A case study of the English language teachers’ attitudes toward use of information and communication technology (ICT) in Finland

This qualitative study was aimed at investigating foreign language teachers’ attitudes toward use of information and communication technology (ICT) in their instruction. The insight was gained through the reported experience of ICT implementation by teachers, in what way and for which purpose they refer to use of technology, what kind of support and training they are provided with, and what beliefs they express about the influence of ICT implementation. This case study took place in one of the training schools in Finland. Five teachers participated in semi-structured interviews through a face-to-face approach. The findings demonstrated positive attitudes of teachers toward integration of ICT. The teachers shared their opinions about positive influence that ICT implementation has on both teaching and learning processes. However, they also pointed out the negative sides of ICT use: distraction of the students from usage of technology and technical problems causing frustration to the teachers. In addition, the responses revealed that the teachers are provided with adequate training aimed at enhancing their qualification which is provided with well-timed technology support and colleagues’ collaboration facilitating an efficient and smooth pace of the teaching process. According to the teachers’ opinions ICT integration in education appeared to have changed the role of the teacher. Due to different alterations in the field of ICT development teachers are required to upgrade their skills. The paper concludes with the limitations of the study and the recommendations for conducting further research.

A case study of the English language teachers’ attitudes toward use of information and communication technology (ICT) in Finland

This qualitative study was aimed at investigating foreign language teachers’ attitudes toward use of information and communication technology (ICT) in their instruction. The insight was gained through the reported experience of ICT implementation by teachers, in what way and for which purpose they refer to use of technology, what kind of support and training they are provided with, and what beliefs they express about the influence of ICT implementation. This case study took place in one of the training schools in Finland. Five teachers participated in semi-structured interviews through a face-to-face approach. The findings demonstrated positive attitudes of teachers toward integration of ICT. The teachers shared their opinions about positive influence that ICT implementation has on both teaching and learning processes. However, they also pointed out the negative sides of ICT use: distraction of the students from usage of technology and technical problems causing frustration to the teachers. In addition, the responses revealed that the teachers are provided with adequate training aimed at enhancing their qualification which is provided with well-timed technology support and colleagues’ collaboration facilitating an efficient and smooth pace of the teaching process. According to the teachers’ opinions ICT integration in education appeared to have changed the role of the teacher. Due to different alterations in the field of ICT development teachers are required to upgrade their skills. The paper concludes with the limitations of the study and the recommendations for conducting further research.

Towards adoption of eLearning technologies at Lappeenranta University of Technology: Understanding Teachers‟ Adoption of Blackboard Learning System

The electronic learning has become crucial in higher education with increased usage of learning management systems as a key source of integration on distance learning. The objective of this study is to understand how university teachers are influenced to use and adopt web-based learning management systems. Blackboard, as one of the systems used internationally by various universities is applied as a case. Semi-structured interviews were made with professors and lecturers who are using Blackboard at Lappeenranta University of Technology. The data collected were categorized under constructs adapted from Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) and interpretation and discussion were based on reviewed literature. The findings suggest that adoption of learning management systems by LUT teachers is highly influenced by perceived usefulness, facilitating conditions and gained experience. The findings also suggest that easiness of using the system and social influence appear as medium influence of adoption for teachers at LUT.

Use of scenario analysis in studying emerging technology – Case Grid computing

Tutkimuksen selvitettiin miten skenaarioanalyysia voidaan käyttää uuden teknologian tutkimisessa. Työssä havaittiin, että skenaarioanalyysin soveltuvuuteen vaikuttaa eniten teknologisen muutoksen taso ja saatavilla olevan tiedon luonne. Skenaariomenetelmä soveltuu hyvin uusien teknologioiden tutkimukseen erityisesti radikaalien innovaatioiden kohdalla. Syynä tähän on niihin liittyvä suuri epävarmuus, kompleksisuus ja vallitsevan paradigman muuttuminen, joiden takia useat muut tulevaisuuden tutkimuksen menetelmät eivät ole tilanteessa käyttökelpoisia. Työn empiirisessä osiossa tutkittiin hilaverkkoteknologian tulevaisuutta skenaarioanalyysin avulla. Hilaverkot nähtiin mahdollisena disruptiivisena teknologiana, joka radikaalina innovaationa saattaa muuttaa tietokonelaskennan nykyisestä tuotepohjaisesta laskentakapasiteetin ostamisesta palvelupohjaiseksi. Tällä olisi suuri vaikutus koko nykyiseen ICT-toimialaan erityisesti tarvelaskennan hyödyntämisen ansiosta. Tutkimus tarkasteli kehitystä vuoteen 2010 asti. Teorian ja olemassa olevan tiedon perusteella muodostettiin vahvaan asiantuntijatietouteen nojautuen neljä mahdollista ympäristöskenaariota hilaverkoille. Skenaarioista huomattiin, että teknologian kaupallinen menestys on vielä monen haasteen takana. Erityisesti luottamus ja lisäarvon synnyttäminen nousivat tärkeimmiksi hilaverkkojen tulevaisuutta ohjaaviksi tekijöiksi.

