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university of tampere: school of information sciences: research: trim - tampere research center for information and media:
School of Information SciencesUniversity of TampereSchool of Information Sciences
TRIM - Tampere Research Center for Information and Media
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Research Projects

FIRE - Finnish Information Retrieval Expert Group

ONGOING PROJECTS

COMPLETED PROJECTS

Games Research Lab

RIME - Research Group on Information and Media Practices

ONGOING PROJECTS

COMPLETED PROJECTS

 

TAHTI: Task-based Information Access in Public Administration

  • We are: Sanna Kumpulainen, Miamaria Saastamoinen & Kal Järvelin (supervisor)
  • Focus and research questions: The focus of the project is on
    • identifying the needs and use of different types of information resources in public administration,
    • the description of work task types triggering information needs and modeling the work processes, and
    • analyzing barriers in information access at task, system integration and system levels.
  • Funding comes from: Academy of Finland, UTA and TISE
  • The schedule is: Finishing year 2013

Domain-Specific Web Information Retrieval

MULITAIR - Multi-lingual and task-based information retrieval

MLIR – Multi-lingual IR

sGrams – Approximate String matching in IR

  • See http://www.uta.fi/laitokset/infim/tutkimuskeskus/tutkimusryhmat/fire/projects/sgram.html
  • We are: Anni Järvelin, Antti Järvelin
    Focus and research questions: Out-of-Vocabulary word matching / translation in mono and cross-language IR
    • Which variations of skip-grams are effective?
    • Which distance metrics are effective?
  • Funding comes from: UTA, Academy of Finland, KR, PKR
    The schedule is: 2000-2010
    Co-starring: Heikki Keskustalo, Ari Pirkola

InferXML – semantic associations across XML documents

OlapXML – creation of OLAP data cubes on heterogeneous XML docs

Task-based Information Access in Molecular Medicine

  • Focus and research questions: The focus of the project is on information interaction in real life work tasks in the domain of molecular medicine (information seeking and retrieval, system use features, barriers to information).
  • Funding comes from: Academy of Finland, UTA and TISE
  • The schedule is: Finishing year 2013
  • Co-starring: Annikki Roos (THL), Aiden Doherty & Daragh Byrne (DCU, Ireland)

TRIX

  • We are: Paavo Arvola, Marko Junkkari, Jaana Kekäläinen
  • Focus and research questions: XML information retrieval research
    • indexing and retrieval system for XML
    • data structures
    • query languages
    • contextualization in relevance ranking
    • evaluation methods
  • Funding comes from: Academy of Finland, 2007-10, 2011-12
  • Output: conference papers & posters, theses, dissertation, participation in INEX 2002-2010
  • Co-starring: Sami Kiviharju, Matti Lassila, Nina Tyni, Johanna Vainio

PN – Semantic Information Retrieval in Unannotated Document Collections

  • We are: Feza BASKAYA, supervisor Prof. Kalervo JÄRVELIN, Prof. Jaana KEKÄLÄINEN and Anne KESKIMAA
  • Focus and research questions: Ontology-based query formulation in various languages, methods for building ontologies, design of search interfaces based on ontologies
  • Funding comes from: TEKES/Semantic Web 2.0,Academy of Finland
  • The schedule is: till the end of 2009
  • Co-starring: Eduskunta, TietoEnator

Project TRT

See: http://www.uta.fi/laitokset/infim/tutkimuskeskus/tutkimusryhmat/fire/projects/trt.html

We are: Mr. Aki Loponen, Dos. Ari Pirkola, Prof. Kalervo Järvelin
Focus and research questions: Statistical morphological processing and translation methods for out-of-vocabulary words in cross-lingual information retrieval
Funding comes from: Academy of Finland
The schedule is: Finished by 2010

Simulating and Evaluating User Interaction in IR using Test Collections

  • We are: Heikki Keskustalo, Kal Järvelin, Ari Pirkola, Kimmo Kettunen
  • Focus and research questions: This post-doc study focuses on modeling various interaction decisions of users (query (re)formulations, and cost/benefit optimization) based on simulation models.
  • The schedule is: September 2011 onwards

