Tutkielmani tarkoitus on tutustua erilaisiin pelejen sisäisiin mikrotransaktioihin sekä monetisaatioon. Peliteollisuuden tämän hetken suosituimpana pelimuotona on niin sanotut Free-To-Play -pelit, joiden liikevaihto perustuu täysin käyttäjien suorittamiin mikrotransaktioihin, joilla ostetaan erilaisia pelin sisäisiä hyödykkeitä. Free-to-play -malli on ansaintamallina vielä aika uusi, vaikkakin mikrotransaktioita on ollut olemassa erilaisissa peleissä jo monia kymmeniä vuosia. Tutkielmassani aion ottaa myös esille erilaisia piirteitä joita esiintyy perinteisissä mikrotransaktioihin perustuvien pelejen käyttäjissä. Pääpaino tutkielmassani tulee kuitenkin olemaan mikrotransaktioiden liiketoiminnallisessa kannattavuudessa ja siinä miksi free-to-play -malli kannattaa nykypeleissä. Tutkimusongelmaksi muodostuukin näin ”Onko Free-to-Play -liiketoimintamalliin siirtyminen kannattavaa taloudellisesti?”.

Context: In recent decades, more than 200 million rural-to-urban migrants of working-age moved to and temporarily lived in cities in China. This migration contributes to the so-called empty nest phenomenon (i.e., changes in psychological well-being of parents when children leave their home). As time goes on, many of the empty-nest elderly will be in the statement of spouse-bereft and living alone. Compared with elderly people who live with their spouses, elderly solitaries have relatively worse psychological status. Most of existing smart home designs for the elderly are focusing on performing different functions packaged into friendly user interfaces, but emotional perspectives are scantly taken into account or are ignored. Aim: This thesis aims to explore the real demands of elder people living alone in China in order to inform the design of smart home systems that satisfy both physical needs and psychological needs. Method: The research procedure obeys the human-centred lifecycle model steps starting from identifying needs for design, to understanding the context of use, to completing requirements specification work. A literature review on existing smart home modes for the elderly was conducted to collect requirements defined by previous researches. In addition, 22 field interviews in three groups (elderly solitaries over 60, elderly between 50–60, and children generation of elderly solitaries) were conducted in Xiamen city of China for gathering and analyzing the real demands. Requirements are finalized by integrating prior studies and the interview data analysis. Results: I found that for older people (over 60 years old), their needs and expectations mainly form four aspects: they wish they could live orderly (daily life), could keep aware of their body condition (health care), could be rescued in time once emergency occurs (emergency response), and could have initiative contacts frequently with their children (emotional solace). Compared with them, the elderly between 50–60 have demands for higher quality lives. They have the ability to operate intelligent products, and squint towards the conjunction of online and offline lifestyles to enrich their life. As for the children generation, they wish their parents could have the resources to develop their own interests and have friends around as companions. Contribution and future work: This thesis makes contribution to the design of smart home systems for the elderly by providing comprehensive requirements. Possible future research extension can be the realization of smart home system based on the requirements gathering in thesis.

The competitive nature of industries and emergence of newer technologies demands an improving and creative approach in the development of software solutions. Conventional approaches to software development are characterized by sequential stiffened procedures with rigid management practices. These approaches limit the potential of alternative creative processes by impeding the adoption of one’s intuition, ability to explore, knowledge sharing and collaboration among developers. Software Engineering (SE) is a complex domain that requires intense creative activities for its sustainability; hence a firm understanding of creativity is in need. Creativity is a cognitive activity that is influenced by people, process, product and place. The study identified 89 primary studies through systematic literature review conducted to analyze, synthesize and aggregate evidences regarding the state-of-art on research of creativity in software engineering with the aim of addressing the techniques, tools, factors and measurement of creativity in software engineering domain. The findings revealed that the requirement and design phases of software development are more important stages in the development process where design decisions are made and creativity is much emphasized. Factors categorized as extrinsic and intrinsic factors are said to influence creative practices in SE domain. The adoption of creativity techniques such as collaboration, knowledge sharing and brainstorming with appropriate lightweight creativity supporting tools were identified to influence creative practices in software engineering domain, while its evaluation is difficult and subjective. In conclusion, the study advocates the adoption of creative practices with flexible management style in software development towards the building of effective and timely software. However, assertive adherence to traditional practices in software development could hamper creative practices. There exists no ultimate solution to creativity, beyond the harnessing of human cognitive capability. Hence, the management of software project should seek the development of the creative mind (engineers) with an embracing management practices for continuous deliverance of effective and novel solutions. The findings could impacts decision making of stakeholders in software engineering domain towards harnessing of creative practices.

