The Faculty of Matematics and Natural Sciences at the University of Oslo has more than 30 study programs on different levels and a flowering student environment on campus. The new brochure Knowledge changes everything gives insight into study and research opportunities for international student.  The brochure includes links to study programs and information about application deadlines.

The Faculty has two major tasks; creating the workforce of tomorrow and conduction research  of high international quality within the realm of natural sciences, technology and mathematics. Among several important projects over the last years, I want to mention the program Computing in Science Education (CSE). In this program we have included computing as a natural tool for all science and engineering students from the first semester of their undergraduate studies. The program has been a great success and gained huge interest all over the world.  Some of our experiences with the CSE-program are presented here.

Knut Mørken

This article is written together with professor Knut Mørken at Center of Mathematics for Applications (CMA). Knut is also one of the key persons behind the CSE-project (CSE=Computing in Science Education) at the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences. Another bloggposts about the CSE-project you can find here (in Norwegian). Earlier this year the CSE-project got «The Nation Prize on Education Quality» awarded by NOKUT (in Norwegian).

Background

Computations have always been an essential tool, both in mathematics and in the natural sciences, and the digital computer was originally developed for the purpose of performing scientific calculations. At most universities, the first computers were constructed or obtained for specific scientific calculations. Over the years, computer simulations or computations have become fundamental tools in research and industry across the world. In spite of this, the elementary science teaching at most universities is still focused around pencil-and-paper calculations, usually supplemented with the use of calculators to do many of the classical computations. A consequence is that it is difficult to expose the students at the elementary level to practical problems considered in research and industry.

At the University of Oslo we believe that both mathematics and science education should include a definite computational component right from the first semester, as a supplement and complement to the classical material. In this way the students get a thorough training both in classical and computational methods and may study relevant problems form research and industry from very early in their undergraduate studies.

The project “Computing in Science Education” (CSE) was launched about ten years ago to implement a computational perspective at the University of Oslo. This article will provide a short report on the project.

Overall purpose and benefits

The overall aim of the CSE-project has been to supplement the student’s mathematical toolbox with computational methods and programming. The core of this is to train the students in algorithmic problem solving as well as the classical mathematical techniques. This includes discussion of well-known numerical techniques with both their potential and limitations, but also an understanding of how new numerical methods may be developed. And it includes widespread exposure to how such tools may be used to explore science and mathematics.

Although numerical procedures are often very simple, they nevertheless require a fundamental shift in the students’ thinking. As an example, consider solution of equations. Most students come to university with the deep-rooted understanding that solving an equation is synonymous with finding a formula for the solution. By using an algorithmic approach, arbitrarily close approximations to the solution may be obtained quickly through numerical techniques. It turns out that this way of thinking of solutions does not come easy for many students. But the benefits are clear: Instead of the limited classes of equations that can be solved by formula, most equations encountered in practice may be solved via an algorithmic approach.

Some of the pedagogical benefits of computationally oriented education are:

• An algorithmic approach may help to increase the understanding of mathematics and science.
• Simulation using computer programs moves the attention from intricate mathematical details with pencil and paper to a greater focus on problem formulation and the physical behaviour of systems and phenomena.
• Numerical solutions allow much more realistic and inspiring problems to be addressed, and give students a taste of what scientific and industrial problems are about.

Organisational implementation and collaboration

A particular achievement of the CSE-project at the University of Oslo is that we have managed to implement the computer-based methods by modifying existing science courses, in contrast to the more common approach where modernization is taken care of in new programs in computational science with separate courses.

The goal has been to develop a unified computational perspective on undergraduate teaching programmes across courses and science disciplines. This is difficult to accomplish without some cross-disciplinary understanding among teachers in order to align courses across disciplines. At the University of Oslo this was partly provided by some local experimentation with computational oriented teaching more than ten years ago. But the most important catalysts was the introduction of broad bachelor programmes via a major educational reform in 2003, and the introduction of the centre of excellence Centre of Mathematics for Applications, also in 2003. Both these events required quite thorough discussions between scientific staff in order to initiate the broad teaching cooperation necessary to implement the program.

The next important step was to obtain necessary support from governing bodies. This was secured by asking for support from the Dean of the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences that incorporated the CSE-project as a major task in the Faculty’s strategic plan. The Faculty also supported the project with administrational expertise, and a steering group was formed which included teaching staff, the Dean of Education, and the Head of the Faculty’s Section for Education. The success of the CSE-project has to a large extent depended on the work of the latter two.

