About the Client
Metropolia University of Applied Sciences is the largest university of applied sciences in Finland, offering education in fields such as technology, social and health care, business, and culture. Metropolia focuses on higher education, research, development and innovation (RDI), and close cooperation with working life. Founded in 2007, the institution is a community of approximately 18,000 students and 1,100 experts. In 2025, Metropolia offers 85 degree programs, 24 of which are taught in English.
The metropolia.fi website functions as the university’s “digital main building,” serving all key stakeholder groups. The primary target audience of the Student Knowledge Hub is current students, but it also serves prospective applicants. Together, these interlinked websites provide comprehensive information about degree programs, admissions, current news, and support services—supporting both Metropolia’s educational mission and its broader public visibility.
This success story focuses on the Student Knowledge Hub project, while the continuous development and maintenance of the metropolia.fi website are also handled by Mearra. Over the course of the collaboration, the site’s usability, accessibility, technical solutions, and visual design have been significantly improved.
Objective
Digital ecosystems in higher education often consist of a large number of separate and loosely connected services and portals. Finding reliable, clear, and up-to-date information is essential for students to manage their studies and related activities. Well-functioning public digital services also serve as a strong first impression and an easy-to-use information source for those considering applying to study.
At a broader level, learning is becoming increasingly digital, accessibility and data protection requirements are rising, and both the volume of content and the number of content creators continue to grow. Information must be easy to find—whether searched via traditional search engines, AI-powered tools, or an organization’s own platforms.
The Student Knowledge Hub was designed to support students’ academic progress as effectively as possible, with content that is easy to find and simple to use on mobile devices. At the same time, the site needed to serve as a reliable information source for prospective students exploring how studying at different higher education institutions works.
Previously, much of the essential student content was located behind a login in a closed intranet. Content usage was low, presentation formats were outdated, and search functionality failed to surface the right information. Both student and content creator user experiences required significant improvement.
Solution
The Student Knowledge Hub project began with an assessment of the current state. Metropolia conducted user research and content structure design, based on which Mearra facilitated co-creation workshops. Following this discovery phase, wireframes were created and a delivery model was agreed upon: instead of a closed intranet, the solution would be an open public website built on the Drupal 11 content management system.
During development, user feedback was continuously incorporated, and the project progressed iteratively and agilely toward the final solution. Development followed the SCRUM framework in structured sprints. The Student Knowledge Hub was deployed directly on Mearra’s Silta cloud platform.
During the project, we encountered some unexpected situations related to our resourcing, but Mearra approached them in a highly solution-oriented way and adapted their work to support us. This made it significantly easier to move forward in a challenging situation.
As a result of the renewal, the site’s structure, content creator experience, usability, and accessibility have improved significantly. Information is now also easily discoverable via public search engines.
Mearra’s expertise applied in the solution
- Service design: wireframes and workshops
- UX/UI design
- System architecture
- Frontend and backend development
- Customization of the content management system (CMS)
- Hosting optimization
- Hosting on Mearra’s Silta cloud platform
- Project management, including steering group collaboration with Metropolia representatives
Change is a natural part of everyday life at large organizations. At Mearra, we aim to ensure that development work continues optimally even in changing circumstances—always moving toward the client’s goals.
Results
The new Student Knowledge Hub is now publicly available and serves a significantly broader audience than before. One third of visitors find the Student Knowledge Hub via Google or other search engines. Users typically arrive directly at content pages, demonstrating that moving guidance and instructions to the public web was an effective way to improve discoverability.
Already during the first month, the site had 23,000 active users. This is an excellent figure considering that Metropolia has around 18,000 degree students, who are the primary target group.
For students, the site now functions as an easy-to-use central knowledge hub for Metropolia-wide instructions. Students can find announcements, events, services, and guidelines intended for all Metropolia students, as well as direct access to learning systems such as Moodle and the Oma portal.
Mearra has created an AI-based solution to support the creation of meta descriptions — an element that is crucial for search engine visibility but often overlooked by content creators. This saves us time and improves the discoverability of our content.
Development of the Student Knowledge Hub continues both technically and content-wise. Metropolia’s content creators have been energized by the platform’s ease of use and expanded content creation capabilities, with no shortage of new development ideas. Building the Student Knowledge Hub has been an inspiring project for Metropolia, receiving extensive positive feedback—and the collaboration with Mearra will continue as the service evolves further.
