The Smart Simulators research group at Tampere University of Technology (TUT) has collaborated with multiple business partners for several years to develop models, methods and technologies for the semantic modelling of mechatronic systems and for the development of virtual machine laboratories. The main sponsor of the SEMOGEN project is the Technology Industries of Finland Centennial Foundation. The partners involved include Sandvik Mining and Construction Oy, Etteplan Design Center Oy, Vertex Systems Oy and AEL. The total budget of the SEMOGEN project is around 700,000 euros. The funding granted for the second phase represents around half of this sum. SEMOGEN II focuses on the semantic modelling of life cycle information in a machine system.

Smart Simulators is a multidisciplinary group comprising researchers from the Hypermedia Laboratory , the Department of Mathematics and the Department of Intelligent Hydraulics and Automation at TUT.

More information:

Project Manager Pekka Ranta, Hypermedia Laboratory (pekka.a.ranta@tut.fi)

Professor Kari T. Koskinen, Department of Intelligent Hydraulics and Automation (kari.t.koskinen@tut.fi)

Professor Seppo Pohjolainen, Department of Mathematics (seppo.pohjolainen@tut.fi)

We are at an unprecedented time in history – when we have novel possibilities for creating and sharing data (Twitter, Facebook, wikis, blogs, collaboratively created databases and other social media) as well as analytical tools that allow us to visualize the vast, oftentimes unorganized amounts of this invisible data. Could those be used toward understanding of a complex phenomenon called innovation?

Researchers and other investigators of ecosystems of companies and connected individuals can actually see the entities, relationships and forces they’re making sense of! With data-driven images, they can visually share the current realities and desired transformations with program managers, change makers and others interested in the phenomena.

In this session, we are going to describe the concept of innovation ecosystem, define questions that are yet to be answered, present visualization-driven methods of social media analysis, and discuss how these methods may be applied in the context of innovation ecosystem research. Further, we give a review of some of the openly available and easy-to-use tools for visual network analysis such as NodeXL and Gephi as well as other visualisation tools that can be used to complement network analysis.

Visualizing Innovation Ecosystems is a MindTrek Partner Day Session to be held on Wednesday September 28, 2011.

Tapahtuma-aika:  28.9.2011 klo 8:30 - 16:30

Paikka: Hotel Rosendahl, Pyynikintie 13, Tampere, Finland

Lisätietoja: Jukka Huhtamäki, +358405854771, jukka.huhtamaki@tut.fi

Kaisa Still, +35840150874 , kaisa.still@vtt.fi

Ilmoittautumiset: https://events.congreszon.fi/MINDTREK2011/en/ParLogin.jsp

Linkit: http://www.mindtrek.org/2011/visualizing-innovation-ecosystems

IEEE Educon 2011 conference was held on 4th-6th April in Amman Jordan ()(The Second Annual Global Engineering Education Conference). Theme in the conference was ”Learning Environments and Ecosystems in Engineering Education”.

Researchers Kirsi Silius, Meri Kailanto and Anne-Maritta Tervakari from TUT Hypermedia Laboratory participated the  IEEE Educon 2011 conference with their article ”Evaluating the Quality of Social Media in an Educational Context”. The Article was awarded the Best Paper Award in the conference area of ”Learning in Transition and Engineering Education Ecosystems”.

The Awarded Paper presents research results collected through years 2008-2010. The aim was to find the important factors that make social media solutions of high quality in an educational context. A literature review and qualitative research methods were used to gather the results.  This paper focused on finding which of the quality criteria found in earlier research were the most important. Especially usability along with privacy and security issues were considered important quality factors.

The article can be found from IEEE Xplore:

Silius, K., Kailanto, M. & Tervakari, A-M.  “Evaluating the quality of social media in an educational context”. In Global Engineering Education Conference (EDUCON), 2011 IEEE. pp. 505-510. 4-6 April 2011 Amman, Jordan. DOI:10.1109/EDUCON.2011.5773183

Lisätietoja: Kehittämis- ja projektipäällikkö Kirsi Silius, kirsi.silius@tut.fi, 040 835 4619

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines [WCAG] 2.0 covers a wide range of recommendations which help to improve the accessibility of web content. Following the instructions makes the content accessible to a large group of people with different disabilities, such as visual disabilities, hearing impairments, physical disabilities, speech disabilities, cognitive and neurological disabilities and multible disabilities.  Following the guidelines usually also improves the web content usability in general.

The translation was done together with Finnish interest groups. The work was supported by Ministry of Transport and Communications and Ministry of Finance. The translation process followed the W3C’s official Policy of Autrorized W3C Translations. Web Content Accessibility Guidelines [WCAG] 2.0 is a de-facto standard in it’s field and it has been translated into several languages (see WCAG 2.0 Translations). European Union among others advices its member states to follow these accessibility guidelines.

The opponent will be Dr. Anoush Margaryan (Glasgow Caledonian University, UK). The Custos is Professor Seppo Pohjolainen from the Department of Mathematics (TUT).

In her doctoral thesis Väjlataga takes part in the ongoing dialogue about learning and teaching in higher education, possibilities and risks, and about alternative ways how things could be done differently. The thesis demonstrates how existing teaching and studying practices can be successfully redesigned and reconfigured to encourage and promote increased learner control and responsibility for one’s studies, thus to support the potential advancement of more general dispositions for self-directing intentional learning projects outside of formal higher education. For more specific information, please read the press release on Väljataga’s dissertation.

Terje Väljataga comes from Tallinn and works as a researcher at the Centre for Educational Technology, Tallinn University, Estonia.

Further information: Terje Väljataga, +372 6409 355, terje.valjataga@tlu.ee