When the atmosphere for collaboration is in place, and there is enough support from the leadership, it is possible to revise the teaching programmes with an emphasis on how they function as a whole, not just each individual course. This requires relatively broad agreement on the direction of the reform, and how it can be implemented across disciplines, but at the same time remembering that each teacher must be allowed the freedom to implement the ideas in a way that he or she believes in.

Lessons and experiences

The points raised above are all quite generic to broad revisions of teaching programmes, but the CSE-project is a reform that focuses on new content. Over the years we have learnt some important lessons:

New understanding of mathematics and science. The students come to university with a set idea of what mathematics is, and what science is. For most students, the integration of programming and computer calculations into mathematics and science challenges these ideas, and causes confusion in the beginning. It is therefore important to explain why this integration is necessary, and not underestimate the difficulties for the students.

Classical theory is still important. Some may think that calculations by computer may reduce the need for classical mathematics and science. In fact, the opposite is true. Development of algorithms and algorithmic thinking requires a unified and abstract view of mathematics, and therefore many students find computations difficult. A strong foundation in classical mathematics is therefore beneficial. The same applies to other scientific disciplines. In order to derive computational models, it is absolutely essential to be confident within the general theory.

Understanding, not black box. For a teacher, it may be tempting to develop flashy software that demonstrates what can be achieved by combining computers, mathematics and graphics. This may have its place as a kind of advanced figures, but keep in mind that the goal is to create understanding. Most students will learn much more from writing a program that draws a very simple figure rather than being presented with flashy version of the same figure, produced by someone else.

Integrate rather than add on. The natural approach when introducing computations in a course is to start with the existing course and add computations. This naturally leads to the common objection ‘there is no room for computations in my course’. If instead computations are integrated into the different parts of the syllabus it takes up much less space. In mathematics for example it is often possible to make use of numerical methods and examples in the development of the theory, and in this way the students learn numerical methods and theory simultaneously. However, this requires new textbooks where such approaches are well implemented.

Make sure computational skills are tested. Students are very good at distilling out parts of the curriculum that are not tested in the course. So if you want them to take computations seriously, they must also be tested in this area, either in the exam, in compulsory hand-ins, or in some other way.

Be patient. The traditional textbooks in elementary mathematics and science build on a tradition, with examples and exercises, which has been developed and refined through centuries. We believe that changes like the present computational reform at the University of Oslo only happen once or twice a century, and therefore it would simply be arrogant to think that we would get it right on the first attempt. Therefore, be patient, it will probably take something like twenty years to develop computationally oriented textbooks with a quality that approaches that of the classical texts. However, we are lucky to have an opportunity to take part in one of these major paradigm shifts of teaching mathematics and science.

More about the CSE-project can be found on here.

“I think the next century will be the century of complexity”, said the well-known Cambridge professor Stephan Hawking in an interview with San Jose Mercury News in January 2000.

Behind this statement we find a collection of trends pointing in this direction. We are facing a global political landscape that is increasingly more complex. The international economic situation is confusing and we read about economic crises in many countries. Diversity – ethnic and cultural – with all its complex relations and questions is becoming an increasingly larger part of our everyday life. The internet – the global information highway – connects more and more people and ICT-systems, generating new complex relations, dependencies and contexts. Climate change has generated global challenges with a complexity that the world has never seen.

The world population exceeded seven billion people last year, and the proportion of elderly people is growing. How can we, in a sustainable way, supply the world with sufficient resources in the next 50 years, and how can modern medicine and healthcare technology ensure a decent old age for numerous people all over the world?

In this picture, ICT plays an increasingly important role, both in itself and as an enabling technology for sustainable research and development across disciplines.

The world is continuously facing situations where the development of large ICT systems are either stopped or carried out with large cost overruns. There are numerous reasons for this, but we know that in most occurrences, neither the contractor nor the supplier of technology has understood the overall complexity of an integrated systems. An important aspect when developing distributed ICT-systems is of course the technical complexity, but equally important is the use aspects that are particularly complex in large distributed systems and organizations. We need to solve complex puzzles in an increasingly integrated ICT world.

The 7th framework programme (FP7) in the European Union will soon be history, and Horizon 2020 (the next framework programme) is about to be drafted and will be launched in 2014. The overall goal for the ICT part of Horizon 2020 should be to understand and resolve the complexity of development and use of ICT solutions. This includes a series of aspects in the realm of ICT – from challenges in the core of ICT to interdisciplinary actions involving competence from science and technology, industrial leadership and societal challenges.