Simulating and Evaluating IR Interaction in a Test Collection

Information Retrieval for Indian Languages

  • We are : Kalervo Jarvelin, Jiaul Paik, Aki Loponen
  • Focus and Research Questions : How to improve mono and cross lingual IR for Indian languages?
  • Funding Agency : Academy of Finland, COMO, UTA
  • Schedule : 2008-2012
  • Co-starring : Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata, Kimmo Kettunen, Heikki Keskustalo, Tuomas Talvensaari

CHILDINFO - Institutional Practices and Information Systems in the Production and Use of Information in Child Protection Processes

Triangle

  • Triangle is a research project that aims to produce knowledge and know-how that advances the competitiveness and sustainable development of games and services in socially networked spaces. The project brings together methods and expertise from three, currently disconnected fields: business model research, game service design research and player experience research. The
    project will produce new understanding about how particular choices in game revenue models service design will affect and link together with player experiences. Research is carried out in collaboration with Helsinki Institute of Information Technology (HIIT)
  • Schedule: 1.1.2011-31.3.2012
  • Funding: Tekes and consortium of companies
  • Web pages: http://triangleresearch.org/

Play Society

  • Play Society is part of the Next Media research programme. The research is focused on understanding how and why something becomes playful. This is achieved with a series of user studies, prototypes and experiments that focus on the critical tipping point between playful and non-playful. Also, project focuses on understanding what are the social dimensions of playful experience, and how playfulness facilitates co-experience. Experiments include user tests with prototypes and questionnaire-based data collection and analysis. The main partners in Play Society include HIIT, Nokia and Sanoma News.
  • Schedule: 1.1.2011-31.12.2011
  • Funding: ICT-SHOK, Tivit Oy/Tekes, and consortium of companies
  • Web pages: http://www.nextmedia.fi/

Future Play

  • Future Play project examines the future directions of online and social gaming. By interviewing Finnish game industry professionals the project produces an overview of the future prospects for emerging online the market. The notions of the professionals are connected to the wider trends that characterize the development of the game industry. The project aims to identify the key success factors and bottlenecks of the new environment characterized by 1) digital distribution and 2) integration of social media and games. This environment not only invites new products and services but also attracts new kinds of audiences. The project produces a general review on the key dimensions including A) game technologies, B) game business and C) game players and cultures of playing. In addition to the general review the project takes a look at more specific applications area. The case studies are based on larger cultural transformations that go beyond singular technological changes and frequently moving consumer trends.
  • Schedule: 1.4.2010 – 31.3.2011
  • The final report is available at: http://tampub.uta.fi/tulos.php?tiedot=429

Creation of Game Cultures: The Case of Finland (CG-Cult)

  • Creation of Game Cultures (CG-Cult) research project is a wide reaching consortium project funded by the Academy of Finland (2009-2012). It is a collaboration between University of Tampere, University of Jyväskylä and University of Turku, Pori unit, centres of digital culture studies. The project will produce knowledge about the role of digital play in contemporary culture and society.
  • More: http://finnishgamecultures.wordpress.com/
  • Contact: professor Frans Mäyrä (frans dot mayra at uta dot fi)

Transformation of Digital Play (TDP)

  • Transformation of Digital Play (Digitaalisen pelaamisen muodonmuutos) is a two-year research project that looks into the ongoing changes in areas related to play of games, new game audiences and required game design methodologies. TDP is carried out in collaboration with University of Jyväskylä.
  • TDP is a consortium project, funded by Tekes (Verso programme) and a consortium of companies. There is more detailed information available in the websites of subprojects, GaIn (http://gamesandinnovation.com/) and SoPlay (http://soplayproject.wordpress.com/ - mostly password protected).
  • Contacts: TDP/Frans Mäyrä (frans dot mayra at uta dot fi), GaIn/Annakaisa Kultima (annakaisa dot kultima at uta dot fi), SoPlay/Janne Paavilainen (janne dot paavilainen at uta dot fi).

