This study explores the perceived competences of three different generations of engineering students from 2020 to 2022. We analyzed the data collected in the first-year course, Introduction to Engineering, at the University of Turku, Finland utilizing the Cycloid questionnaire (project manager's compe-tences) on the Evolute platform (evolute.fi). The tool consists of questionnaires that measure self-perceived level of and the visioned target state for each competence with a number of statements. Students evaluated their current perceived level of 30 different competencies and their personal vision on the desired level. The full questionnaire was answered by 481 students during these three years. Based on the previous research, the difference between current level and visioned level of competence creates a creative tension that motivates the learning of these competences, the stronger the creative tension (i.e. difference between current and target state), the higher the motivation to learn the competence. Therefore, it might be seen that students could learn or be motivated in learning different skills on the same course due to external circumstances and this should be considered when designing and delivering a course instance. This paper extends the information on students' current and desired state of competence levels. The collected data also shows the potential impact of the external factors, such as the COVID-19 lock-downs. We analyze the competence survey results and show that although there were less statistically significant differences in the current and target states of the students self-perceive competence levels, there were more differences in the creative tension levels between the years. We discuss the potential causes and implications of these differences and how we as educators could utilize this information in course delivery. As a potential future work, the findings could be substantiated with other sources of data such as course results and interviews with the students regarding their self-perceived competences and their personal targets or with longitudinal data from the same students in later state of their studies.

Preparing future graduates for the workplace should involve linkage with industry. Ultimately, students gain valuable insight into real-life projects, preparing them for future careers. However, universities in some developing countries lag in their initiatives to promote industry-academia collaboration. In this paper, we explore how to strengthen academic efforts at the University of Namibia (UNAM) with the assistance of industry in Namibia. In the study, we analyse: 1) current practices of industry collaboration worldwide published in ACM and IEEE digital library through a scoping review, and 2) students' capstone projects conducted in the final year of the Bachelor of Science (Honors) in the computing discipline in 2020 - 2022 at UNAM. The analysis from the scoping review found six (6) different University-Industry Collaboration initiatives employed in universities worldwide. Additionally, the review of current students' theses indicates that they are not aligned with all four key industries in Namibia: Mining, Tourism, Fisheries, and Agriculture. Hence, we contextualised the analysis by reflecting upon the economic drivers and demands of the country. The preliminary outcomes of this study allowed us to propose the incorporation of the Conceive, Design, Implement, and Operate model in the computing degree programme that UNAM can adopt in developing an effective curriculum that aligns with the demands of the key relevant industries in Namibia. The aim is to support the development of new talent that will promote the country's economic growth. Reflecting on this process can also benefit other universities in developing countries by assisting them in contextualising their curricula and addressing their local and national requirements.

Our societies require talented engineers, who are trained in different engineering fields. Simultaneously these students should have the ability to collaborate and work with people of different disciplines and be able to look for innovation. Engineering programs have been developing different approaches to enhance these required skills, for example through capstones and hackathons. Capstones projects, which are often several months long, aim to prepare students for the transition from school to work. Frequently, these projects are designed to serve companies or startups. Hackathon events are intense and short sessions where students solve a challenge in short periods of time, often between 24 to 36 hours. However, it is needed an approach that exposes students, of different disciplines, to a wider number of industries with a more collaborative approach. We need interventions in which students can experience how their knowledge contributes to the innovation and visions of different stakeholders. Furthermore, these learning interventions, where we promote a collaborative experience among the participants where everybody learns from everybody, should require less time than with capstones or hackathons. The University of Turku developed the Industrial Seminar on Future Technologies course for master and phd advanced students, where we address: multidisciplinarity, collaboration, connection with engineering industry and innovation. Students in this course are exposed to challenges and visions of different companies in diverse domains, e.g. biotechnology, metal industry, maritime. Each seminar session focuses on one company, and we work together to address the session's aim in at most four hours. For each session participants have a pre-assignment, which is aligned to the objective of the session, and a post-assignment that focuses on the session's reflection. An important aspect to make each session successful is the preparation of the session with the local company. Hence this course addresses different objectives: (i) Expose students to industry, (ii) Students gain awareness of how their knowledge is relevant for different industry challenges and visions, (iii) Collaboration between session participants (from different backgrounds and from the guest company), (iv) Possibility to innovate (“think out of the box”), (v) University of Turku builds bridges with the local industry, as together with each guest company we go through a process of “sharpening” the company's challenge or vision for this particular seminar session. In this paper we analyze this course with its outcomes, utilizing the final results of each session, and the feedback from students and industry representatives.

