Innovative teaching

The Finnish Higher Education Council re-elected the department as a national centre of excellence in higher education, this time for the years 2010-2012. The status of centre of excellence is a significant achievement. It was only conferred on 10 units in Finland this time, and the department was one of two units that were selected for their second period.

The centre of excellence status is the result of long-term, consistent development of teaching and learning, such measures as creating learning-goal matrices for courses in connection with the new syllabus, removing some bottlenecks in degree progress, and supporting student-centred activities - both the multifaceted activities of the student union TKO-äly to support learning and the course organised by the new Lambda society - were taken during the past year.

The new sub-programme structure and degree requirements of the department were designed during the winter and spring, and came into force from the beginning of autumn 2008. There are now three sub-programmes at the department: algorithms and machine learning, distributed systems and data communications, and software systems. Now the teaching at the department is grouped more logically than before, and the new sub-programmes correlate more clearly with the focuses of research at the department. One of the principles while renewing the degree was, indeed, to further base the MSc-level teaching on the strengths in research at the department. The Department of Computer Science also has two international Master's programmes, in bioinformatics (MBI) and information and communications technology (CBU-ICT).

Here are some good details from the report(whole report can be downloaded from the link at the bottom of the page):

 

Teaching

The teaching/educational programme of the department clearly rests on a very solid pedagogical basis. -- Research and teaching are very well integrated and support each other. 

 

Curriculum and course design

The development and the design of the curriculum is well-structured. -- The staff are very committed. The bachelor’s level curriculum has a strong profile as well as the three lines of master’s programmes provided by the department. The students participate in the course design. -- Project studies facilitate exposure to real life situations. -- The balance between lectures, group work and project works is good.

 

Development of teaching

The discipline is in a state of continuous development and change, and the department has acted systematically in development work. The staff are highly committed to continuous development work.

 

Studing and students

The atmosphere of the unit is very supportive and motivating. Students and staff cooperate closely both formally and informally.-- The department seems to be highly attractive at the international level and has a high number of international graduate and postgraduate students.

 

Orientoivissa opinnoissa tehdään pelin henki selväksi

 


Laitoksen opetuksen kehittämisessä vahvasti vaikuttaneelle lehtori Heikki Lokille myönnettiin 26.3.2009 Eino Kaila –palkinto ansiokkaasta toiminnasta yliopisto-opettajana.

Year 2007 a large survey of computer science research was made. This survey also noted our department high quality students:

The Department attracts outstanding students and has excellent international network of collaborations and exchange visits.2

 

 

[1] The Finnish Higher Education Council: Centres of Excellence in Finnish University Education 2010–2012 (report 03:2009), p. 68-69.

[2] Academy of Finland: Computer Science Research in Finland 2000–2006: International Evaluation (Publication of the Academy of Finland 8/07), s. 43-44.

Created date

05.02.2010 - 11:03

Brain poetry

In the latest research result of the month section, we interview PhD student Jukka Toivanen about his recent work on brain poetry in the Discovery group led by professor Hannu Toivonen. How can humans and machines be creative together?

Kjell Lemström to be new Head of Studies

Since Jaakko Kurhila left the department to head the Open University, we had to find a new university lecturer to act as head of studies in short order. We received a total of 28 applications. Out of these, and after a preliminary qualification round, evaluations, interviews, and a department council hearing, Kjell Lemström (KL) was elected for the post. He started working as the department's Head of Studies on 2 March 2015, so the Head of the department (JP) conducted the following induction interview that very week.

This is by no means the first time Kjell has been employed by the department. He defended his thesis on ‘String Matching Techniques for Music Retrieval’ in 2000, and has held numerous teaching and research positions both before and after that, until he transferred to the Laurea University of Applied Sciences in 2011 (luckily, that was only temporary).

Head of Studies Jaakko Kurhila to head Open University

The Head of Studies at the department, University Lecturer Jaakko Kurhila, has been elected to the post of director of the Open University at the University of Helsinki. It was a tough race: all in all, 39 applicants sought the post, some of them through the Mercuri Urval headhunting process. After a consultant evaluation, interviews, and aptitude assessments, the preparatory committee for the post, the steering committee for the Open University, and the rector of the university came to a unanimous decision to select Jaakko, and the contract is already being drawn up.

Being selected from this prestigious group of applicants, and after such a thorough process, is indisputable proof of the qualifications of Jaakko and the high esteem the academic community has for him. The department extends its warmest congratulations to Jaakko for this career development and is proud of the success of its protégé.

Bridging the Gap Between Research and Standardization

In the fourth research result of the month, we report a joint work between the UH NODES group and the Cambridge NetOS group, lead by Prof. Sasu Tarkoma and Prof. Jon Crowcroft, respectively. Their work recently received the best paper award "Best of CCR" from ACM SIGCOMM.