GaIn – Games and Innovation

”Methodologies and tools for generating, refining, evaluating and managing game ideas”

Game Research project
Tekes (Verso)/TDP/10 game companies/TaY&JY
2 years 1.1.2009-31.12.2010
National University of Singapore, Keio University (Tokyo, Japan), Interactive institute (Sweden)
Design research
design activities, research workshops with professionals, participatory observation, interviews, surveys, content analysis, theoretical models and frameworks
How game designers innovate and how to help this particular process with specific tools and structured methods?
4 work-in-progress thesis on the topic:
VTM Annakaisa Kultima, FM Jussi Kuittinen, FM Timo Nummenmaa
LuK Kati Alha
http://gamesandinnovation.com/

SoPlay

  • ”Social Play among Casual, Cross-Media Contents”
  • Games and play in social media
    • Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Wikipedia, Second Life…
    • Discussion forums, IRC, instant messengers, image boards…
    • Topkani, InstantAction, Quake Live, iPhone, Nokia N-Gage…
  • Explicit games, implicit play, social games, funware
  • Study on social playability
  • Guidelines for designing and evaluating social playability
  • Use-and-user-centered approach, scenarios, workshops, case studies
  • Two-year project (1.1.2009 – 31.12.2010)
  • Tekes, RAY, Veikkaus, Digital Chocolate, Everyplay, Moido Games
  • http://soplayproject.wordpress.com

 

University Alliance Finland Research Cluster of Excellence on Future Learning and Games Research (LeGaResearch)

  • The LeGaResearch consortium project (2008-2012) will bring together the leading centres of game studies and future learning in three Alliance universities: University of Tampere, Technical University of Tampere and University of Jyväskylä. It will spearhead the fundamental and applied research work looking into the role of online, virtual environments in learning, social life and play experiences.
  • More: http://hlab.ee.tut.fi/legaresearch/
  • Contacts: professor Frans Mäyrä, Senior Researcher Tanja Sihvonen, Researcher Antti Syvänen (firstname dot lastname at uta dot fi)

Games as Services project (GaS)

  • Focus: future developments of games as online services, impact of digital distribution of games
  • Perspectives: changes in the play of games, changes in game structures and ludic storytelling, changes in games business and changes in games technologies
  • Collaboration between INFIM and HIIT, The Helsinki Institute for Information Technology.
  • Funded by Tekes and supported by a consortium of companies (Housemarque, Ludocraft, Nokia, Stratura)
  • Project duration: April 2008 - March 2010.
  • Personnel: project manager: Olli Sotamaa, researchers: Tero Karppi, Saara Toivonen (former employees: Annakaisa Kultima, Jaakko Stenros)

Verkkorahapelaamisen muodonmuutos (VerMu)

  • VerMu-project focuses on new forms of Internet gaming and gambling. In Finland the state has the monopoly to organize gambling games. However, the Internet has made it easier for players to access also international gambling games. International gambling sites offer plenty of games which differ from money or gambling games traditionally played in Finland. The boundaries between gambling and other forms of gaming are not so clear in these sites. VerMu-project aims to map what are these new forms of money gaming and what are their qualities compared to traditional gambling games. The main focus is on recently generalized skill gaming-sites which offer a possibility for players to place a money bet on their games. The project is funded by the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health.
  • Project duration: 1.4.2008-31.3.2009
  • Contact person: Jani Kinnunen, tel. +358 3 3551 4040, email: jani dot kinnunen at uta.fi

Youth Spaces and the Alpine Tundra Regions (YOUSAT)

  • Youth Spaces and the Alpine Tundra Regions (YOUSAT) project is a Nordic Innovation Centre funded initiative to research and apply social and mobile media for involving young people to share nature experiences with each other.
  • Project duration: project runs in 2009-2010.
  • Contact person: Hannamari Saarenpää, hannamari dot saarenpaa at uta dot fi

Everyday information practices (EIPs)

  • EIPs => socio-culturally constituted and relatively established (habitualized) ways to seek, use and share information in the context of furthering everyday projects
  • information source horizons
  • user-defined relevance judgments
  • EIPs among environmental activists, unemployed people and prospective home buyers
  • seeking, using and sharing health-related information on the fora of the Social Web (e.g., blogs)
  • Contact person: Reijo Savolainen, reijo.savolainen at uta dot fi

Web Searching, Information Literacy and Learning (Web-Seal)

