Information System ProcessInnovation Adoption, Adaptation, Learning, and Unlearning: A Longitudinal Case Study

This thesis examines the history and evolution of information system process innovation (ISPI) processes (adoption, adaptation, and unlearning) within the information system development (ISD) work in an internal information system (IS) department and in two IS software house organisations in Finland over a 43-year time-period. The study offers insights into influential actors and their dependencies in deciding over ISPIs. The research usesa qualitative research approach, and the research methodology involves the description of the ISPI processes, how the actors searched for ISPIs, and how the relationships between the actors changed over time. The existing theories were evaluated using the conceptual models of the ISPI processes based on the innovationliterature in the IS area. The main focus of the study was to observe changes in the main ISPI processes over time. The main contribution of the thesis is a new theory. The term theory should be understood as 1) a new conceptual framework of the ISPI processes, 2) new ISPI concepts and categories, and the relationships between the ISPI concepts inside the ISPI processes. The study gives a comprehensive and systematic study on the history and evolution of the ISPI processes; reveals the factors that affected ISPI adoption; studies ISPI knowledge acquisition, information transfer, and adaptation mechanisms; and reveals the mechanismsaffecting ISPI unlearning; changes in the ISPI processes; and diverse actors involved in the processes. The results show that both the internal IS department and the two IS software houses sought opportunities to improve their technical skills and career paths and this created an innovative culture. When new technology generations come to the market the platform systems need to be renewed, and therefore the organisations invest in ISPIs in cycles. The extent of internal learning and experiments was higher than the external knowledge acquisition. Until the outsourcing event (1984) the decision-making was centralised and the internalIS department was very influential over ISPIs. After outsourcing, decision-making became distributed between the two IS software houses, the IS client, and itsinternal IT department. The IS client wanted to assure that information systemswould serve the business of the company and thus wanted to co-operate closely with the software organisations.

Blended learning and student time-use in engineering education

Aiheen laajempi artikkeli on julkaistu konferenssi-CD:llä.

Machine Learning and Clinical Text. Supporting Health Information Flow

Fluent health information flow is critical for clinical decision-making. However, a considerable part of this information is free-form text and inabilities to utilize it create risks to patient safety and cost-­effective hospital administration. Methods for automated processing of clinical text are emerging. The aim in this doctoral dissertation is to study machine learning and clinical text in order to support health information flow.First, by analyzing the content of authentic patient records, the aim is to specify clinical needs in order to guide the development of machine learning applications.The contributions are a model of the ideal information flow,a model of the problems and challenges in reality, and a road map for the technology development. Second, by developing applications for practical cases,the aim is to concretize ways to support health information flow. Altogether five machine learning applications for three practical cases are described: The first two applications are binary classification and regression related to the practical case of topic labeling and relevance ranking.The third and fourth application are supervised and unsupervised multi-class classification for the practical case of topic segmentation and labeling.These four applications are tested with Finnish intensive care patient records.The fifth application is multi-label classification for the practical task of diagnosis coding. It is tested with English radiology reports.The performance of all these applications is promising. Third, the aim is to study how the quality of machine learning applications can be reliably evaluated.The associations between performance evaluation measures and methods are addressed,and a new hold-out method is introduced.This method contributes not only to processing time but also to the evaluation diversity and quality. The main conclusion is that developing machine learning applications for text requires interdisciplinary, international collaboration. Practical cases are very different, and hence the development must begin from genuine user needs and domain expertise. The technological expertise must cover linguistics,machine learning, and information systems. Finally, the methods must be evaluated both statistically and through authentic user-feedback.

