* Overlapping syllabus and credits reduction: You can only get credits for one study program at 1000 level. This means that if you previously took our online subjects (FKJN/BIRDIDNAT) and later want to take the field course (30FKJ in Norwegian), you will not get more credits if you also take the final exam for the field course (BID1001/BID1002). The same applies the other way around, if you are first a field student and later choose to take the online exams.

** The teaching is in Norwegian. Foreign persons who live in Norway and speak Norwegian, but who are not Norwegian citizens, can apply, but must then follow special admission rules. You can find these here.

If you are looking to take part in a field course in Norway (FKJN Fuglekjennskap Norge), with physical attendance and teaching throughout a whole year, the subjects BID1001 and BID1002 are the ones you register for. Note that this course is for Norwegian citizens. The teaching is in Norwegian.

All the other subjects consist of online studies with self-learning and online exams with no physical attendance.

The courses BID1003/BID1004 are online courses aimed at Norwegian citizens or people with other strong connections to Norway (e.g. permanent residence). If you live outside Norway, the courses BID1005/BID1006 apply to you. These deal with the curriculum for most other countries in Europe and you can do the online learning and exam in many languages in Europe.

Once you have passed the subjects at the 1000 level, you are eligible for admission to the subjects BID2001/BID2002. These are online with self-learning. Once these subjects have been passed, you can take part in our excursions to Finnmark, Bulgaria and Morocco.

1. You register for all subjects on “My page”. When registering, you must state which subjects you are registering for and personal information. After registration, you will receive an e-mail stating that your registration has been received. Please register with an email address you check often.
2. You submit the necessary documentation. To be accepted as a student, you must meet one of the two criteria below. Please note that you cannot apply on the basis of practical experience if you also have a study qualification.
   – General study skills (examination from upper secondary school)
   – Work experience (you must be at least 25 years old in the year of admission and have 5 years of professional experience).

   Documentation consists of certificates from employers, a CV is not sufficient documentation!

   For some applications, electronic certificates will be available to us upon registration. If you have not been a registered applicant in “Samordna Opptak” before, you must send written documentation with one of the two requirements scanned in pdf format to birdid@nord.no

3. Your application will be processed and you will be notified when it has been approved. It can take a couple of weeks for applications to be processed. When you are accepted as a student, you will receive a welcome email with the necessary information about what you must do to complete the registration. If you do not hear anything within a reasonable time, it is likely that something is missing from your application. Please check that you have submitted the correct documentation. You will not be notified if you have submitted insufficient documentation.
4. If you are approved as a student and receive a welcome email from us, you must activate your student account, pay the semester fee and register for the semester. Information can be found at: www.nord.no/no/studier/studiestart/registrering/

Students will not have their exams activated until registration on Studentweb is complete, after payment. It is not sufficient to ONLY pay the Kopinor/semester fee. After you have paid, you must complete the registration on StudentWeb, before your exam will be activated.

You can read more about semester and kopinor fees here: https://www.nord.no/no/studier/studiestart/registrering

If you experience problems generating passwords, contact our helpdesk: www.nord.no/no/om-oss/serviceenjeter/ithjelp

The following do not have to pay semester fee:
If you have paid the semester fee at another institution for the semester in question, you ONLY need to pay the kopinor fee at Nord University. If so, send a receipt or a copy of the semester card to birdid@nord.no as soon as possible (send only once!).

Field students (BID1001/BID1002) only pay semester and kopinor fees for the semester in which they take the exam.

Note that there can be some processing time due to many applicants, especially at the start of each semester. You must expect a processing time of at least 14 working days. All applications are processed in the semester you have applied for. This means that if you applied after the registration deadline in the current semester, your application will be processed at the start of the next semester. Access to complete the work requirement (which will give access to take the exam) is given by email after payment has been received and registered with us. Remember to check the spam filter if you do not receive an email! You can always check the status of your exams on “My page”

T shirt

If you live in Norway and pass at least one exam, you may request a t-shirt with the birdid logo free of charge. Please send the request to hilde.dorum@nord.no with your name, address and size.

