M.Sc Program in Interactive Technology

News

Application deadline for new students in 2011 will be 1st of February. Please see the Admissions website of the University of Tampere for the application forms and instructions. And the Admissions page by the School of Information Sciences for further information.

Description

The program aims at training all-round IT professionals who have a peoplefriendly approach to their work. In the program students familiarise themselves with the field on the basis of multidisciplinary teaching. The students can choose their area of specialisation from the various possibilities offered.

An important theme in Information technology is the improvement of interaction between the human being and technology. The most important topics for research at the University of Tampere are usability evaluation, new interaction techniques, graphical user interfaces, emotional and social user interfaces, computer-aid in group projects, and computer-aided teaching. Teaching in Interactive Technology in these fields initiates the students into qualities of human and computation environments.

Interactive Technology examines the development of interactive-information technical systems that are designed for the use of humans and the phenomena connected with these systems. The subject provides basic knowledge of the whole area, but specialisation and orientation in certain tasks requires suitable minor-subject studies to support the studies in the major subject. Recommended minor subjects include, for example, Computer Science, Psychology, Social Psychology, Sociology, Education, Statistics, Linguistics, Hypermedia and Information Studies.

In practice

The official word on what studying in the M.Sc. programs means is in the Curricula guide (aka. ECTS guide). Here the purpose is to give a short practical overview of what it all means for a student accepted in this M.Sc. program.

The ideal situation that we aim for in student selection is that the students have a bachelors degree that is equivalent to a Finnish bachelor's degree in the field of the M.Sc. Program. If this is the case, all that needs to be done is to do the studies that separate a Bachelor's degree from a Master's degree. This means 120 ECTS credits worth of studies in the major of the M.Sc. program (of which 40 ECTS credits is generated by the Master's thesis).

The following courses (or equivalent courses elsewhere) are prerequisites for the IT program:

• Human Factors in Interactive Technology
• Introduction to User Interfaces
• Project Work
• Usability Evaluation Methods

As it is sometimes impossible to finish all of these before starting the program, these prerequisites can be completed as part of the M.Sc. program. This means that the students without the prerequisites will end up doing some extra credit or taking fewer elective courses.

Because judging whether all prerequisites are satisfied can be difficult, a formal study plan will be made for each student in the beginning of the first term of studies in the M.Sc. program. The plan lists the courses that need to be taken. Once the plan has been approved, the ambiguity will be gone. The student can be certain of that by doing the work listed in the plan, he or she will get the Master's degree.

Personnel

Program Director and Student Advisor: Isokoski, Poika