Our societies require talented engineers, who are trained in different engineering fields. Simultaneously these students should have the ability to collaborate and work with people of different disciplines and be able to look for innovation. Engineering programs have been developing different approaches to enhance these required skills, for example through capstones and hackathons. Capstones projects, which are often several months long, aim to prepare students for the transition from school to work. Frequently, these projects are designed to serve companies or startups. Hackathon events are intense and short sessions where students solve a challenge in short periods of time, often between 24 to 36 hours. However, it is needed an approach that exposes students, of different disciplines, to a wider number of industries with a more collaborative approach. We need interventions in which students can experience how their knowledge contributes to the innovation and visions of different stakeholders. Furthermore, these learning interventions, where we promote a collaborative experience among the participants where everybody learns from everybody, should require less time than with capstones or hackathons. The University of Turku developed the Industrial Seminar on Future Technologies course for master and phd advanced students, where we address: multidisciplinarity, collaboration, connection with engineering industry and innovation. Students in this course are exposed to challenges and visions of different companies in diverse domains, e.g. biotechnology, metal industry, maritime. Each seminar session focuses on one company, and we work together to address the session's aim in at most four hours. For each session participants have a pre-assignment, which is aligned to the objective of the session, and a post-assignment that focuses on the session's reflection. An important aspect to make each session successful is the preparation of the session with the local company. Hence this course addresses different objectives: (i) Expose students to industry, (ii) Students gain awareness of how their knowledge is relevant for different industry challenges and visions, (iii) Collaboration between session participants (from different backgrounds and from the guest company), (iv) Possibility to innovate (“think out of the box”), (v) University of Turku builds bridges with the local industry, as together with each guest company we go through a process of “sharpening” the company's challenge or vision for this particular seminar session. In this paper we analyze this course with its outcomes, utilizing the final results of each session, and the feedback from students and industry representatives.

This Innovative Practice Full Paper presents a nationwide university collaboration project to complement regional demand for Master degree engineers. Technology industry with sufficient ability and investment in research, development and innovation is in the core of economic growth and success at both national and regional level. Higher education institutions should produce the needed new engineering professionals and serve as platforms for university-industry collaboration in research and innovation. Due to phenomena such as globalisation of industrial activities and growing demand for sustainable energy solutions, the regional development of different technology industry sectors, e.g. marine technology, telecommunications and battery technologies, can take diverting directions and change the need for skillsets of new engineers. While innovation activity of a local higher education institution can on long term provide the platform for new growth businesses, investment-heavy industries often have other drivers for the location of their activities. Establishing new degree programs, or even further, new educational institutions, contains its potential challenges, financial and in availability of qualified researchers, teachers and students. Furthermore, these efforts are not sufficiently fast to address the fairly rapid changes in the need for the workforce. FITech (Finnish Institute of Technology) has been a five year project to address the demand of qualified engineers in Southwestern Finland, the region with the fastest growing technology industry in the country. The project consortium contains the seven Finnish universities providing engineering education, with the budget for the 5-year project period (from 2017 to 2021) being 18 million euros, from which 70% is funded by the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture, and the 30% is covered by the universities themselves, This paper analyzes the quantitative (e.g. master thesis elaborated in companies in the region, plans and agreements to take the collaboration forward after the funded project period) of the project. In addition to reflect upon the follow up, three new education projects (FITech ICT, FITech Energy Storage and FITech 5G), materialized from the collaboration within FITech consortium, are introduced. The discussion summarizes the detected challenges and areas for improvement to enhance the success of such systematic university collaboration at a national scale.

Technology industry with sufficient ability and investment in research, development and innovation is the core of successful growth of several national economies. Higher education institutions need to provide a wide range of engineers with an increasing level of cross-disciplinary skills. An active, local presence of a university providing degree programs and research in technology has a strong link with the volume and development of the technology industry in the region. While modern technologies, especially information and communication technology (ICT), allow research and development activities to be independent of the location, other sectors of technology industry, such as maritime industry, require significant investments in physical facilities, bound to the region. Governments face two main challenges to maintain their industry's engineering competitiveness: (1) to prepare engineering graduates across expanding ranges of skills and knowledge, and (2) to provide the engineers in the regions where these skills are needed. Southwestern Finland is a region with the fastest growing technology industry in the country. Without a university with a full range of opportunities for academic engineering education in the region, there is an increasing number of job openings that cannot be filled. In Finland, students in engineering connect with the industry already during their studies and, after graduation, tend to stay in the region where they studied. To expose engineering students to the challenges of Southwestern Finland without creating new permanent higher education engineering structures in the region, the Finnish government in 2017 launched FITech, a 5-year project including all the seven Finnish universities offering engineering education. The purpose of FITech is to offer a nationwide cooperative solution to coordinate and provide engineering education and research in all domains of engineering to support the growth of Southwestern Finland region. This paper introduces the foundations and objectives of FITech and using the early indications of its results suggests a framework to evaluate the success of this complex nationwide project. Preliminary outcomes from the perspective of the University of Turku, one of the seven FITech partners, utilizing an adapted version of Hevner et al design science framework, show the challenges in achieving sufficient regional impact by the FITech approach and provide guidance for its ongoing development and implementation.

A Pervasive Learning Space (PLS) uses context-awareness to link a virtual world with real world objects. We define viability as the extent to which a given PLS can be adapted to different purposes, and portability to be the extent to which a given PLS can be transferred to a new physical context. Heroes of Koskenniska is a game-based PLS combining mobile technology and a wireless sensor network in a forest context to raise the environmental awareness in a Biosphere Reserve in Finland. The game was built upon a screen-based architecture, and our analysis shows that it has higher portability and viability than a selection of related PLSs. The screen-based architecture is highly viable and portable because it is based on the model-view-controller division. Our preliminary observations indicate that the game helps to increase visitor count of the area and to promote interaction between visitors and nature.

The Pielinen Museum has a rich collection of untagged authentic houses, structures, and objects to exhibit. Problems emerge when visitors attempt to establish meaningful connections between the myriad of unmarked exhibits. Additionally, negative attitude towards museums especially among younger generation is a known problem. The LieksaMystpervasive learning environment helps the visitor to discover temporal and thematic connections among exhibits. LieksaMyst's story-based role-playing game is aimed to attract and motivate particularly children and young adults.