Making your Bachelor's or Master's Thesis (kandidaatin tutkielma tai pro gradu)

How to find a topic for your thesis and a supervisor?

If you have an interesting topic in your mind, contact a person who either teaches something related to the topic or researchers it. If you don't know a suitable person, contact any teacher.

We can supervise theses related to any of the course topics we teach, anything we research, topics listed in our pages, but also many other topics that you are interested in. You can contact Arto Lanamäki (arto.lanamaki(at)oulu.fi) or any other of our resarch group personnel to discuss a thesis topic.

Possible topics supervised by our team

The topics are not fixed, they are examples of what kind of topics we could supervise. Below is a list of topics by supervisor, and after that a list of selected topics by theme.

Topics by supervisor

Heidi Hartikainen

  • Children and teenagers as IT/Internet users
  • Social media and web 2.0
    • Social networks, instant messaging, content creation, virtual worlds (gaming and social)
    • Facebook, ask.fm, WhatsApp, Instagram, Youtube, SecondLife, WoW etc.
  • Online safety and information security
  • Threats to online safety
    • Content threats (e.g. spam, violence),
    • Contact threats (e.g, bullying, grooming),
    • Conduct threats (e.g. illegal file sharing)
    • Computer threats (e.g. malware, phishing)
  • Online safety mediation
    • Industry mediation (e.g. content screening, privacy policies),
    • Technology (e.g. parental controls, adblockers),
    • Policies and educational efforts (e.g. KiVa koulu, Better internet for Children)
    • Social mediation by parents, teachers
  • Qualitative research

Henrik Hedberg

  • All topics related to Open Source Software, such as
    • Usability in Open Source Software Projects
    • Quality Assurance Methods in Open Source Software Projects
    • Company Participation in Open Source Software Development
    • Open Source Software Development Communities
  • Declarative Programming Languages
  • Constructive / design science research in software engineering discipline

Netta Iivari

  • Children and IT
  • Technology-rich everyday life
  • User-centered design
  • Participatory design
  • Usability
  • Cultural aspects
  • Open source software development
  • Community-based design
  • User innovation

Antti Juustila

  • Software engineering
  • Mobile systems and programming
  • Software architectures

Marianne Kinnula

  • (Verkko)pelaaminen / (Online) games
  • Lapset ja tietoyhteiskunta / Children in media society
  • Verkkoyhteisöt/Yhteisöllisyys verkossa / Online communities
  • Teknologian suunnittelu lapsille / Designing technology for children
  • Children’s participation in technology design and adaptation
  • Digital natives
  • Everyday life in technology-rich (neo-)communities
  • Teknologian rooli lasten kasvamisessa aktiivisiksi kansalaisiksi / Technology support in active citizenship (of children)
  • Teknologian käyttö arkipäivässä, eri näkökulmista, eri ikäryhmillä (myös aikuiset), eri konteksteissa esim: Lapset/nuoret mobiililaitteiden (tai yleensä teknologian) käyttäjinä / Technology use in everyday life
  • Kaikkia aiheita voi lähestyä joko liiketoimintanäkökulmasta tai käyttäjän näkökulmasta / Both business or user viewpoints can be used

Arto Lanamäki

  • Online communities / Verkkoyhteisöt
  • Online participation, social media / Verkko-osallistuminen, sosiaalinen media
  • Organizational routines and IT / Organisaatiorutiinit ja tietotekniikka
  • IT-mediated collaboration / IT-välitteinen yhteistyö
  • Long-term use of IT / Tietotekniikan pitkäaikaiskäyttö
  • Qualitative studies of IT use / Tietotekniikan käytön laadulliset tutkimukset
  • Practice-related topics / Käytäntöihin liittyvät aiheet
  • Wikipedia and other wikis / Wikipedia ja muut wikit
    • Specific topics: 1) Comparison of Current News Events between different Wikipedia language versions, 2) The making of "Featured Articles"

Jouni Lappalainen

  • Työkaluohjelmistojen arvioinnit
  • Henkilökohtaiset ohjelmistoprosessit
  • Tietokonepelien genret ja teknologiat
  • Oppimiseen ja opettamiseen liittyvät aiheet kuten oppimisympäristöt ja ohjelmoinnin opetus

