, trusted national tool, and add Koji specifically for the course-evaluation cycle where qualitative depth, standardized moderation, and closing-the-loop evidence matter. Choose by the methodology you need rather than by tool habit — the two are complementary, not mutually exclusive.