Acceptance and Use of Information Technology among Nurses in Psychiatric Hospitals

Hoitajien informaatioteknologian hyväksyntä ja käyttö psykiatrisissa sairaaloissa Informaatioteknologian (IT) käyttö ei ole ollut kovin merkittävässä roolissa psykiatrisessa hoitotyössä, vaikka IT sovellusten on todettu vaikuttaneen radikaalisti terveydenhuollon palveluihin ja hoitohenkilökunnan työprosesseihin viime vuosina. Tämän tutkimuksen tavoitteena on kuvata psykiatrisessa hoitotyössä toimivan hoitohenkilökunnan informaatioteknologian hyväksyntää ja käyttöä ja luoda suositus, jonka avulla on mahdollista tukea näitä asioita psykiatrisissa sairaaloissa. Tutkimus koostuu viidestä osatutkimuksesta, joissa on hyödynnetty sekä tilastollisia että laadullisia tutkimusmetodeja. Tutkimusaineistot on kerätty yhdeksän akuuttipsykiatrian osaston hoitohenkilökunnan keskuudessa vuosien 2003-2006 aikana. Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) –teoriaa on hyödynnetty jäsentämään tutkimusprosessia sekä syventämään ymmärrystä saaduista tutkimustuloksista. Tutkimus osoitti kahdeksan keskeistä tekijää, jotka saattavat tukea psykiatrisessa sairaalassa toimivien hoitajien tietoteknologiasovellusten hyväksyntää ja hyödyntämistä, kun nämä tekijät otetaan huomioon uusia sovelluksia käyttöönotettaessa. Tekijät jakautuivat kahteen ryhmään; ulkoiset tekijät (resurssien suuntaaminen, yhteistyö, tietokonetaidot, IT koulutus, sovelluksen käyttöön liittyvä harjoittelu, potilas-hoitaja suhde), sekä käytön helppous ja sovelluksen käytettävyys (käytön ohjeistus, käytettävyyden varmistaminen). TAM teoria todettiin käyttökelpoiseksi tulosten tulkinnassa. Kehitetty suositus sisältää ne toimenpiteet, joiden avulla on mahdollista tukea sekä organisaation johdon että hoitohenkilökunnan sitoutumista ja tätä kautta varmistaa uuden sovelluksen hyväksyntä ja käyttö hoitotyössä. Suositusta on mahdollista hyödyntää käytännössä kun uusia tietojärjestelmiä implementoidaan käyttöön psykiatrisissa sairaaloissa.

Mobile ERP in the use of maintenance operations of forest industry

Toiminnanohjausjärjestelmien käyttö on muuttanut metsäteollisuuden kunnossapidon työntekijän toimenkuvaa kunnossapidon perustoiminnoista itseohjautuvampaan tietojen käsittelyyn ja jalostamiseen. Työn tavoitteena oliselvittää mobiilin työtilausjärjestelmän vaikutuksia metsäteollisuuden kunnossapidon kenttätyössä. Mobiilin työtilausjärjestelmän käyttö metsäteollisuuden kunnossapidossa mahdollistaa tärkeän kunnossapitotiedon keräämisen ja tarkentamisen kentällä, jossa se usein on ajanmukaisinta ja tarkinta. Haasteellisinta on oikeanlaisen teknologian löytäminen ja standardoiminen kunnossapidon toimintaympäristöihin. Myös organisaation toimintoprosessien on oltava selkeät ennen kuin prosesseja voidaan tehostaa teknologisin keinoin.

Use of Statistical Methods in Demand Planning

In a very volatile industry of high technology it is of utmost importance to accurately forecast customers’ demand. However, statistical forecasting of sales, especially in heavily competitive electronics product business, has always been a challenging task due to very high variation in demand and very short product life cycles of products. The purpose of this thesis is to validate if statistical methods can be applied to forecasting sales of short life cycle electronics products and provide a feasible framework for implementing statistical forecasting in the environment of the case company. Two different approaches have been developed for forecasting on short and medium term and long term horizons. Both models are based on decomposition models, but differ in interpretation of the model residuals. For long term horizons residuals are assumed to represent white noise, whereas for short and medium term forecasting horizon residuals are modeled using statistical forecasting methods. Implementation of both approaches is performed in Matlab. Modeling results have shown that different markets exhibit different demand patterns and therefore different analytical approaches are appropriate for modeling demand in these markets. Moreover, the outcomes of modeling imply that statistical forecasting can not be handled separately from judgmental forecasting, but should be perceived only as a basis for judgmental forecasting activities. Based on modeling results recommendations for further deployment of statistical methods in sales forecasting of the case company are developed.

Use of innovative High Voltage components in GOST standard market

In Russian there are more than twenty thousand primary substations 35/110 kV and 10/110 kV. According to the Government Plan of Power Industry Development until 2020 year more than hundred new substations will e installed every year and even more renewed. The goal of this Thesis is to find out in this business environment what are the technology opportunities of prefabricated substation modules in new substation or in modernization of old substations in Russia.

