Combining User and Context: Living Labs Innovation in Digital Services

With the continuous advances of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) such as Ubiquitous Computing, Mobile Computing and the Internet of Things (IoT), users' living contexts and daily life activities are increasingly digitalized. Based on these developments and other enabling factors, an emerging user- and context-driven open innovation approach called ''Living Lab" has recently gained rising popularity and momentum in both academia and industry. As an emerging and promising innovation approach, many theoretical and empirical insights are needed to understand the dynamics of Living Labs. This thesis focuses on Living Labs innovation in the digital services domain and it addresses three aspects of Living Labs: Concept, Architecture and Methods. The relative paucity of research on Living Labs advocates an exploratory approach that augments the research status quo with qualitative and quantitative empirical insights. The insights are gained from both a literature review and many years of Living Lab practice experiences from several Living Lab project cases in both academia and industry. The first aspect explores the Living Lab concept. A Living Lab concept framework is proposed by studying the key innovation principles of Living Lab and comparing the Living Lab principles with the corresponding Web 2.0 principles. The second aspect deals with the technical architecture of the Living Lab infrastructure. A ubiquitous Living Lab services platform is proposed and implemented by combining social media and the Web of Things. A common Living Lab technical architecture is generalized based on several Living Lab projects implementation experiences. A Web-based two-layered integration technical framework is proposed to integrate heterogeneous smart devices into business processes, and this framework is evaluated in a real-life elderly care case. The third aspect studies the methods used in Living Lab. A Living Lab process model and methods taxonomy are proposed and evaluated. Two case studies by different Living Lab methods are presented. Finally, a comparison of different Living Lab methods is summarized. The three studied Living Lab aspects are not separated from each other but intertwined in the whole Living Lab context for digital services innovation. Overall, this thesis advances a better understanding of the Living Labs innovation paradigm

Place-Based Innovation Ecosystems: Espoo Innovation Garden and Aalto University (Finland)

The present case study pursues to identify key success factors in Espoo innovation ecosystem, with a particular attention to the role of Aalto University, with a view to inform policies aimed at supporting the strengthening and emergence of existing and new place-based innovation ecosystems in other EU regions and cities, as well as of entrepreneurial universities. It starts by defining what a place-based innovation ecosystem is intended to be, and identifies a conceptual framework that can operationalise the study of concrete cases. The study continues with a presentation of the main local actors and pre-existing enabling factors, progressively moves to the catalysers that have made this innovation garden flourish (notably the reforms that enabled the emergence of Aalto University with its particular governance model) and finally analyses its Quadruple Helix collaboration model and the way the whole ecosystem is orchestrated.JRC.B.3-Territorial Developmen

A Systematic Review of the Literature on Living Labs in Higher Education Institutions:Potentials and Constraints

Living labs (LLs) have emerged as an interface for higher education institutions to collaborate with companies, citizens, non-profit and government organizations to address a variety of problems around social challenges and sustainable development. In this systematic literature review, we summarize the existing knowledge on how universities shape and manage the LLs they are associated with and how they align with their core missions of education and research and—in particular—their social missions. Following PRISMA guidelines for a systematic literature review (SLR), we analyzed journal articles, conference papers, and book chapters published between 2008 and 2020, capturing 93 university-governed LL experiences from across the world. Our findings show that LLs are developing from bottom-up initiatives, often at the fringe of higher education institutions, towards more self-standing entities implementing strategies to undertake social outreach activities. LLs require their host universities to intensify the relationships with their stakeholders and work on capacity building and focus on inter- and transdisciplinary research methodologies. Finally, our literature review points to the need for further research on the hybrid governance approaches displayed by LLs, particularly looking at the roles and responsibilities of academics involved in managing LL initiatives

A Review of the Open Educational Resources (OER) Movement: Achievements, Challenges, and New Opportunities

Examines the state of the foundation's efforts to improve educational opportunities worldwide through universal access to and use of high-quality academic content

The Future of the Internet III

Presents survey results on technology experts' predictions on the Internet's social, political, and economic impact as of 2020, including its effects on integrity and tolerance, intellectual property law, and the division between personal and work lives