Teaching and learning of programming skills is becoming a mandatory part of Finnish primary school curriculum in the fall of 2016. Teaching of these skills will start from the grade one. The decision of starting teaching programming skills for 6–12 year old students is creating a new situation to the field of basic education in Finland. The current situation is creating challenges for teachers, students and for the planning of the new curriculum. It seems that currently there is not much existing official information and material for Finnish class- teachers considering teaching programming skills. In this study I am trying to map out the new situation from the point of view of teachers. The main research question of this study is: What is the role and importance of teaching and learning programming skills in Finnish primary schools? For this thesis I have reviewed existing literature on the learning and teaching of programming for school children. As a research method I have used qualitative content analysis for analyzing the results of the interviews with teachers. I have mapped out their opinions and suggestions considering the teaching of programming skills, why it is important and how it could be taught. The role of games or game-based environments has been strongly recognized in this study. I have also tried to clarify the position of programming as a learning subject in Finnish basic education. In this study, I am concentrating on learning and teaching of programming skills at grades 1–6 at Finnish primary schools. As results, I will point out that the teaching and learning of programming skills in basic education can be beneficial for society and for the development of children’s cognitive skills, but there are also many challenges involved. In addition, I am introducing two frameworks based on the gathered data.

Sähköinen resepti otettiin Suomessa ensimmäistä kertaa käyttöön julkisella sektorilla vanhan paperisen version rinnalle Turussa ja Kotkassa vuosina 2010 ja 2011, josta se on nopeasti laajentunut ympäri Suomea. Sähköisen reseptin alkuperäinen tarkoitus oli parantaa potilas- ja lääketurvallisuutta, tehostaa lääkemääräysten toteutusta ja helpottaa lääkkeen toimittamista. Uuden tietojärjestelmän implementointiin ja käyttöön liittyy vahvasti, se miten teknologiaan suhtaudutaan ja miten sen käytännön toteutus on onnistunut käyttäjien mielestä, joten on tärkeää ymmärtää mitkä ovat käyttäjän kokemukset järjestelmää kohtaan. Kvalitatiivisen tapaustutkimuksen tarkoituksena oli selvittää, mitkä ovat julkisen sektorin lääkärin kokemukset sähköisen reseptin käytöstä. Lisäksi tutkittiin, voidaanko sähköistä reseptiä pitää tehokkaampana, turvallisempana, toimivampana ja hyödyllisempänä kuin paperista versiota ja onko sähköistä reseptiä käyttävissä lääkäreissä havaittavissa muutosvastarintaa. Tutkimus toteutettiin haastattelemalla puolistrukturoidun haastattelumenetelmän avulla kuutta yleislääketieteeseen erikoistunutta julkisen sektorin lääkäriä, jotka käyttivät työssään potilastietojärjestelmä Efficaa, johon sähköinen resepti-ominaisuus on integroitu myöhemmin. Julkisen sektorin lääkärit ovat yksi isoimmista käyttäjäryhmistä, jotka käyttävät työnsä ohella ja tukena sähköistä reseptiä Suomessa. Käyttäjäkokemuksia, teknologian hyväksyntää ja tietojärjestelmän implementoinnin ja käytön onnistumista voidaan tutkia terveydenhuollon tietojärjestelmien kontekstissa Pain ja Huangin luomalla mallilla, joka pohjautuu DeLonen ja McLeanin kehittämään tietojärjestelmän onnistumismalliin ja Venkateshin ja Davisin teknologian hyväksymismallin. Pain ja Huangin malli pohjautuu viiteen teemaan, jotka ovat tiedon laatu, palvelun laatu, järjestelmän laatu, koettu helppokäyttöisyys, koettu hyöty ja käyttöaikomus. Malli toimi tutkimuksen viitekehyksenä, jonka pohjalta rakennettiin tapaustutkimukselle ominainen teemahaastattelurunko, josta saatu aineisto analysoitiin sisällönanalyysin perinteisen metodin avulla. Tutkimuksessa havaittiin, että sähköisen reseptin teknisessä toteutuksessa oli julkisen sektorien lääkärien mielestä puutteita tunnistautumisessa, reseptin uusimisessa ja tiedon jäsentelyssä ja sijoituksessa. Erityisen tyytyväisiä lääkärit olivat sähköisen reseptin lääkelistaan ja sen informatiivisuuteen, jonka koettiin auttavan havaitsemaan lääkemääräysten välisiä ristiriitoja ja parantamaan potilaan terveydellistä turvallisuutta. Potilasturvallisuuteen käyttäjät suhtautuivat yksimielisesti positiivisesti ja sähköinen resepti koettiin tietoturvalliseksi. Hallinnollisiin ja taloudellisiin asioihin vastaajat osasivat ottaa niukasti kantaa, mutta järjestelmän oikeudellisten säädöksien koettiin hidastavan lääkärin työtä. Tulevaisuudessa lääkärit olivat halukkaita jatkamaan sähköisen reseptin käyttöä eivätkä palaamaan vanhaan