Conditions for EFL learning and professional development : Finland-Swedish learner and teacher perspectives

Engelskans dominerande roll som internationellt språk och andra globaliseringstrender påverkar också Svenskfinland. Dessa trender påverkar i sin tur förutsättningarna för lärande och undervisning i engelska som främmande språk, det vill säga undervisningsmålen, de förväntade elev- och lärarroller, materialens ändamålsenlighet, lärares och elevers initiala erfarenheter av engelska och engelskspråkiga länder. Denna studie undersöker förutsättningarna för lärande och professionell utveckling i det svenskspråkiga nybörjarklassrummet i engelska som främmande språk. Utgångsläget för 351 nybörjare i engelska som främmande språk och 19 av deras lärare beskrivs och analyseras. Resultaten tyder på att engelska håller på att bli ett andraspråk snarare än ett traditionellt främmande språk för många unga elever. Dessa elever har också goda förutsättningar att lära sig engelska utanför skolan. Sådan var dock inte situationen för alla elever, vilket tyder på att det finns en anmärkningsvärd heterogenitet och även regional variation i det finlandssvenska klassrummet i engelska som främmande språk. Lärarresultaten tyder på att vissa lärare har klarat av att på ett konstruktivt sätt att tackla de förutsättningar de möter. Andra lärare uttrycker frustration över sin arbetssituation, läroplanen, undervisningsmaterialen och andra aktörer som kommer är av betydelse för skolmiljön. Studien påvisar att förutsättningarna för lärande och undervisning i engelska som främmande språk varierar i Svenskfinland. För att stöda elevers och lärares utveckling föreslås att dialogen mellan aktörer på olika nivå i samhället bör förbättras och systematiseras.

Kernel-Based Ranking. Methods for Learning and Performance Estimation

Machine learning provides tools for automated construction of predictive models in data intensive areas of engineering and science. The family of regularized kernel methods have in the recent years become one of the mainstream approaches to machine learning, due to a number of advantages the methods share. The approach provides theoretically well-founded solutions to the problems of under- and overfitting, allows learning from structured data, and has been empirically demonstrated to yield high predictive performance on a wide range of application domains. Historically, the problems of classification and regression have gained the majority of attention in the field. In this thesis we focus on another type of learning problem, that of learning to rank. In learning to rank, the aim is from a set of past observations to learn a ranking function that can order new objects according to how well they match some underlying criterion of goodness. As an important special case of the setting, we can recover the bipartite ranking problem, corresponding to maximizing the area under the ROC curve (AUC) in binary classification. Ranking applications appear in a large variety of settings, examples encountered in this thesis include document retrieval in web search, recommender systems, information extraction and automated parsing of natural language. We consider the pairwise approach to learning to rank, where ranking models are learned by minimizing the expected probability of ranking any two randomly drawn test examples incorrectly. The development of computationally efficient kernel methods, based on this approach, has in the past proven to be challenging. Moreover, it is not clear what techniques for estimating the predictive performance of learned models are the most reliable in the ranking setting, and how the techniques can be implemented efficiently. The contributions of this thesis are as follows. First, we develop RankRLS, a computationally efficient kernel method for learning to rank, that is based on minimizing a regularized pairwise least-squares loss. In addition to training methods, we introduce a variety of algorithms for tasks such as model selection, multi-output learning, and cross-validation, based on computational shortcuts from matrix algebra. Second, we improve the fastest known training method for the linear version of the RankSVM algorithm, which is one of the most well established methods for learning to rank. Third, we study the combination of the empirical kernel map and reduced set approximation, which allows the large-scale training of kernel machines using linear solvers, and propose computationally efficient solutions to cross-validation when using the approach. Next, we explore the problem of reliable cross-validation when using AUC as a performance criterion, through an extensive simulation study. We demonstrate that the proposed leave-pair-out cross-validation approach leads to more reliable performance estimation than commonly used alternative approaches. Finally, we present a case study on applying machine learning to information extraction from biomedical literature, which combines several of the approaches considered in the thesis. The thesis is divided into two parts. Part I provides the background for the research work and summarizes the most central results, Part II consists of the five original research articles that are the main contribution of this thesis.