1. You register for all subjects on “My page”. When registering, you must state which subjects you are registering for and personal information. After registration, you will receive an e-mail stating that your registration has been received. Please register with an email address you check often.
2. You submit the necessary documentation. There are different admission requirements depending on which country you have an educational background from. When you are submitting your application to the study programmes at Nord University, it is your responsibility that the documentation you upload is correct and valid. The Admissions Office at Nord University always verifies uploaded diplomas and transcripts with the issuing school/institution. If we are unable to verify your qualifications, you will not be offered admission. We do not accept electronic certificates or transcripts. All documentation uploaded to your application must be authentic in the form of a scan or a picture of the original document. Scans of your officially issued original transcripts and diplomas for your secondary and university/college education must be uploaded. If there is any information at the back of the pages, scans of both pages must be uploaded. It is very important that the scans are readable and that the whole pages is visible, which means that all corners of the documents need to be visible. If your original documents are composed in colour, the copies must also be composed in colour. If your documents are composed in another language than English, Norwegian, Swedish or Danish, you must provide a translation. The original document has to be uploaded with the translation. The translation has to be carried out by a government-authorized or otherwize accredited translator. Some countries have special requirements regarding translations. Please check the admission requirements for your country here: https://www.nord.no/en/study-programmes/admission/find-your-country and here: https://hkdir.no/en/foreign-education/lists- and-databases/higher-education-entrance-qualification-gsu

   Select your country in the list to see which documentation requirements apply to you.

   All foreign students must also document their knowledge of English. The reason for this is that the exam regulations at Nord University are only available in Norwegian and English. All students undertake to read the exam regulations when taking an exam. Some will automatically meet the English requirement through their primary school education, while others have to take additional English tests. Please check what is required for your country here: https://hkdir.no/en/foreign-education/lists-and-databases/higher-education-entrance-qualification-gsu/language-requirements-Higher-Education-Entrance- Qualification and here https://hkdir.no/en/foreign-education/lists-and-databases/higher-education-entrance-qualification-gsu

   Send your documentation to birdid@nord.no

3. Your application will be processed and you will be notified when it has been approved. It can take several weeks for applications to be processed. When you are accepted as a student, you will receive a welcome email with the necessary information. If you do not hear anything within a reasonable time, it is likely that something is missing from your application. Please check that you have submitted the correct documentation. You will not be notified if you have submitted insufficient documentation.
4. Payment of semester fees: Students with citizenship outside the EU/EEA and Switzerland must pay tuition fees to study in Norway, unless they qualify for an exception. Read more about tuition fees here: https://www.nord.no/en/study-programmes/admission/tuition-fees and exemptions from the tuition fees here: https://www.nord.no/en/study-programmes/admission /tuition-fees/exemptions-from-tuition-fees

Note that there sometimes will be longer processing time due to many applicants, especially at the start of each semester. All applications are processed in the semester you have applied for. This means that if you applied after the registration deadline in the current semester, your application will be processed at the start of the next semester. Access to complete the work requirement (which will give access to take the exam) is given by email. NB: Remember to check the spam filter if you do not receive an email! You can always check the status of your exams on “My page”

We are sad to announce that we no longer send out t-shirts to students in other countries than Norway. This is due to increased cost related to toll/customs.

Syllabus for all areas/countries can be found here.

As with most other studies, there is also a work requirement for our subjects (on the same lines as term papers etc.) before you can take the final exam.

The work requirement consists of passing 10 “trial exams” before you can sit for the exam itself. You have as many attempts as you wish to pass the work requirement, and you must not pass them one after the other. You will get access to start with the work requirement only when you are admitted as a student and have paid the fees, and if you start with training tasks in exam mode before you are admitted as a student, they will not count as an approved work requirement.

If you want to retake the exam after failing or to improve your grade, you must also retake the work requirement.

When you have been admitted as a student, received information by email, paid the fees and received an email with approval, you can start with the work requirement. You’ve probably already practiced a lot in the online training tasks, and the work requirement works in much the same way. Select the exam mode in quiz, and pass 10 sets of tasks (at least 40% score). You can follow your progress on My Page.

