After Facebook visit, studying looks like work

University research and education laboratory Software Factory has launched a new kind of Open Source collaboration with the software industry and leading universities like Stanford University and MIT.

How do we keep students engaged until graduation, and how could young people be offered something they cannot already learn at work? These are big enough challenges for more than one university.

– When I think about working life and my own experiences of it, this start in Silicon Valley definitely boosted my motivation to study, says computer science student Janne Laukkanen.

He recently returned from a study-related field trip to San Francisco.

By providing working-life connections through education and research, the Department of Computer Science offers one answer to the question. And its newest means to connect started in 2010 with Software Factory, which has now networked both within Finland and across the globe.

Software Factory's newest collaboration centers on Open Source, and launched with a Hackathon event at Facebook's San Francisco campus in late January. More than 150 students from around 10 universities participated.

– With collaborators from Stanford University, MIT, University of Tokyo, National University of Singapore, and other universities in China, USA, Canada, and Europe, our students are in good company and the experience is unique, says laboratory operational coordinator Fabian Fagerholm.

Working online, student teams participate in development efforts like the well-known Ruby on Rails application framework and the Kotlin programming language compiler project.

– Especially this close collaboration with top developers from the Open Source world is hard to get elsewhere. Many of these developers are legends in their own communities. During our trip, we worked hand in hand under their instruction, says student Olli Rissanen.

University-level theory and relevant practice through international collaboration

The idea of Open Source projects is to offer students a unique learning experience, and also to try out new teaching methods.

Department Head of Studies Jaakko Kurhila is enthusiastic:

– More of this is needed all the time. Students who want something extra in their degree, and are willing to put in the work, will benefit from this tremendously.

– Students learn teamwork and skills that are difficult to convey in traditional lectures. Software Factory is also an excellent environment for conducting empirical research, says FiDiPro professor Jürgen Münch, who leads the Software Systems Engineering Research Group at the University of Helsinki.

The Open Source endeavor ends in June 2013. After that, participating universities will use the experience in developing their own computer science education.

Software Factory

Software Systems Engineering Research Group

Committed blog

Course description: Software Factory Project

Text: Minna Meriläinen-Tenhu
31.1.2013

Created date

01.02.2013 - 12:55

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.