Mobile learning and video experience in delivering digital content

In recent years, the worldwide distribution of smartphone devices has been growing rapidly. Mobile technologies are evolving fast, a situation which provides new possibilities for mobile learning applications. Along with new delivery methods, this development enables new concepts for learning. This study focuses on the effectiveness and experience of a mobile learning video promoting the key features of a specific device. Through relevant learning theories, mobile technologies and empirical findings, the thesis presents the key elements for a mobile learning video that are essential for effective learning. This study also explores how previous experience with mobile services and knowledge of a mobile handset relate to final learning results. Moreover, this study discusses the optimal delivery mechanisms for a mobile video. The target group for the study consists of twenty employees of a Sanoma Company. The main findings show that the individual experience of learning and the actual learning results may differ and that the design for certain video elements, such as sound and the presentation of technical features, can have an impact on the experience and effectiveness of a mobile learning video. Moreover, a video delivery method based on cloud technologies and HTML5 is suggested to be used in parallel with standalone applications.

Organisational learning and knowledge acquisition. A case study of internationalising manufacturers of wood-based prefabricated buildings

The study investigates organisational learning and knowledge acquisition of wood-based prefabricated building manufacturers. This certain group of case companies was chosen, because their management and their employees generally have a strong manufacturing and engineering background, while the housing sector is characterised by national norms, regulations, as well as local building styles. Considering this setting, it was investigated, how the case companies develop organisational learning capabilities, acquire and transfer knowledge for their internationalisation. The theoretical framework of this study constitutes the knowledge-based conceptualisation of internationalisation, which combines the traditional internationalisation process, as well as the international new venture perspective based on their commonalities in the knowledge-based view of the firm. Different theories of internationalisation, including the network-perspective, were outlined and a framework on organisational learning and knowledge acquisition was established. The empirical research followed a qualitative approach, deploying a multiple-case study with five case companies from Austria, Finland and Germany. In the study, the development of the wood-based prefabricated building industry and of the case companies are described, and the motives, facilitators and challenges for foreign expansion, as well as the companies’ internationalisation approaches are compared. Different methods of how companies facilitate the knowledge-exchange or learn about new markets are also outlined. Experience, market knowledge and personal contacts are considered essential for the internationalisation process. The major finding of the study is that it is not necessary to acquire the market knowledge internally in a slow process as proposed by the Uppsala model. In four cases companies engaged knowledge in symbiotic relations with local business partners. Thereby, the building manufacturers contribute their design and production capabilities, and in return, their local partners provide them with knowledge about the market and local regulations; while they manage the sales and construction operations. Thus, the study provides strong evidence for the propositions of network perspective. One case company developed the knowledge internally in a gradual process: it entered the market sequentially with several business lines, showing an increasing level of complexity. In both of the observed strategies, single-loop and double-loop learning processes occurred.

Adult education policy in the European Union during the Lisbon decade : the shift to vocational adult learning and work skills matching

This doctoral dissertation investigates the adult education policy of the European Union (EU) in the framework of the Lisbon agenda 2000–2010, with a particular focus on the changes of policy orientation that occurred during this reference decade. The year 2006 can be considered, in fact, a turning point for the EU policy-making in the adult learning sector: a radical shift from a wide--ranging and comprehensive conception of educating adults towards a vocationally oriented understanding of this field and policy area has been observed, in particular in the second half of the so--called ‘Lisbon decade’. In this light, one of the principal objectives of the mainstream policy set by the Lisbon Strategy, that of fostering all forms of participation of adults in lifelong learning paths, appears to have muted its political background and vision in a very short period of time, reflecting an underlying polarisation and progressive transformation of European policy orientations. Hence, by means of content analysis and process tracing, it is shown that the new target of the EU adult education policy, in this framework, has shifted from citizens to workers, and the competence development model, borrowed from the corporate sector, has been established as the reference for the new policy road maps. This study draws on the theory of governance architectures and applies a post-ontological perspective to discuss whether the above trends are intrinsically due to the nature of the Lisbon Strategy, which encompasses education policies, and to what extent supranational actors and phenomena such as globalisation influence the European governance and decision--making. Moreover, it is shown that the way in which the EU is shaping the upgrading of skills and competences of adult learners is modeled around the needs of the ‘knowledge economy’, thus according a great deal of importance to the ‘new skills for new jobs’ and perhaps not enough to life skills in its broader sense which include, for example, social and civic competences: these are actually often promoted but rarely implemented in depth in the EU policy documents. In this framework, it is conveyed how different EU policy areas are intertwined and interrelated with global phenomena, and it is emphasised how far the building of the EU education systems should play a crucial role in the formation of critical thinking, civic competences and skills for a sustainable democratic citizenship, from which a truly cohesive and inclusive society fundamentally depend, and a model of environmental and cosmopolitan adult education is proposed in order to address the challenges of the new millennium. In conclusion, an appraisal of the EU’s public policy, along with some personal thoughts on how progress might be pursued and actualised, is outlined.