Furthermore, in order to develop the next generation ICT systems, Europe has to develop a stronger knowledge base in ICT, hence put more emphasis into higher education of the ICT workforce of tomorrow. However, this is not enough. There is also a need for new approaches to build digital competence in the entire population. Europe must therefore modernise the concept of digital competence in primary school, e.g. by creating a more thorough understanding of the ICT field among teachers.

The answer to complex questions and challenges are precisely the task of research. It is about understanding and interpretation of complex situations; it is about organization of complex “landscapes”; it is about the challenges of finding in-depth explanations to compound problems; and last but not least, research contributes to the development of new and robust solutions throughout society. In addition to the basic long-term and penetrating research, it is of crucial importance that we cultivate scientific convergence (interdisciplinarity) in a scale that is completely different from  what is being done today.

In order to develop future ICT systems for healthcare it is not sufficient to understand ICT on its own. International politics cannot be conducted without having the understanding of how technology is changing the world. If we want to find climate-friendly energy solutions for the global population, we must pave the way for a broad research effort across many disciplines.

Important phenomena in medicine and biology can only be understood through the use of advanced computer science and mathematical methods. The list of complex challenges is long and this list continues to grow . In this respect, ICT plays an extremely important role and further strengthening of research and education in ICT is the key to the future.

Stephen Hawking announced the century of complexity. He was right!

During the last 50 years informatics, or Information and Communication Technology (ICT), has grown to become one of the sciences (or maybe the science) with largest impact on the development of society. Informatics is everywhere. In order to secure a sustainable development, the society needs an ICT workforce with new knowledge and broad competence within the realm of informatics. Norway has therefore invested in a new informatics building at the University of Oslo. This building, including all its research and education facilities and modern equipment, is by far the largest investment in ICT research and education in Norway ever.

200 years anniversary

The Department of informatics at the University of Oslo moved to the new building during spring 2011, and mid August this year we could, for the first time, wish freshman welcomed to brand new facilities. This year the University of Oslo also celebrates its 200 years anniversary and the official birthday is September 2.  It was, therefore, natural to arrange the official opening of  new building on this date. The informatics building was officially opened by Tora Aasland – the Norwegian minister for Research and Higher education.

The new building

The new informatics building, drawn by the architects at Lund Hagem, is particularly constructed for students and organized for modern education. The three first floors of the almost 30.000 sqm large building is constructed as a huge learning arena for Bachelor student, with all necessary facilities and flexibility covering modern auditoriums, a series of lecture rooms, huge open spaces, and small quiet rooms where students can work in groups or alone. Several nice pieces of art create an engaging work environment for more than 1500 bachelor students on the ICT-programs and ICT-courses at the University of Oslo. In the basement, the students has their own pub with the  name of «Escape».

From the fourth floor and in the tower of the building, the Department of informatics has its offices and laboratories. All master- and PhD-students have their work environment together with the research groups carefully designed into the layout of the building. Currently, the Department of informatics has approximately 450 Master´s students and 220 PhD-students in addition to approximately 1500 Bachelor students. Approximately 50% of the PhD-students come from countries outside Norway and from fall 2011 all Master´s programmes are opened for applicants from abroad. Research are organized in 13 research groups covering a broad range of topics within informatics.

The building is named Ole-Johan Dahls House after the first Professor in informatics at the University of Oslo. Together with Professor Kristen Nygaard, Ole-Johan Dahl, invented object-oriented programming including the first object-oriented programming language Simula in the 1960s. They were awarded both the Turing Award (2001) and the IEEE John von Neumann Medal (2002) for this achievement. The old informatics building, situated besides the new building, is named Kristen Nygaards House. All lecture rooms in the new building is named after programming languages and our magnificent auditorium has, of course, been named Simula.

International Master´s

University of Oslo has five education programmes within ICT. Each programmd is divided into a three-year Bachelor programme followed by a two-year international Master´s programme. The following are short presentations of the five Master´s programmes;

The Informatics: programming and networks program - provides a deep insight into how computers work and how they can be used to solve problems. The programme covers the core of computer science and provides a thorough education in programming, software languages, logic, systems modelling, software engineering, and distributed systems, utilizing concurrent processes inside computers to world-wide systems like the Internet.

The Informatics: design, use, interaction - provides multidisciplinary skills essential for understanding the role of ICT in society and how ICT solutions can be used to solve important tasks. The programme includes training in systems development in use contexts, the understanding of large and complex information systems, ICT management, interaction design and digital media production.

The Informatics: nanoelectronics and robotics - provides necessary knowledge and skills for building nanoelectronics systems and intelligent robots. The education involves signal processing and software development, and students will be involved in space technology and the development of medical equipment.