paperiseen versioon tai vaihtamaan kokonaan uuteen järjestelmään, mutta parannuksia vanhaan järjestelmään toivottiin. Käyttäjissä ei havaittu implementointiin tai tämän hetkisen sähköisen reseptin käyttöön liittyvää muutosvastarintaa, vaan uusiin ominaisuuksiin ja parannuksiin suhtauduttiin positiivisesti. Tutkimuksen tutkimustuloksia voidaan hyödyntää terveydenhuollon tietojärjestelmäkehityksessä ja sähköisen reseptin jatkotutkimuksessa, sekä tutkittaessa tietojärjestelmän käytön ja implementoinnin synnyttämiä käyttökokemuksia ja muutosvastarintaa. Tutkimustulokset soveltuvat myös lääketieteellisen tutkimuksen tueksi. Jatkotutkimuksessa tulisi ottaa huomioon lainsäädöllisistä syistä johtuvat järjestelmän rajoitukset ja näistä johtuvien säädösten vaikutus käyttäjien asenteeseen. Lisäksi tulisi huomioida miten kollegoiden ja työympäristön suhtautuminen järjestelmän käyttöön ja sen implementointiin vaikuttavat yleiseen asennoitumiseen. Jatkotutkimuksessa tulisi myös huomioida käyttöaikomuksen lisäksi käyttäjien ehdottomat suorat kehitysideat. / Electronic prescription was introduced first time in Finland public sector next to old paper version in 2010 and 2011 at cities of Turku and Kotka where it rapidly expanded across Finland. Original purpose of the electronic prescription was to improve patient and medicine security, optimize implementation of prescription, and ease delivery of the medicine. Implementing and using new information system heavily involves how users react towards the new system and how adapting the new system has been practically executed from the user’s perspective, so it is important to understand what the user experiences from using the system are. Aim of this qualitative research was to study what are the experiences of public sector doctors from using electronic prescription in their daily job. It was also studied, can electronic prescription be more efficient, safer, functional and useful than paper description and is resistance perceived among users. This study was done by interviewing six public sector physicians who were specialized in general medicine. Interviews were done by using half structured interview method and during the time all of the physicians used patient information system Effica which had electronic prescription integrated later on. Public sector physicians are one of the biggest electronic prescription user groups in Finland. User experiences, acceptance of technology and succeeding in implementing and using information system can be studied in healthcare context by using model which Pai and Huang created. This model is based on Information system success model by DeLone and MaLean and technology acceptance model by Venkatesh and David. The model by Pai and Huang is based on 5 themes which are information quality, service quality, system quality, perceived ease-of-use, perceived usefulness and intention to use. This model worked as framework for this study and structure of review was build based on it. Structure of interview was constructed thematically which is characteristic for case study and results of the study were analyzed by using traditional method of content analysis. The study revealed that public sector physicians felt that identification, renewing prescription and information layering were lacking in technical execution of electronic prescription. Physicians were particularly pleased of medicine list and it’s informatively which can help noticing contradiction between prescriptions and improve patient safety. It was discovered that physicians unanimously thought electronic prescription is patient safety and they weren’t worry about information breach. About administrative matters interviewees’ didn’t have strong opinion but legislative of system was felt to slow down physicians work. In future physicians were willing to continue using the current system and didn’t want to go back to using paper description or change to another new system but they were hoping for improvements to the current system. It was discovered that there wasn’t any resistance detected among the physicians and new possible features and improvements were rather welcomed with positive attitude. Results of this study can be utilized in healthcare information system development and follow-up research of electronic prescription research. Results can also be used studying user experiences raised by implementing and using information systems and resistance of users. It is recommended to take note on legislations that can limit use of information system and pay attention how these legislations effect user behavior. It should also be considered how colleagues and work environment effect on attitudes of users and notice user’s direct improvement ideas when studying their intention of use.