Employees’ continuous learning and job satisfaction - effects on productivity

In today’s knowledge intense economy the human capital is a source for competitive advantage for organizations. Continuous learning and sharing the knowledge within the organization are important to enhance and utilize this human capital in order to maximize the productivity. The new generation with different views and expectations of work is coming to work life giving its own characteristics on learning and sharing. Work should offer satisfaction so that the new generation employees would commit to organizations. At the same time organizations have to be able to focus on productivity to survive in the competitive market. The objective of this thesis is to construct a theory based framework of productivity, continuous learning and job satisfaction and further examine this framework and its applications in a global organization operating in process industry. Suggestions for future actions are presented for this case organization. The research is a qualitative case study and the empiric material was gathered by personal interviews concluding 15 employee and one supervisor interview. Results showed that more face to face interaction is needed between employees for learning because much of the knowledge of the process is tacit and so difficult to share in other ways. Offering these sharing possibilities can also impact positively to job satisfaction because they will increase the sense of community among employees which was found to be lacking. New employees demand more feedback to improve their learning and confidence. According to the literature continuous learning and job satisfaction have a relative strong relationship on productivity. The employee’s job description in the case organization has moved towards knowledge work due to continuous automation and expansion of the production process. This emphasizes the importance of continuous learning and means that productivity can be seen also from quality perspective. The normal productivity output in the case organization is stable and by focusing on the quality of work by improving continuous learning and job satisfaction the upsets in production can be handled and prevented more effectively. Continuous learning increases also the free human capital input and utilization of it and this can breed output increasing innovations that can increase productivity in long term. Also job satisfaction can increase productivity output in the end because employees will work more efficiently, not doing only the minimum tasks required. Satisfied employees are also found participating more in learning activities.

JNK regulates dendrite and spine architecture in the central nervous system influencing spatial learning and motor tasks