Tonja Molin-Juustila

  • Lapset ja teknologia (children and technology)
    • For master students interested to make a thesis based on empirical data collected already, please contact asap
    • The data is about brainstorming for tangible interaction with children (3rd graders)
  • Teknologiavälitteinen arki (technology-rich everyday life)
  • Osallistuva suunnittelu (participatory design)
  • Osallistumisen teknologiat (technologies for participation)
  • Draaman soveltaminen (lähinnä kandityö, review)
  • Multidiciplinary human/user centered development
  • Activity theory (toiminnan teoria) as a theorethical framework
  • Project work in ICT field

Dorina Rajanen

  • Business intelligence: data mining, text mining, data visualization, and gamification in business contexts (computational and/or application aspects), data analytics, visual analytics
  • Media experience: study of attention to media contents and formal features (colors, shapes, etc.), emotional appraisal in media contexts (video, games, news reading, etc.)
  • User evaluation in business, media, and human-computer interaction contexts (theoretical and empirical studies)
  • User experience
  • Psychophysiological research
  • Software as a service, cloud computing: theory and applications, development, adoption, recommendation, evaluation
  • Models of adoption and acceptance of technology (e.g., for wearable computing, smart homes, e- and m-health, mixed reality, etc.)
  • Quantitative methods as well as design science and qualitative research methods
  • Research methodology
  • Digital fabrication, digital innovation, Fablab 

Mikko Rajanen

  • Käytettävyyteen ja peleihin liittyvät aiheet / Topics related to usability, HCI and games

Leena Ventä-Olkkonen

  • Urban computing, ubiquitous computing, public displays
  • Technology appropriation
  • Technology mediated practices
  • IT and everyday life
  • Children’s and families IT practices
  • User centered design, participatory design
  • Mixed reality, augmented reality

Karin Väyrynen

  • Topic area 1: Software business (e.g. marketing in sales, management and leadership, business models, ...)
  • Topic area 2: Global virtual teams
  • Topic area 3: Business process management
  • Topic area 4: Knowledge management, social media, online collaboration
  • Ohjaus myös suomen kielellä.

Selected topics by theme

For mainly Finnish speaking students due to the topic - but if you are very interested in these topics we can try to find a way for also English speaking students:

  • Training teachers in participatory design with children
  • Fablab at school (interviewing teachers)
  • Different viewpoints to fablab/making/makerspace/digital fabrication and children
  • Esteettömyys digitaalisissa palveluissa
  • Digitaalisen teknologian hyödyntäminen näyttämöllä (näytelmän toteuttamisessa/itse näytelmässä) / (esittävässä) taiteessa

For any student:

  • Nexus analysis as a research method on technology-rich everyday life
  • Children brainstorming for tangible interaction
  • Digital services and youth on the brink of adulthood (e-government, e-participation etc.)
  • New curriculum in Finnish schools (OPS) and digital technology
  • Children/Families/Anybody and Pokemon Go, with any kind of focus
  • Instagram/Snapchat/Whatsapp (and children/families, can be even your own!)
  • Tumblr/Twitter, any focus
  • Digital technology ecology of a school/kindergarten (children’s point of view)
  • Digital technology ecology at home
  • Smartphone/Pad and toddlers (even your own child)
  • Social media in children’s lives
  • Use of drones
  • Robots, programming and children
  • Tangible programming (with children)
  • User study about mobile cars – cf. http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/3-540-36678-4_33 (SmartKom)
  • Toddlers/babies and IT – first touch with technology
  • Girls in IT
  • Digital technology and erotica
  • Motherhood / Breastfeeding and digital technology
  • Joy/(Un)happiness/Birth/Death and digital technology
  • 21st century photo album
  • Memes!
  • Elderly and digital games
  • Longterm World of Warcraft players
  • A discourses survey on online discussions (any technology related topic)
  • Digital natives and their parents – who teaches whom?
  • A comparative study: mobile vs. desktop gaming
  • Use of 3D virtual city models