  • Who?
    • Eero Sormunen UTA/INFIM, Esa Poikela/ULapland
    • UTA/INFIM/Antti Syvänen, Mikko Tanni
      • Teacher trainees: ISU, mobile portfolios & reflection
    • UTA/INFIM/Heidi Hongisto
      • School class: first research assignment, students’ problems & teacher’s support
    • UTA/Edu/Leena Rantala
      • School class: media production
    • ULapland/Hakkarainen, Kärnä, Vuoskoski
      • Information literacy & problem-based learning
  • What
    • How learners search, evaluate and use information in learning tasks?
    • How we can affect the information behaviour of the learner?
  • Funding
    • Academy of Finland 2006-2009

Informed Learning and Social Media in School and beyond (a sub-project of the Know-Id consortium)

  • Who and what?
    • Eero Sormunen UTA/INFIM
    • UTA/INFIM/Tere Vaden, Teemu Mikkonen
      • Social media practices of knowledge creation in and outside the classroom
    • UTA/INFIM/Heidi Hongisto, Eero Sormunen; ÅA/INF/Jannica Heinström
      • Informed learning and collaborative knowledge construction in schools
    • JyU/Peppi Taalas, Ulla Bergroth, Riina Seppälä
      • Learnong task design for complex skills development in language teaching
  • Funding
    • Academy of Finland 2010-2013
  • https://www12.uta.fi/blogs/know-id/

Learning and Games Research (LeGaResearch)

  • University Alliance Finland Research Cluster of Excellence on Future Learning and Games Research (LeGaResearch)
    • social software and mobile media –based personal learning and gaming culture environments
    • R & D microblogging, context-awareness, adaptive services, virtual environments
  • Personal interests
    • Teacher response to the ”invasion” of gaming-based youth cultures in schools (pelitieto.net)
    • Continuing presently somewhat extra-curricular activies (Antti´s PhD thesis on mobile blogging-enabled portfolios in teacher training)

AVO – Avoimet Verkostot Oppimiseen (Open Networks for Learning)

  • ­AVO is part of an ESF-funded development program entitled Fostering active citizenship through open learning environments. The program is administrated by the Finnish Ministry of Education and the State Provincial Office of Lapland, and coordinated by AKTIIVI (Active Citizen of the Open Learning Environment) project network.
  • ­The aim of AVO is to pilot and support pedagogical and critical implementation of new modes of action in education and civic activity using networked model of action.
  • ­A research project is included in AVO to support the accomplishment of the project goals with systematic development activities and to create new, practical knowledge about open content production, use of social media and networked model of action.
  • ­The main research tasks are to ascertain how open content production and social media will affect on our thinking, action and learning – and on this basis:
    • To strengthen open content production and use of social media by developing new operations models.
    • To find to overcome the obstacles to open content production and the use of social media.
    • To develop networked action model in co-operation with AKTIIVI.
  • ­The method will be action research with special reference to the perspective of Activity Theory.
  • ­Activity Theory will be used as an analysis tool – Activity System will be the the unit of analysis.
  • ­Research material will be collected through observations, surveys and interviews. Materials in the web-based project environments will also be used in the analysis.
  • ­­Project duration: 2008-2011
  • More information:

AVO2 – Avoimuudesta voimaa oppimisverkostoihin

  • ­AVO2 is part of an ESF-funded development program entitled Fostering active citizenship through open learning environments. The program is administrated by the Finnish Ministry of Education and the State Provincial Office of Lapland, and coordinated by AKTIIVI (Active Citizen of the Open Learning Environment) project network.
  • ­The aim of AVO2 is to enhance and strengthen communal, involving and networked culture of action in educational institutions, other organizations and their interest groups who participate the project.
  • ­TRIM coordinates and participates in a subproject called Kolmiulotteiset ja mobiilit oppimis- ja osallistumisympäristöt (3DM), which concentrates on three-dimensional and mobile learning and participation environments. The main interest of TRIM is on Augmented Reality (AR), especially on issues such as how AR can be successfully used as a part of learning and different activities. During the project span 2-3 pilots will be carried out, events and training organized and publications produced.
  • ­TRIM is also responsible for carrying out the project research which is included in AVO2 to support the accomplishment of the project goals with systematic development activities and to create new, practical knowledge about the content of the project.
  • ­­Project duration: 2012-2013
  • More information:

Spaces and contents of the Information Society (TTS)

  • The aim of the project is to strengthen and deepen the contentual information society skills of libraries and other actors using collaborative models of action.
  • New library work practices and forms of co-operation are created and established in the project.
  • The aim of the research is to study how public libraries are developing their own services, particularly in the context of social media.
  • The research questions are:
    • What issues affect concepting and productization of public library services?
    • How public libraries conduct the concepting of their services?
    • What kind of process is the developing of public library services?
  • The research data can be also used later on the project as University of Oulu will carry out the effectiveness evaluation research of the services.