JNK1 is a MAP-kinase that has proven a significant player in the central nervous system. It regulates brain development and the maintenance of dendrites and axons. Several novel phosphorylation targets of JNK1 were identified in a screen performed in the Coffey lab. These proteins were mainly involved in the regulation of neuronal cytoskeleton, influencing the dynamics and stability of microtubules and actin. These structural proteins form the dynamic backbone for the elaborate architecture of the dendritic tree of a neuron. The initiation and branching of the dendrites requires a dynamic interplay between the cytoskeletal building blocks. Both microtubules and actin are decorated by associated proteins which regulate their dynamics. The dendrite-specific, high molecular weight microtubule associated protein 2 (MAP2) is an abundant protein in the brain, the binding of which stabilizes microtubules and influences their bundling. Its expression in non-neuronal cells induces the formation of neurite-like processes from the cell body, and its function is highly regulated by phosphorylation. JNK1 was shown to phosphorylate the proline-rich domain of MAP2 in vivo in a previous study performed in the group. Here we verify three threonine residues (T1619, T1622 and T1625) as JNK1 targets, the phosphorylation of which increases the binding of MAP2 to microtubules. This binding stabilizes the microtubules and increases process formation in non-neuronal cells. Phosphorylation-site mutants were engineered in the lab. The non-phosphorylatable mutant of MAP2 (MAP2- T1619A, T1622A, T1625A) in these residues fails to bind microtubules, while the pseudo-phosphorylated form, MAP2- T1619D, T1622D, Thr1625D, efficiently binds and induces process formation even without the presence of active JNK1. Ectopic expression of the MAP2- T1619D, T1622D, Thr1625D in vivo in mouse brain led to a striking increase in the branching of cortical layer 2/3 (L2/3) pyramidal neurons, compared to MAP2-WT. The dendritic complexity defines the receptive field of a neuron and dictates the output to the postsynaptic cells. Previous studies in the group indicated altered dendrite architecture of the pyramidal neurons in the Jnk1-/- mouse motor cortex. Here, we used Lucifer Yellow loading and Sholl analysis of neurons in order to study the dendritic branching in more detail. We report a striking, opposing effect in the absence of Jnk1 in the cortical layers 2/3 and 5 of the primary motor cortex. The basal dendrites of pyramidal neurons close to the pial surface at L2/3 show a reduced complexity. In contrast, the L5 neurons, which receive massive input from the L2/3 neurons, show greatly increased branching. Another novel substrate identified for JNK1 was MARCKSL1, a protein that regulates actin dynamics. It is highly expressed in neurons, but also in various cancer tissues. Three phosphorylation target residues for JNK1 were identified, and it was demonstrated that their phosphorylation reduces actin turnover and retards migration of these cells. Actin is the main cytoskeletal component in dendritic spines, the site of most excitatory synapses in pyramidal neurons. The density and gross morphology of the Lucifer Yellow filled dendrites were characterized and we show reduced density and altered morphology of spines in the motor cortex and in the hippocampal area CA3. The dynamic dendritic spines are widely considered to function as the cellular correlate during learning. We used a Morris water maze to test spatial memory. Here, the wild-type mice outperformed the knock-out mice during the acquisition phase of the experiment indicating impaired special memory. The L5 pyramidal neurons of the motor cortex project to the spinal cord and regulate the movement of distinct muscle groups. Thus the altered dendrite morphology in the motor cortex was expected to have an effect on the input-output balance in the signaling from the cortex to the lower motor circuits. A battery of behavioral tests were conducted for the wild-type and Jnk1-/- mice, and the knock-outs performed poorly compared to wild-type mice in tests assessing balance and fine motor movements. This study expands our knowledge of JNK1 as an important regulator of the dendritic fields of neurons and their manifestations in behavior.

Informal learning and competence development during a management trainee program

The purpose of this research was to study how management trainee program participants experienced the program with respect to their learning and competence development. Additionally, the purpose was also to examine what the trainees learned and how the learning occurred. Furthermore, factors affecting learning in the workplace were examined. The theoretical framework of this research was formed utilizing individual competence and informal learning frameworks. Research was conducted as a single case study and data was gathered by thematic interviews. The results of this research indicate that the trainees experienced the program as a good method for learning the overall picture of the organization and its business. Regarding competence development, especially knowledge- and cognitive competence categories were developed during the program. The best learning outcomes were achieved through learning by doing, in co-operation with others, and learning from others. The results indicate that the planning of the program and its structure have a significant effect on learning. Furthermore, a sufficient level of challenge was experienced as being important for the quality of the learning as well.

University students’ regulation of learning and text processing – examples from medical and teacher education

