International Master’s programmes a welcome challenge

The Department of Computer Science can face a new era next autumn, as two out of three specialisation programmes at the Master’s level are planning to adopt English as their teaching language. In future, the courses of Algorithms and machine learning as well as Distributed systems are considered to be given in English, while Software systems continues in Finnish.

Annually, only an estimated 60-70 students graduate as Masters from the Department of Computer Science, while nearly double that amount complete their Bachelor’s degree.

Since Finnish students do not continue to the Masters level, we wish to attract students from abroad by internationalising the teaching. With this reformation, it will be easier for them to attend lectures and exercise sessions instead of studying by themselves.

The goal is not to exclude Finnish students from their studies with a language barrier. The department hopes that most of the students will still be Finns in future. Perhaps some 25% of graduates could be foreigners.

- The larger number of Master’s students ensures that we can offer teaching based on research and a wider range of courses, says Hannu Toivonen, former chair of the department, who supported the reformation.

Jesse Lankila, student and in charge of studies in the student union TKO-äly, thinks the reformation is a good thing. He recommends that students try working in English.

- There are some who may experience difficulties when studying in English. If you are truly interested in a subject, I don’t think the language will pose any problems. The terminology in this field is mainly based on English, and in working life we will inevitably interact with foreigners, so I think it is a valuable experience for students to study in a foreign language and with people from other countries.

Lankila believes that the language change will diversify the teaching more and more.

- Teachers may come from other countries, and the department will gain more fame abroad if students graduate from here.

Though the teaching will be given in English, students will still be able to take separate exams in Finnish. Pirjo Moen, who has participated in the reorganisation, promises that there will still be seminars conducted in Finnish every year. Whether exercise sessions will be given in Finnish remains to be seen.

According to Moen, the internationalised Master’s programmes have attracted attention already, as witnessed by the increasing number of applications.

- Studying and teaching in English is a challenge that we may all benefit from.

 

by Viivu Toikka

Created date

22.02.2010 - 01:00

Inter-university research and training centre on information security

The University of Helsinki and Aalto University have set up a joint research centre focusing on information security. The new centre, HAIC (Helsinki-Aalto Centre for Information Security), will coordinate the Master’s-level security education between the university and Aalto, with links to research and doctoral education.

The idea is to build bridges to the industries and gain their support for the education, and e.g. grants for MSc students coming from outside the EU, the head of the Department of Computer Science, Sasu Tarkoma, says.

Computer science undergraduate Petteri Timonen awarded in US science competition

Petteri Timonen, 19, came second in his category of the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) in Phoenix, Arizona.

 

On Friday, 15 May, Timonen, who is studying computer science at the University of Helsinki, was awarded a grant worth 1500 USD, some 1330 euros, in the Systems Software category of the Intel ISEF science competition.
 
As his entry, Timonen submitted a software tool he developed for Finland’s Red Cross to make mobile blood runs around the country as cost-effective as possible. Timonen implemented his tool in cooperation with the Blood Service.

The tool has gained international attention, as no tool like it seems to have been developed anywhere else. Timonen has also negotiated with the American Red Cross by email.

Renewed Carat App Gives a Smart Boost to Battery

 
The Carat Project Team at the University of Helsinki, Department of Computer Science, has published a new version of the popular mobile energy-awareness application.

After launch in June 2012, Carat has helped over 850,000 users, of which 41 per cent have been Android and 59 per cent iOS users, respectively. The new user interface follows modern application design guidelines and presents battery information in a more intuitive and easy to use manner.

- In addition to the new user interface, we have increased the accuracy of the energy saving recommendations of Carat, says Professor Sasu Tarkoma, the leader of this research done at the university.

The user interface features the number of energy intensive applications (Hogs), energy anomalies (Bugs) and user recommendations (Actions) at a glance on the main screen as well as global energy statistics for the device community.

Cover Song Identification Using Compression-based Distance Measures

M.Sc. Teppo E. Ahonen will defend his doctoral thesis Cover Song Identification Using Compression-based Distance Measures on Friday the 1st of April 2016 at 12 o'clock in the University of Helsinki Exactum Building, Auditorium CK112 (Gustaf Hällströminkatu 2b).  His opponent is Academy Professor Petri Toiviainen (University of Jyväskylä) and custos Professor Esko Ukkonen (University of Helsinki). The defence will be held in Finnish.

Measuring similarity in music data is a problem with various potential applications. In recent years, the task known as cover song identification has gained widespread attention. In cover song identification, the purpose is to determine whether a piece of music is a different rendition of a previous version of the composition. The task is quite trivial for a human listener, but highly challenging for a computer.