Nina Hynnä nina.hynna@uta.fi

Active Citizen of the Open Learning Environment - AKTIIVI

  • AKTIIVI – coordinates and supports the network of participatory projects (incl. AVO & TTS).
  • 8 projects at the moment
  • Main goals of the research:
    • How the actors of different participatory projets are dealing information in network (CoP etc.)?
    • What are the practices and tools to support network activity?
  • Theoretical background
    • Project actors as learners in learning process
    • WEB 2.0 concept and new way of thinking about information sharing
    • Models: Innovative Knowledge Communities, CoP, Sosial Networks
  • Other goals:
    • Exploring good practices and spreading them
    • Practices and tools for projects’s self-evaluation
  • Time period: Dec 2008 – Dec 2011
  • More info: http://www.aktiivi.info

Mika Sihvonen mika.sihvonen@uta.fi

INTACT – Industrial Interaction through Open Service Platforms

  • Researcher: Heljä Franssila
  • Research questions:
    • What is distributed, community-driven industrial interaction?
    • How distributed, community-driven industrial interaction is supported by
      1. Technology – open platforms, supporting applications;
      2. Organisation – mechanism for community building and development; and
      3. integration of service development and content creation?
    • Are investments into distributed, community-driven industrial interaction worthwhile?
    • Funding: TEKES and participating companies: Eniro Finland, Yara Finland, Metso Automation, TeliaSonera
  • Timetable: 8/2006 - 10/2009
  • Research partner: Helsinki University of Technology

TILTU – Situation awareness in digital product process

  • Researcher: Heljä Franssila
  • Research questions:
    • What are the new situation aware product process management models applicable in production networks and are they feasible among small and middle sized industrial enterprises?
    • How to integrate formal and informal product information to support situation awareness in user-centred way, and what are the possibilities of social media and Web 2.0 technologies in the integration of formal and informal product information
    • How can virtual modelling support user-cenrted interfaces to digital product information
  • Funding: TEKES and participating companies: Metso Automation, Metso Minerals, Metso Paper, TVO, TechWilla, InnoSteel Factory, M-Components, Visual Components, Mediamaisteri
  • Timetable: 3/2009 - 2/2012
  • Research partners: Tampere University of Technology, HAMK University of Applied Sciences and Helsinki Metropolia University of Applied Sciences

Semantic web technologies and records management (FINNONTO 2) 2008–2009

  • Pekka Henttonen (Kimmo Kettunen, Marjo Valtonen)
  • Funded by
    • Tekes (Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation), Valtion IT- toiminnan johtamisyksikkö ValtIT (Government ICT Management Unit) and Arkistolaitos (National Archives Service)
  • Goal
    • making electronic records management systems easier to use
  • Focus
    • possibilities for contextual reasoning based on user recognition and knowledge of organizational context
  • Extra information
    • For research purposes we have actual records and records metadata of a government agency (first time in the world!)

OSCOMM – Building Open Source Communities

  • Researchers: (Tere Vadén &) Teemu Mikkonen
  • How to initiate and build sustainable OS communities?
    • (community typology, bottlenecks of sustainability)?
  • Funded by TEKES
  • 2009 (+ 2010)?
  • Partners: TUT Software systems , TY SoberIT, yrityskumppanit Nokia, Sesca, IT Mill
  • http://tutopen.cs.tut.fi/oscomm/

OpenInno – Learning network of Open Innovation

  • Tere Vadén & Teemu Mikkonen (& Mikko Ahonen)
  • Open innovation networks facilitating co-operation between (business) institutions
    • (wikis in business use, not-for-profit open innovation projects)
  • TYKES
  • 2009
  • VTT
  • http://openinno.fi/

 
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Last update: 5.7.2012 12.58 Muokkaa

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