When you pass your tenth round of exam mode, you automatically gain access to the formal exam. Access lasts for 10 days, and the exam must be taken within this period. In this way, you can regulate yourself when you want to activate the exam, by possibly waiting to complete the tenth round of the work requirement.

The formal exam works in the same way as the exam mode in the Quiz. Theory questions in the end come in addition for the subjects BID1001/BID1002/BID1003 and BID1004.

The species in the syllabus list must be recognized regardless of age, seasonal differences and gender.

Image exam
You must enter the name of the species by free writing and are given no multiple choice. Both Latin names and the names in the chosen language can be used in the same exam/quiz. There are 60 questions for each exam and you have 30 seconds for each task. For each correct answer you get 1 point. For each wrong answer you get -1 point. If you are unsure, it is a good idea to answer “don’t know”, then you get 0 points. After the picture tasks, you get a 15-minute break, and then there will be 30 theory tasks (not for all subjects). Here you can get 1-2 points for a correct answer, and 0 points for no answer or wrong answer.

Sound exam
You answer by choosing among the options (multiple choice). There are 60 questions for each exam and you have 40 seconds for each task. For each correct answer you get 1 point. For each wrong answer you get -1 point. If you are unsure, it is a good idea to answer “don’t know”, then you get 0 points. After the sound tasks, you get a 15-minute break, and then there will be 30 theory tasks (not for all subjects). Here you can get 1-2 points for a correct answer, and 0 points for no answer or wrong answer.

The theory part
Sound and image exams for Norway (BID1003 and BID1004) will, in addition to the 60 tasks with image or sound identification, contain 30 theory tasks each, where you answer with free text (Read more in a separate section below).

Number of attempts at the exam
You have 3 attempts
exam in each subject, and you must wait at least 3 months between each attempt. If you complete the work requirement, but fail to take the exam within the deadline, this counts as one exam attempt! If you fail to complete the work requirement, it will not count as one exam attempt.

The sound and image examination for Norway (BID1003 and BID1004) will, in addition to the 60 tasks with image or sound identification, contain 30 theory tasks each. The theory part consists of short theory questions about species determination based on the appearance and sounds of birds, as well as some central ecology that is important for species determination. All theory assignments must be answered in free text. You have 30 seconds for each task, and the questions are short and require short answers. You are not meant to ramble on at length, but to answer the task briefly and concretely. Note that when time is up for one question, it automatically jumps to the next.

For some, the theory part can be experienced as stressful, but it is important to think simply and concisely. When correcting the exam, account is taken within reasonable limits, of the fact that time is short and that you can quickly make typos or not have time to finish writing a sentence. Plagiarism or the use of artificial intelligence is not accepted under any circumstances.

Example of how answers should be written and assessment of answers to
the theory part:

If the task is to state two characteristics that distinguish, for example, a barn swallow and a swift in flight, and you answer ‘colours and shape’, you get 0 points. If you answer ‘barn swallows have a white belly and long tail spikes’, you get 2 points. So it is understood that the characteristics you state constitute a difference that the other species does not have. Answer briefly and to the point, and remember that size is often a poor species characteristic of relatively similar species, and that we only ask for the species in Norway.

If the task is to write down which two of four species have a certain characteristic, then you get 1 point if you write down one species and it is correct, and 2 points if you state two correct species. If you write two correct species and in addition two or more wrong species, you get 0 points. If we ask about two species, do not write down more than two species.

Regarding the syllabus for the theory part

The purpose of theory questions in the exam is to test the students’ broad knowledge of bird identification, and how behavior and geography are helpful in species identification.

The tasks are based on the description text for each species in BirdID’s bird guide and Collins Bird Guide, both image and sound. In addition, questions will be asked based on the characteristics and species identification of all the syllabus species, which you learn by either doing our training tasks online and/or looking at birds out in the wild. It is therefore not as concrete a syllabus as many students are used to from other studies, as ornithology is based a lot on looking at birds out in the field.