The Informatics: language and communication – provides the opportunity to study how computers handle and model human communication through language. The students learn how computers are able to translate human languages and how search engines in particular and software systems in general are based on language technology.

The Informatics: Scientific Computing - provides in-depth knowledge of programming with a solid foundation in mathematics combined with domain knowledge in medicine and science of nature. The students can specialise in computational mathematics, image processing and biomedical computing.

Welcome to the new informatics building and the ICT education programmes at the University of Oslo. For more information about the Master´s programmes, see here. You can also download a PDF-version of this article here.

Novelda AS has been awarded the 2011 European New Product Innovation Award for the development of the Novelda NVA6000 Impulse Radar transceiver. This best practice award is given by the global research organization  Frost & Sullivan to companies that presents new innovative product for the global market. From the paper presenting the winner I quote:

«The Novelda NVA6000 Impulse Radar transceiver, an extremely advanced electromagnetic high precision sensor integrated on a single chip, offers unique penetration capabilities while bringing down the cost of ownership for its customers. It incorporates advanced design and technology that successfully eliminate previously existing technological bottlenecks. This provides it with the ability to effectively cater to a range of sensor applications – in fields ranging from medical imaging to security and surveillance.»

Novelda AS conducts research and development in close cooperation with the Nanoelectronic group at  the Department of informatics.

We congratulate Novelda AS with this prestigious award!

During the past 50 years informatics (computer science, ICT) has grown from an activity conducted by a few individuals in the research community, to something that affects virtually every aspect of society. New and existing markets push the technology forwards, and the public sector is constantly asking for new solutions. Today, informatics is a science with a vast political, economic, social and cultural impact on the development of society. The computerized society has arrived

Numbers and new building

The Department of Informatics at the University of Oslo (UiO) has approximately 250 employees and 1500 students and is the largest ICT unit for research and higher education in Norway. The Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) ranks ICT research at UiO as no. 1 in the Nordic region, no. 6 in Europe and no. 48 worldwide.

As of 2011, the Department of Informatics will be located in a new Computer Science building at UiO. This building with its laboratories and education facilities is the largest ICT investment in Norway ever. The building and its surroundings represent a new university campus within short walking distance of the rest of the University and the Oslo University Hospital.

All masters’ programs at the Department of Informatics are international, and approximately 50% of the PhD-students (total number approximately 220) are from outside of Norway. The Department has more than 60 partners in industry and the public sector, and research is conducted in cooperation with numerous research groups around the world.

Research activities

The Department of Informatics has research groups covering the most important fields of core computer science. Moreover, it is involved in important interdisciplinary projects combining natural sciences, computational mathematics, social sciences and the humanities.

Advanced services and infrastructures. Although Internet applications and various types of mobile terminals have been a part of our daily life for quite some time, we foresee an enormous growth in the use of ICT solutions in the next 10-20 years. New advanced services built on global infrastructures (Internet) will create new industry, change existing industry and provide new and more efficient solutions in the public sector. ICT research and education at UiO has a strong focus on new ICT solutions in the computerized society.

Information access technology covers language technology, data mining, automatic reasoning, systems support for multi-media data streaming, real-time data communication, and computer graphics.

Information infrastructures and mobile services cover complexity analysis of large information systems, understanding of socio-technologic issues within and across organization, design of digital environments, and human-computer interaction.

Programming and networks covers quality assurance of distributed software, software engineering, new programming methodologies, “internet of things”, self-adaptive networks, distributed data processing and management, and new parallel computing algorithms.

Nanoelectronics and robotics cover topics such as wireless communication, signal processing, low-energy electronics (green ICT) and intelligent systems both in hardware and software.

ICT in medicine and health. The Department of Informatics is involved in many projects addressing important challenges in medicine and health.

The development of health information systems and ICT support for collaboration in the health sector are major research topics at the Department of Informatics. Researchers in the Department are studying socio-technological issues in the health sector, and during recent years we have created strong interdisciplinary activities combining competence within ICT, sociology, pedagogy and health. This is supported by strong competence in complexity analysis, building of information infrastructures, development of mobile services, human-computer interaction, and design of digital environments.  Moreover, we believe that our competence in building and utilizing open source software is important to cover future needs in the health sector. In particular we are involved in projects aimed at challenges created by an ageing population.

ICT in medical research has grown to become a huge area at UiO and we collaborate closely with excellent groups conducting brain and cancer research at the Oslo University hospital. The main areas of research are development of statistical methods and software for studying biomedical data, and the development of image-based methods for cancer diagnostics.

