Category: university

The Beatles: Rock Band in INFIM opening party

091020091295, originally uploaded by FransBadger.

I just had to blog this photo, playing the Beatles as the Rock Band version was just so much fun in the opening party of our new department (INFIM) and research centre (TRIM — Tampere Research Center of Information and Media). — You can probably see Timo Nummenmaa as Ringo (drums), and Olli Sotamaa doing the Lennon/McCartney parts (singing, guitar).

Nokia and University of Tampere into Collaboration

24.08.2009, originally uploaded by FransBadger.

Photo from today’s press conference that announced the collaboration agreement between Nokia Research and University of Tampere. The idea is to expand the research collaboration into interesting new fields and strengthen existing collaboration areas, such as Human-Computer Interaction and Games Research. Pictured is professor Roope Raisamo (speaking), Rector Kaija Holli and Laboratory Director (NRC) Jyri Huopaniemi (sitting).

New publication series

Our new department (INFIM, Dept. of Information Studies and Interactive Media) has opened a peer-edited publication series for our research reports and other studies: Research of Interactive Media. Freely available as downloadable PDF files, you can access the first report (an updated version of the GameSpace final report from here: http://tampub.uta.fi/haekokoversio.php?id=293

Same in Finnish: Informaatiotutkimuksen ja interaktiivisen median laitokselle on perustettu uusi verkkojulkaisusarja “Interaktiivisen median tutkimuksia” (ISSN 1798-0992).  Ensimmäinen verkkojulkaisu on julkaistu Tampubissa. http://tampub.uta.fi/haekokoversio.php?id=293

  • Janne Paavilainen, Annakaisa Kultima, Jussi Kuittinen, Frans Mäyrä, Hannamari Saarenpää & Johannes Niemelä, “GameSpace: Methods and Evaluation for Casual Mobile Multiplayer Games”. Tampere 2009. (PDF-julkaisu)

Nordenstreng & Sipilä farewell lectures

The farewell lectures of professors Kaarle Nordenstreng and Jorma Sipilä are now available also as a video recording. Only in Finnish, I am afraid, but providing long perspectives and much insight to the development of Finnish university system, as well as our university and its certain disciplines. Flash video is here:

http://www.uta.fi/ajankohtaista/yliopistouutiset/0509/2705/jaahyvaisluennot.html

PDF version of Nordenstreng’s talk is here:

http://www.uta.fi/ajankohtaista/yliopistouutiset/0509/2705/jaahyvaisluento.pdf

and Sipilä’s lecture text is here as an RTF:

http://www.uta.fi/ajankohtaista/yliopistouutiset/0509/2705/sipilanpuhe0509.rtf

Mia Consalvo's visit

Mia Consalvo visited us today, and gave an interesting talk on the casual games, players and game cultures — something that relates directly to much of the work that our team has been carrying out in similar areas. We also had an opportunity to continue with coffee and cinnamon buns afterwards, discussing about the similarities and differences in the contexts of doing game studies in the US and here in Finland. Fascinating! Tomorrow more of Mia, as she will be acting as the opponent in Tanja Sihvonen’s thesis defence in Turku.

Forthcoming: The Player Barometer 2009

Here is a snapshot from our games researchers’ rooms — Juho Karvinen, the research assistant of Player Barometer/Pelaajabarometri 2009 is here faced with the grim reality of manually handling a survey sample size of 4000 in the form of traditional mail survey forms & envelopes. (Results from the survey hopefully will be coming in the autumn, and then provide us with more information about who really plays and what & how much in Finland today.)

Olli Sotamaa's PhD videos

I used my mobile phone to take some videos from Olli’s PhD defence yesterday, as well as from the karonkka party afterwards. A great event, many thanks for professor Aphra Kerr on probing questions and insightful discussions — and the evening party afterwards was also excellent: warm-hearted speeches, delicious food, drinks, music, colleagues and friends gathered together for a special day. Congratulations to Olli once again!

Kirjastoon! Award to Ilkka Mäkinen/INFIM

I am today talking in the Kirjasto ON seminar in Helsinki, and was pleasantly surprised as the seminar was opened by an award ceremony where Ilkka Mäkinen, docent of library history and colleague from our INFIM department was given applause for his long history in the study of libraries and teaching of library professionals. Congrats! Ilkka’s home page: http://www.uta.fi/~liilma/

Olli Sotamaa's PhD Defence

I don’t think this is yet in any official web page, but here is the key information:

MA Olli Sotamaa will publicly defend his PhD thesis titled “The Player’s Game: Towards Understanding Player Production Among Computer Game Cultures” in April 25th 2009 in University of Tampere, hall A1. The opponent will be Professor Aphra Kerr (National University of Ireland) and the custodian is Professor Mikko Lehtonen.

In Finnish:

FM Olli Sotamaan tiedotusopin alaan kuuluva väitöskirja “The Player’s Game: Towards Understanding Player Production Among Computer Game Cultures” tarkastetaan julkisesti lauantaina 25.4.2009 klo 12 yliopiston päärakennuksen A1-salissa (Kalevantie 4). Väitöstilaisuudessa toimii kustoksena professori Mikko Lehtonen. Vastaväittäjänä on professori Aphra Kerr (National University of Ireland).

Tiedon paikat seminar

Today’s seminar is titled “Tiedon paikat” (Places/Sites of Knowledge); it is organised by the Tampere Centre for Cultural Studies. More information here: http://www.uta.fi/laitokset/tacs/uutinen.php?item=32873
and here: http://tacs.wordpress.com/

Pictured are the seminar chair, professor Mikko Lehtonen, and the first speaker, Andrew Nestingen from the University of Washington.