In the audio exam, the syllabus is primarily the song of a bird species.

Example:
for questions such as “name species that like to sing while sitting in hiding”, this means that the bird’s sitting in hiding could be a characteristic that helps determine the species. The questions relate to the identification of species, confusion between similar species, characteristics, both sound and appearance. For example, it can be useful to acquire knowledge about the nature types in which you can observe/hear different species, and also plumage changes at different seasons. Use the bird books well, then the theory part is manageable. It will also be very useful to spend time outside on your own to observe birds.

The theory part counts for half of the entire exam, and can give a maximum of 60 points. Each question carries either 0, 1 or 2 points. You must pass both the image/sound part and the theory part to pass the entire exam. It is not possible to get less than 0 points on each assignment, but the answer may be that minus points are given if too many species are mentioned and some of them are incorrect in the theory part (see examples of grading above).

The field course in Norway (FKJN Fuglekjennskap BID1001/BID1002) has an initial cost of NOK 2,000 which covers driving costs during all the gatherings in Norway. Travel to and from the place of study, board and food are paid for by the students themselves, but we have good agreements with many accommodation facilities that ensure reasonable prices. Semester fee+kopinor fee is paid for the semesters in which the student takes the exam.

For all online studies, the cost is only the semester and kopinor fee for norwegian students. For non-norwegian students, you are exempt from paying the semester- and kopinor fee, unless you are a citizen outside EU/EEA/Switzerland. Please read more about this under “Admission for non-norwegian citizens”.

On the field courses in Morocco, Bulgaria and Finnmark, the students pay for travel to and from the destination, and parts of the board and food during the excursion. We have good agreements with the accommodation facilities which ensure a low price for the students. Otherwise, see separate information pages for the individual destinations.

Syllabus area includes all of Europe, parts of West Asia and North Africa. BirdIDs’ bird book does not yet cover all the species in the Western Palearctic’s curriculum, so we recommend that supplementary literature such as e.g. Collins Bird Guide is used in addition to our online bird guide. All the species can be found in the training exercises in Quiz. The species must be recognized regardless of age, seasonal variations and gender. On the exam in the Western Palearctic, there are no additional theory assignments.

We have a three-week censorship deadline for all exams, consisting of regular working days. Results are automatically registered in StudentWeb, and for norwegian students, a report goes to Lånekassen when the exam has been passed. We do not produce any further letters with confirmations to Lånekassen, all necessary information goes via StudentWeb. All questions concerning Lånekassen must be addressed to them.

For norwegian students: A transcript of records will not be sent out automatically, but you can easily download or order this electronically via studentweb.

For non-norwegian students: Your transcript of records will be sent to your address.

The exams are corrected manually by two examiners. Grades are given on a scale from A – F. To pass, you must have a minimum of 24 points for all subjects (exception: 19 points for BID2002). For subjects with a theory part, both parts of the exam must be passed in order for the entire exam to be passed. Each part must therefore have a minimum of 24 points, and each part counts for 50% of the grade.

Note that the grade table is indicative. No one but you will receive information about your result. In Norway, our exams are approved as part of degree building both for a Bachelor’s degree and in the relevant Master’s degree at universities and colleges.

Indicative grade table:

Coming soon. In the meantime, see www.nord.no

For all subjects at 1000 level, there are no prerequisites. The courses are based on beginners being able to acquire the theory needed to pass the courses.

For the subjects at 2000 level, the syllabus list is longer, but partially overlaps with the syllabus at 1000 level. It is therefore required that you pass courses at the 1000 level before you can take courses at the 2000 level.

BID1003/BID1004, BID1005/BID1006 and BID2001/BID2002 have an interactive online approach and consist of independent studies using our digital tools at www.birdid.no

A large degree of self-study is required in order to achieve the subjects’ learning outcomes.

Field studies in Norway (FKJN) with the subjects BID1001 and BID1002 have physical teaching in classrooms and in the field through 5 sessions which are carried out during one year.