Tämän tutkimuksen tavoitteena oli analysoida ja ymmärtää, kuinka ICT:tä voidaan käyttää mielialahäiriöiden kuten masennuksen ja kaksisuuntaisen mielialahäiriön hoidossa. Tutkimuksen tarkoituksena on myös löytää puutteita ja mahdollisesti tunnistaa tutkimuksen suuntauksia. Tutkimuksessa käytettiin systemaattisen kartoitustutkimuksen prosessia tutkimusmenetelmänä ja suoritettiin tulosten temaattinen analyysi. Systemaattisen kartoitustutkimuksen tulosten avulla pyrittiin tunnistamaan mahdollisia primaaritutkimusalueita tämän tutkimusaiheen sisällä. Suoritetussa systemaattisessa kartoitustutkimuksessa luokiteltiin valitut primaaritutkimukset neljällä luokittelukriteerillä, jotka olivat tutkimuksen fokus, julkaisutyyppi, tutkimustyyppi ja tutkimusmenetelmä. Tutkimusfokus on systemaattisen kartoitustutkimusprosessin luokittelukaavion kehittämisen tulos. Enemmistö tutkituista primaaritutkimuksista oli tutkimusmenetelmältään tapaustutkimuksia (73 %) ja tutkimustyypiltään arviointitutkimuksia (50 %). Tutkimuksen mukaan kokeellista ja kyselytutkimusta tarvitaan enemmän, jotta voidaan paremmin ymmärtää ICT-laitteiden käyttöä masennuksen ja kaksisuuntaisen mielialahäiriön hoidossa. Myös ainakin validointitutkimusta tarvitaan lisää, kun pohditaan uusien teknologioiden käyttöönottoa.

The purpose of this study was to find out the progress in the research of technology ecosystems and digital business ecosystems and to combine that information for business purposes by the utilization of information about business ecosystems. The need for this information emerged at the Department of Information Processing Science in the context of European Union research projects. The information gained is expected to assist to increase possibilities both for the research and for the personal competence to work with enterprises in new kinds of technology environments. The main research question to be answered in this study was: How are technology ecosystems and digital business ecosystems for business perceived and approached in the literature? Instead of a systematic review, a method of systematic mapping was selected to structure the selected research areas for getting a broad overview over the two streams of research, and for identification the possible research evidence. To answer the main question the following subquestions were set for both systematic mapping studies: RQ1 Which journals include papers on technology ecosystems / digital business ecosystems for business? RQ2 What are the most investigated topics of technology ecosystems / digital business ecosystems and how have these changed over time? RQ3 What are the most frequently applied research approaches and methods, and in what study context? Based on structuring the selected research areas according to the set subquestions, broad overviews were established presenting findings. Based on the identification and evaluation of publication channels the forums for discussion were exposed. Based on the identification of topics and their evolution the trends of discussion were exposed. Based on the identification of research types the non-empirical and the empirical research were exposed. Found research evidence and found solution proposals (from non-empirical research) were discussed and the need for further research was considered. The main contribution of this mapping study was the identification of different perceptions of two vague concepts, technology ecosystem and digital business ecosystem, and notion of their convergence and interlace over time (especially in relation to the exposed scarce research evidence). The recommendations for future research were set based on the found empirical research and solution proposals, as well as limitations of this study.