The general aim of the thesis was to study university students’ learning from the perspective of regulation of learning and text processing. The data were collected from the two academic disciplines of medical and teacher education, which share the features of highly scheduled study, a multidisciplinary character, a complex relationship between theory and practice and a professional nature. Contemporary information society poses new challenges for learning, as it is not possible to learn all the information needed in a profession during a study programme. Therefore, it is increasingly important to learn how to think and learn independently, how to recognise gaps in and update one’s knowledge and how to deal with the huge amount of constantly changing information. In other words, it is critical to regulate one’s learning and to process text effectively. The thesis comprises five sub-studies that employed cross-sectional, longitudinal and experimental designs and multiple methods, from surveys to eye tracking. Study I examined the connections between students’ study orientations and the ways they regulate their learning. In total, 410 second-, fourth- and sixth-year medical students from two Finnish medical schools participated in the study by completing a questionnaire measuring both general study orientations and regulation strategies. The students were generally deeply oriented towards their studies. However, they regulated their studying externally. Several interesting and theoretically reasonable connections between the variables were found. For instance, self-regulation was positively correlated with deep orientation and achievement orientation and was negatively correlated with non-commitment. However, external regulation was likewise positively correlated with deep orientation and achievement orientation but also with surface orientation and systematic orientation. It is argued that external regulation might function as an effective coping strategy in the cognitively loaded medical curriculum. Study II focused on medical students’ regulation of learning and their conceptions of the learning environment in an innovative medical course where traditional lectures were combined wth problem-based learning (PBL) group work. First-year medical and dental students (N = 153) completed a questionnaire assessing their regulation strategies of learning and views about the PBL group work. The results indicated that external regulation and self-regulation of the learning content were the most typical regulation strategies among the participants. In line with previous studies, self-regulation wasconnected with study success. Strictly organised PBL sessions were not considered as useful as lectures, although the students’ views of the teacher/tutor and the group were mainly positive. Therefore, developers of teaching methods are challenged to think of new solutions that facilitate reflection of one’s learning and that improve the development of self-regulation. In Study III, a person-centred approach to studying regulation strategies was employed, in contrast to the traditional variable-centred approach used in Study I and Study II. The aim of Study III was to identify different regulation strategy profiles among medical students (N = 162) across time and to examine to what extent these profiles predict study success in preclinical studies. Four regulation strategy profiles were identified, and connections with study success were found. Students with the lowest self-regulation and with an increasing lack of regulation performed worse than the other groups. As the person-centred approach enables us to individualise students with diverse regulation patterns, it could be used in supporting student learning and in facilitating the early diagnosis of learning difficulties. In Study IV, 91 student teachers participated in a pre-test/post-test design where they answered open-ended questions about a complex science concept both before and after reading either a traditional, expository science text or a refutational text that prompted the reader to change his/her beliefs according to scientific beliefs about the phenomenon. The student teachers completed a questionnaire concerning their regulation and processing strategies. The results showed that the students’ understanding improved after text reading intervention and that refutational text promoted understanding better than the traditional text. Additionally, regulation and processing strategies were found to be connected with understanding the science phenomenon. A weak trend showed that weaker learners would benefit more from the refutational text. It seems that learners with effective learning strategies are able to pick out the relevant content regardless of the text type, whereas weaker learners might benefit from refutational parts that contrast the most typical misconceptions with scientific views. The purpose of Study V was to use eye tracking to determine how third-year medical studets (n = 39) and internal medicine residents (n = 13) read and solve patient case texts. The results revealed differences between medical students and residents in processing patient case texts; compared to the students, the residents were more accurate in their diagnoses and processed the texts significantly faster and with a lower number of fixations. Different reading patterns were also found. The observed differences between medical students and residents in processing patient case texts could be used in medical education to model expert reasoning and to teach how a good medical text should be constructed. The main findings of the thesis indicate that even among very selected student populations, such as high-achieving medical students or student teachers, there seems to be a lot of variation in regulation strategies of learning and text processing. As these learning strategies are related to successful studying, students enter educational programmes with rather different chances of managing and achieving success. Further, the ways of engaging in learning seldom centre on a single strategy or approach; rather, students seem to combine several strategies to a certain degree. Sometimes, it can be a matter of perspective of which way of learning can be considered best; therefore, the reality of studying in higher education is often more complicated than the simplistic view of self-regulation as a good quality and external regulation as a harmful quality. The beginning of university studies may be stressful for many, as the gap between high school and university studies is huge and those strategies that were adequate during high school might not work as well in higher education. Therefore, it is important to map students’ learning strategies and to encourage them to engage in using high-quality learning strategies from the beginning. Instead of separate courses on learning skills, the integration of these skills into course contents should be considered. Furthermore, learning complex scientific phenomena could be facilitated by paying attention to high-quality learning materials and texts and other support from the learning environment also in the university. Eye tracking seems to have great potential in evaluating performance and growing diagnostic expertise in text processing, although more research using texts as stimulus is needed. Both medical and teacher education programmes and the professions themselves are challenging in terms of their multidisciplinary nature and increasing amounts of information and therefore require good lifelong learning skills during the study period and later in work life.