Simojoen jokiretkeilyopas

Simojoen jokiretkeilyoppaaseen on koottu tietoa Simojoen vesistöalueen luonnosta, suojelualueista sekä luonnon tarjoamista virkistyskäyttömahdollisuuksista. Lisäksi matkataan Simojoen kuohuissa erämaiselta Simojärveltä Perämerelle. Matkan varrella on lyhyitä kuvauksia luonto- ja kulttuurikohteista, nähtävyyksistä ja paikannimiin liittyviä tarinoita. Matkan varrella -kohteet on merkitty myös melontakartoille. Melonnan osalta oppaaseen on päivitetty koskikohtainen koskiluokitus ja laskuohjeet.Simojoen jokiretkeilyopas on toimitettu Lapin ympäristökeskuksen koordinoimassa Simojoen kunnostus ja suojelu -LIFE Luonto -hankkeessa

A Co-creation Centre for University–Industry Collaboration – A Framework for Concept Development

AbstractIt is argued in general that future success in effective innovation creation is built on the ability to connect and manage talent, partnerships and related practical innovation processes. This makes it challenging for a university to develop an ecosystem of knowledge creation. The full benefit from a university can only be obtained if the university and society are organically linked together. The needs of society have to be at the centre of a university's activities, and flexible adjustment to changing needs is necessary but often lacking. Campus management has a major role in the facilitation of multidisciplinary interaction between students, scientists, entrepreneurs and other industry partners that inspire each other with different perspectives on the same subject. One significant tool to support open innovation with diverse stakeholders is to provide supportive spaces with relevant services. This paper aims to identify the requirements of a Co-creation Centre as a concept serving the third role of auniversity.The literature review was conducted and, based on the result, this paper proposes a conceptual framework for capturing the key requirements for developing a multiuser Co-creation Centre. The framework consists ofthe requirements on the demand and supply sides of campus management. The main findings in this paper are that different modes of knowledge conversion have different capabilities tosupport knowledge co-creation requirements. Knowledge co-creation process requirements in the multiuser Co-creation Centre for university–industry collaboration are best supported by originating “Ba”, which means the place where individuals share feelings, emotions, experiences, and mental models and the place where the knowledge-creation process begins. The results contribute to the concept development in campus management and provide a starting point for evaluating the success of multidisciplinary and multi-actor innovation environments

Finding market focus for solution business development

Firms wanting to move towards solution business models increasingly focus on their customers' value-in-use, and often end up redefining their market around what the solution makes possible for the customer. However, all customers do not accept a value-in-use based approach. Hence, a key determinant of success in solution business relates to a firm's ability to identify segments and customers that are best suited for solution business, i.e., to find market focus. In this paper we develop a framework that assists firms to choose the right markets to focus on, and illustrate the use of the framework with two action research case studies. The framework consists of a market picture, describing the broad ambit of a market actor, and market arenas within the market picture, selected based on morphological analysis. The case studies illustrate how the framework helped managers to escape the market myopia experienced by firms with established market definitions

Participatory service design and community involvement in designing future-ready sustainable learning landscapes

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) work as a new agenda for sustainable development globally. Many if not most of the SDGs can be combined with different levels of education. This paper leans on previous work in Sustainable Education Design (SED), which looked at sustainability from its multifaceted angles with a broad global scope. The context of the study is a campus at a research-intensive Finnish university. The methodology entailed participatory service design approaches. For piloting, one classroom was chosen as a test bed. The data consist of workshops, use walks and structured interviews. The analysis started from identifying KPIs of sustainable learning environment creation, after which these were tested against Sustainable Education Design Criteria described in a manual book earlier. The key findings include nine preliminary alternative KPIs that were merged with previous SED criteria and related SDGs. The alternative KPIs were trialled in the test bed environment. These proposed alternative KPIs can be used as indicators for sustainability, innovation and learning during participatory change processes and in evaluating the outcome.Peer reviewe

Hybrid learning environments in universities : how to manage the co-creation process from design to use

An identified need to promote hybrid practices in education puts pressure on transforming university learning environments. Current teaching and learning models and approaches include e.g. hybrid and blended learning, flexible scheduling, and attendance, and the learning environments are changing accordingly. To manage these requirements and processes, siloed practices must be overcome, and this requires the engagement of stakeholders such as faculty and facilities management as well as end-users. The goal of this paper is to understand the transformation processes of hybrid learning environments in universities. The method is crosscase analysis. 6 learning environment transformation-to-hybrid cases are analysed. The case studies are conducted in three Finnish universities in 2018-2020. The results indicate that there are three critical factors in the successful transformations towards technology enriched learning environments: 1. The participatory design process which is integrating the digital and physical architecture to serve user needs 2. The training of users to new learning environments 3. Management of support in the use phase. The research provides practical examples and process descriptions of transformation towards hybrid learning environments for the user-centric design experts, facilities managers, and education designers. The research contributes to user-centric design theories as well as learning environment research. Future studies can be conducted by gathering user experiences of hybrid learning processes in new hybrid learning environments and the challenges residing in them.Peer reviewe

Rakennetun ympäristön käytettävyys - Käyttäjän ja tilan vuorovaikutusta tutkimassa

Kirjassa perehdytään rakennetun ympäristön käytettävyyteen ja sen kehittämiseen. Erilaisten tutkimusmenetelmien käyttöä on esitelty esimerkein. Kohteina ovat muun muassa kauppakeskukset, senioritalot ja rautatieasemat

Theorizing with managers: how to achieve both academic rigor and practical relevance?

Purpose. There are heightened concerns that the theory-praxis gap is widening, despite decades of academic literature addressing the issue. We propose that one viable solution to this challenge is involving practitioners in research processes as active, reflective and empowered participants. Most extant discussions addressing the inclusion of managers as partners in theorizing restrain themselves to an ‘if’ question, arguing whether or not it is possible to create sufficiently rigorous knowledge in collaboration with practitioners. This leaves the ‘how’ question unanswered, i.e., how should such gap-bridging research be conducted in practice. Thus, the aim of this paper is to investigate how academic researchers in management and marketing can theorize with managers in order to generate results that are both academically rigorous and managerially relevant. Design/methodology/approach. Based on a literature review of collaborative theorizing processes, we develop a conceptual framework highlighting the main research design decisions when theorizing with managers. The use of the framework is illustrated with four research program examples. Findings. Most accounts of theorizing with managers use – explicitly or implicitly – abduction as the main mode of inference. In addition to this philosophical commonality, our literature review identified twelve themes that should be considered when designing collaborative research processes. The four illustrative examples indicate that theorizing with managers is an effective way of producing and socializing both academically sound and managerially relevant knowledge. On the other hand, collaborative theorizing processes are time-consuming and studies using abductive reasoning may be more challenging to publish in top-tier journals. Originality/value. This paper makes two contributions. First, we go beyond the extensive academic literature which provides a plethora of explanations and ideas for potential remedies for bridging the theory-praxis gap by offering a detailed description how one particular solution, theorizing with managers, unfolds in practice. Second, we ground collaborative theorizing processes in the philosophy of science and put abduction forward as a common nominator for such studies