Medical equipment and intervention is a growing area where we work on issues such as robustness of intervention software, image fusion, nanoelectronics for implants and robotics for surgery. We are also involved in the development of user interfaces for advanced medical equipment.

Green ICT. ICT equipment consumes more and more electricity, hence the ICT area has become an important “player” in the struggle to find globally sustainable energy solutions. Under the umbrella “green ICT” we are involved in projects working on the development of computing methods and software for the creation of smartness in energy grids, the development of smart environmental technology including low-effect electronics, and the development of green data centers for high performance computing and processing and storage of huge data sets.

ICT for development. The Health Information Systems Programme (HISP) is a global network headed and initiated at the Department of Informatics, University of Oslo since 1994. The program is responsible for the development of the open source based District Health Information Software (DHIS) implemented in 16 African countries, India, Bangladesh, and Vietnam. The DHIS provides information used to track progress for improving health system components in developing countries and for monitoring the Millenium Development Goals.  Mobile applications are part of the DHIS software suite and implemented in pilot projects in Tanzania and Nigeria and in full scale in the Punjab province (India). HISP is of course an important part of the ICT and health research activity at the Department of Informatics (cf. above).

Computer science for science. ICT solutions exist everywhere in society, and during the past 20 years ICT has increasingly become a central element in most scientific disciplines. In fact, a vast majority of research activities within medicine and the natural sciences depend heavily on ICT solutions, e.g. for high performance computing and handling of huge data sets.

In coming years, the Department of Informatics will focus particularly on ICT within the life sciences, where we are seeing an enormous growth in the data volumes and an increasing need for computing algorithms for solving the challenges that emerge. For this reason, we have started a new program at the University of Oslo – the Computational Life Science initiative (CLSi), where the main goal is to launch new interdisciplinary research activities and provide the life sciences with state-of-the-art solutions from the realm of informatics.

ICT, art and culture. During recent years we have seen an increasing interest in combining ICT with art and culture. We are involved in research projects investigating different uses of ICT solutions in learning environments (schools, museums, etc.) supporting cultural heritage in Norway, across Europe and around the world.  In addition, we have growing research activities with musicians and the Department of Musicology at UiO.

Education programs

The Department of Informatics at UiO launched five new education programs in 2010. Each program is divided into a three-year bachelor program followed by a two-year international master program.

The Informatics; programming and networks program covers the core of computer science and provides a thorough education in programming, software languages, logic, systems modeling, software engineering, and distributed systems utilizing concurrent processes inside computers to world-wide systems like the Internet.

The Informatics; design, use and interaction program provides multi-disciplinary skills essential for understanding the role of ICT in society and how ICT solutions can be used to solve important tasks. The program includes training in systems development in use contexts, the understanding of large and complex information systems, ICT management, interaction design and digital media production.

The Informatics; language and communication program provides the opportunity to study how computers handle and model human communication through language. The students learn how computers are able to translate human languages and how search engines in particular and software systems in general are based on language technology.

The Informatics; nanoelectronics and robotics program provides necessary knowledge and skills for building nanoelectronics systems and intelligent robots. The education involves signal processing and software development, and students will be involved in space technology and the development of medical equipment.

The Informatics; science (of nature) and medicine program combines in-depth knowledge of programming with a solid foundation in mathematics combined with domain knowledge in medicine and science of nature. The students can specialize in computational mathematics, image processing and biomedical computing.

A pdf-versjon of this text you find here and here.

«The rapid economic development of Asia since World War II — starting with Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, then extending to Hong Kong and Singapore, and finally taking hold powerfully in India and mainland China — has forever altered the global balance of power. These countries recognize the importance of an educated work force to economic growth, and they understand that investing in research makes their economies more innovative and competitive.»

This was written by Richard S Levin, the President of Yale University in an article in «Foreign Affairs» a couple of months ago. He continues:

«Today, China and India have an even more ambitious agenda. Both seek to expand their higher-education systems, and since the late 1990s, China has done so dramatically. They are also aspiring to create a limited number of world-class universities.

………..

They are making progress by investing in research, reforming traditional approaches to curricula and pedagogy, and beginning to attract outstanding faculty from abroad. Many challenges remain, but it is more likely than not that by midcentury the top Asian universities will stand among the best universities in the world.»

Levin has a fairly good analysis, however, it seem that he does not like how things develop. Levin is  also sending the message that, in order to maintain position as the worlds leading country throughout this century, the US government has to invest more in research and higher education!