University of Lapland

About: University of Lapland is a education organization based out in Rovaniemi, Finland. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Arctic & Indigenous. The organization has 665 authors who have published 1870 publications receiving 39129 citations. The organization is also known as: University of Rovaniemi & Lapin yliopisto.

Abandoned refugee vehicles “in the middle of nowhere”: reflections on the global refugee crisis from the northern margins of Europe

Abstract: Vehicles abandoned by multinational refugees during the winter 2015–2016 in northern Finnish Lapland’s border checkpoints represent an offshoot of the ongoing global refugee crisis on the so-called “Arctic Route” to Europe via Russia. In the summer 2016 this material reminder of refugee mobility vanished almost totally, as the vehicles were auctioned in a show for promoting Lapland tourism. This photo-essay highlights and discusses some of the manifold aspects connected to this flow of refugees, including, for instance, the ethical concerns of trivializing refugee issues intertwined with a host of global larger-scale matters, or using their material heritage for stimulating recreational mobility in these marginalized northern regions.

Exploring the augmented home window: user perceptions of the concept

Abstract: In the future, transparent displays can be utilized as information and communication channels in our everyday environments. Home windows form an interesting, yet unexplored platform, which could be utilized in the future e.g. as a mixed reality display or a personal or family communication channel. We explored the early user perceptions of an augmented home window through two user studies. In the first study 21 participants from 12 households commented our concept ideas and created their own. In the second study (12 households, 12 participants), developed concept ideas were assessed in a diary and a user study based on probes. The probes were used as experiential probes to gather perceptions of an augmented home window concept. Based on the studies, we present four communication modes for the augmented home window. The detailed findings reveal that contextual relevance of the content is highly important in the augmented home window, and that pragmatic use cases were valued, whereas social features were less appreciated.

More social research into polydrug use.

Abstract: The growing range of psychoactive substances, greater availability of drugs and increased technical knowledge surrounding drug use have created opportunities for multiple ways of combining different substances. There are indications of a trend of increased use of multiple substances in recent decades. For example, the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) has stated that “[p]olydrug use, including the combination of illicit drugs with alcohol, and sometimes, medicines and non-controlled substances, has become the dominant pattern of drug use in Europe” (EMCDDA, 2011, p. 13). This, naturally, leads to a growing need to further knowledge on the different patterns, meanings, attitudes and risks of polydrug use. Although the increase in polydrug use has appeared challenging to study due to the lack of stable measurements (Karjalainen, Kuussaari, Kataja, Tigerstedt, & Hakkarainen, 2017), the volume of publications dealing with the theme has certainly increased to a significant degree. This is shown in Figure 1, which displays the number of publications retrieved in a search in the Web of Science from the 1970s up until 2017. This inquiry shows that the research literature has discussed polydrug use widely and increasingly ever since the late 20th century. A major part of this literature stems from natural sciences such as toxicology, pharmacy, neurosciences or psychiatry. In contrast, in the prevailing traditions of social research on alcohol and drugs, polydrug use has remained a “no man’s land” (Hakkarainen & Metso, 2009). As is the case with drug use in general, polydrug use is a phenomenon that also needs to be explained by means, measures and theories of the social sciences. In fact, some specific characteristics related to polydrug use are

Assessing Teaching and Students' Meaningful Learning Processes in an E-Learning Course

Abstract: AbstrAct In this chapter the authors report on the assessment framework and practices that they applied to the e-learning version of the Network Management course at the University of Lapland's Faculty of Social Sciences. The objective of the assessment was to examine students' perspective regarding how a digital video-supported, case-based teaching approach supported students' meaningful learning. The model for teaching and meaningful learning (TML) was used as the theoretical assessment framework. To answer the research questions, the authors gathered data through questionnaires completed by the students. The assessment provided them with evidence concerning the student perspective on teaching and learning processes during the e-learning course. The authors will describe and discuss this evidence in this chapter. In addition, they discuss the strengths and limitations of the assessment framework, and practices that they applied to the Network Management course.