Continuous integration is one of the Extreme Programming practices and is used in agile software development to provide rapid feedback and to have a working system at all times. In continuous integration, a developer commits code to projects mainline at least once a day which triggers automated build and tests. Large projects can struggle with continuous integration because with growing code base the number of tests that need to execute after a developer checks in code also gets bigger. The growing number of tests means that the build times can become long. With embedded systems, the problem can be even bigger as the testing is dependent on target hardware. With long builds, feedback becomes longer thus making it harder to practice continuous integration. Long feedback leads to infrequent integrations which can result in continuous integration becoming a bottle-neck to the development process and can even affect an ability to release software frequently. To shorten the feedback this thesis implements an automated test selection tool to work in continuous integration environment. The test selection tool selects the tests that are relevant for a specific code change instead of executing all tests for each commit. The case company is suffering from long feedbacks and the expensiveness of testing has become a problem. This thesis hopes to solve that problem with the implemented test selection tool. The tool is evaluated using three metrics; feedback time improvement, reduction in number of executed test cases and fault finding capability. The test selection tool was tested with two test suites with different size by collecting data from continuous integration system. “Shock” suite consisted of about 30 test cases and regression suite about 800 test cases. The average improvement in feedback time for Shock tests was 29.3% and 55.7% for regression suite. The test selection tool reduced the number of test cases executed in Shock by 67.1% and 78.2% for regression suite. Fault finding capability was measured for Shock suite and the tool was able to find same faults as the full suite in 97.8% of the cases. Statistical tests show that the test selection has a significant impact on feedback time. By being able to safely shorten the feedback, the test selection tool can potentially help developers in the case company to practice continuous integration.

Gift giving has far deeper societal, sociological, and psychological implications than people are generally aware of. It can work in both positive and negative ways — building and strengthening or weakening and breaking social ties, imposing identity images on both the givers and the recipients. Gifts are also important from a consumer and marketing perspective, and tend to cause their seekers anxiety in many ways. To counter the difficulties in the gift giving process it is important to record information about important dates, recipients, given and received gifts, as well as new plans. Many tools are already being used to help keep track of gift giving, and these range from simple pen-and-paper solutions to productivity applications like note-taking tools and spreadsheets. The purpose of this thesis is to explore gift giving behaviour and make use of the Technology Acceptance Model to triangulate requirements for a gift giving support application, as well as offer a list of possible design contributions to meet each requirement. These results can then be utilised in future research to design and produce an actual gift giving support application, that will meet the needs of both gift givers and recipients.

Gift giving has far deeper societal, sociological, and psychological implications than people are generally aware of. It can work in both positive and negative ways — building and strengthening or weakening and breaking social ties, imposing identity images on both the givers and the recipients. Gifts are also important from a consumer and marketing perspective and tend to cause their seekers anxiety in many ways. To counter the difficulties in the gift giving process it is important to record information about important dates, recipients, given and received gifts, as well as new plans and ideas. Many tools are already being used to help keep track of gift giving, and these range from simple pen-and-paper solutions to productivity applications like note-taking tools and spreadsheets. Unfortunately, there are only a few tools that specialise in gift management, and even these have shortcomings in one way or another. The purpose of this thesis was to design a new and better solution to meet gift giving management needs. Gift giving behaviour was explored through literature and interviews, and the Technology Acceptance Model and Design Science Research approach were utilised to triangulate a complete list of requirements for a gift giving support application, which was then designed. A prototype was constructed according to the design. The prototype was evaluated with heuristic evaluation and small-scale user testing using a paper prototype. The findings were used to correct flaws in the initial design, resulting in an improved design of the proposed application. While nowhere near ready for production, the prototype could stand up to evaluation against requirements on an acceptable level, thus validating the design approach. These results can be utilised in future research and/or development to continue the design and production of an actual gift giving support application that will meet the needs of both gift givers and recipients.