The use of future-oriented knowledge in regional innovation processes: Research on knowledge generation, transfer and conversion

The importance of the regional level in research has risen in the last few decades and a vast literature in the fields of, for instance, evolutionary and institutional economics, network theories, innovations and learning systems, as well as sociology, has focused on regional level questions. Recently the policy makers and regional actors have also began to pay increasing attention to the knowledge economy and its needs, in general, and the connectivity and support structures of regional clusters in particular. Nowadays knowledge is generally considered as the most important source of competitive advantage, but even the most specialised forms of knowledge are becoming a short-lived resource for example due to the accelerating pace of technological change. This emphasizes the need of foresight activities in national, regional and organizational levels and the integration of foresight and innovation activities. In regional setting this development sets great challenges especially in those regions having no university and thus usually very limited resources for research activities. Also the research problem of this dissertation is related to the need to better incorporate the information produced by foresight process to facilitate and to be used in regional practice-based innovation processes. This dissertation is a constructive case study the case being Lahti region and a network facilitating innovation policy adopted in that region. Dissertation consists of a summary and five articles and during the research process a construct or a conceptual model for solving this real life problem has been developed. It is also being implemented as part of the network facilitating innovation policy in the Lahti region.

Use of Biomass Gasification for Transport

This thesis represents an overview of biomass gasification technology together with some practical aspects of this technology application for transport in Finland. The main aim of this work is an assessment whether this technology is perspective in the nearest future for the wide use on transport or not. The first part of the thesis is a kind of survey of the previous works and materials con-cerning the usage of biomass gasification for transport. The second part concentrates more on the practical moments of its use for mobile applications in Finland (taxation, emissions, etc.).

Use of neural networks in robot positioning of large flexible redundant manipulators

Deflection compensation of flexible boom structures in robot positioning is usually done using tables containing the magnitude of the deflection with inverse kinematics solutions of a rigid structure. The number of table values increases greatly if the working area of the boom is large and the required positioning accuracy is high. The inverse kinematics problems are very nonlinear, and if the structure is redundant, in some cases it cannot be solved in a closed form. If the structural flexibility of the manipulator arms is taken into account, the problem is almost impossible to solve using analytical methods. Neural networks offer a possibility to approximate any linear or nonlinear function. This study presents four different methods of using neural networks in the static deflection compensation and inverse kinematics solution of a flexible hydraulically driven manipulator. The training information required for training neural networks is obtained by employing a simulation model that includes elasticity characteristics. The functionality of the presented methods is tested based on the simulated and measured results of positioning accuracy. The simulated positioning accuracy is tested in 25 separate coordinate points. For each point, the positioning is tested with five different mass loads. The mean positioning error of a manipulator decreased from 31.9 mm to 4.1 mm in the test points. This accuracy enables the use of flexible manipulators in the positioning of larger objects. The measured positioning accuracy is tested in 9 separate points using three different mass loads. The mean positioning error decreased from 10.6 mm to 4.7 mm and the maximum error from 27.5 mm to 11.0 mm.

On Innovative Search: the use of internal and external sources of innovation among Finnish innovators

This dissertation explores the use of internal and external sources of knowledge in modern innovation processes. It builds on a framework that combines theories such as a behavioural theory of the firm, the evolutionary theory of economic change, and modern approaches to strategic management. It follows the recent increase in innovation research focusing on the firm-level examination of innovative activities instead of traditional industry-level determinants. The innovation process is seen as a problem- and slack- driven search process, which can take several directions in terms of organizational boundaries in the pursuit of new knowledge and other resources. It thus draws on recent models of technological change, according to which firms nowadays should build their innovative activities on both internal and external sources of innovation rather than relying solely on internal resources. Four different research questions are addressed, all of which are empirically investigated via a rich dataset covering Finnish innovators collected by Statistics Finland. Firstly, the study examines how the nature of problems shapes the direction of any search for new knowledge. In general it demonstrates that the nature of the problem does affect the direction of the search, although under resource constraints firms tend to use external rather than internal sources of knowledge. At the same time, it shows that those firms that are constrained in terms of finance seem to search both internally and externally. Secondly, the dissertation investigates the relationships between different kinds of internal and external sources of knowledge in an attempt to find out where firms should direct their search in order to exploit the potential of a distributed innovation process. The concept of complementarities is applied in this context. The third research question concerns how the use of external knowledge sources – openness to external knowledge – influences the financial performance of firms. Given the many advantages of openness presented in the current literature, the focus is on how it shapes profitability. The results reveal a curvilinear relationship between profitability and openness (taking an inverted U-shape), the implication being that it pays to be open up to a certain point, but being too open to external sources may be detrimental to financial performance. Finally, the dissertation addresses some challenges in CISbased innovation research that have received relatively little attention in prior studies. The general aim is to underline the fact that comprehensive understanding of the complex process of technological change requires the constant development of methodological approaches (in terms of data and measures, for example). All the empirical analyses included in the dissertation are based on the Finnish CIS (Finnish Innovation Survey 1998-2000).

ORCiD – Membership and implementation at Chalmers University of Technology

Poster at Open Repositories 2014, Helsinki, Finland, June 9-13, 2014