Agora Center

The Agora Center is a separate institute at the University of Jyväskylä in Central Finland. By its nature, the Agora Center is interdisciplinary and networked. Its purpose is to conduct, coordinate, and administrate top-level research and development that relates to the knowledge society and which places emphasis on the human perspective. The research and development is conducted in the form of fixed-period projects in cooperation with the University of Jyväskylä’s other faculty and separate institutes, businesses, the public sector and other relevant parties. The Agora Center also promotes researcher training through its various research projects. One of the core missions of the Agora Center is to effectively combine research and development with education. The project staff includes a high number of students and post-graduate students.

The Research in the Agora Center is mainly based on Human Technology. Human Technology refers to the human-centred approach to technological systems and methods that takes into account human needs and requirements as well as its implications for humans.

The Agora Center’s administration model follows the requirements of being a separateinstitute of the University of Jyväskylä and the needs for networking. The directors ofthe Agora Center are professors from different departments who work in this position inaddition to their departmental commitments and activities. The Agora Center has an interdisciplinary Managing Board, on which all of the faculties of the University of Jyväskylä are represented. The Agora Center also has an international Advisory Board.

History

In order to enable growth of Human Tech research, the facilities of the Agora HumanTechnology Center were built in 2000. The University simultaneously created theFaculty of Information Technology, combining the Department of Computer Scienceand Information Systems, the Department of Mathematical Information Technologyand the Information Technology Research Institute. The faculty plays the main role intechnological research within the Agora concept.

The other essential side of the Agora concept is constituted by the human and socialsciences. From the beginning it was evident that to study human technology, aninterdisciplinary approach was needed. The networked activity started in the form ofthe Psykocenter in 2000. In the initial period of the Center’s history, the network wasassociated with the Centre of Excellence in Psychology in order to coordinate the human-centred research related to the knowledge society.

However, it soon became clear that for the intended interdisciplinary research to function,the research operations needed an independent entity with its own, in other wordsautonomous, administration. Thus, in 2002, the University of Jyväskylä establishedthe Agora Center as a separate institute that also included the Psykocenter. The AgoraCenter’s first operating period was from 1.2.2002 to 31.7.2005. Nonetheless, in April 2004, the lifespan of Agora Center was extended to the year 2009.

In order to support the functioning and networking of the Agora Center’s interdisciplinary research environments, the Agora Center takes various forms of action. For example, it promotes researcher training and university education, supports researchers in managing interdisciplinary projects, holds open events and forums for multiple disciplines and sectors of society, surveys and promotes the wellbeing of its personnel and conducts Public Relations exercises.

Laboratories

The research and development activities in the Agora Center are carried out in interdisciplinary environments called laboratories. Each of them concentrates on a specific research area. The laboratories offer the environment for versatile research projects.

Mind Tech Laboratory

The Agora Mind Tech Laboratory develops and applies technology for the study ofthe human mind. Its objectives and strengths are to be found in the way it combinesscientific and technological expertise in the fields of psychophysiological measurementand mathematical information technologies. The three major themes of the laboratoryare learning, the evaluation of skills, and the neurological basis of perception. Centralapplications for this research are the treatment of dyslexia and the intensive training oflanguage skills.The laboratory utilizes fields such as psychology, information technology, statistics, and
cognitive neuroscience. All research projects involve several international researchersand extensive cooperative networks.

Learning Laboratory

The Agora Learning Laboratory’s (ALL) multidisciplinary research center explores theuse of virtual learning environments, knowledge in designing powerful new learningenvironments, pedagogical innovations, evaluation methods for e-learning purposes, and
knowledge management. ALL works collaboratively with the Institute for EducationalResearch.The contexts of the ALL research projects transcend curricula areas, levels of education,and work organizations, with the primary aim of developing e-learning models.Collaboration between the basic research conducted at the University of Jyväskylä andits practical application in educational and business organizations is highly valued.This integration of high-level scientific knowledge, pedagogical expertise, and productdevelopment know-how facilitates the rapid transfer of knowledge into meeting theneeds of societies.

Game Laboratory

The multidisciplinary Agora Game Laboratory (AGL) focuses on the design, development,and research of digital games. The AGL offers an open forum for students, researchers,and others who are interested in games and gaming. Its multidisciplinary expertisecovers such areas as educational sciences, computer science, mathematical informationtechnology, and psychology.The research unit designs and studies both serious and entertainment games. Its strengthslie in the game-like learning environments and user-centred game design in whichfuture users (e.g. children, young people, adults, elderly) actively participate in the designprocess. The laboratory also serves as a network for other actors in the field, and thusforms a link between the University, other game research networks, and businesses.

Industrial IT – tutkimus

The Agora Industrial IT Group organizes innovative interdisciplinary research anddevelopment in the area of information and communication technologies. It aimsto advance the technological know-how of networked global industries.As the focus of global markets move more from products to services, businessesand industries require new, human-centred solutions based in informationtechnology. The goal is to develop innovations that arise from international researchcooperation, and to transfer new technology into the business world.The strengths of the group are scientific computation and optimisation, and, byextension, solutions to support production and logistics in businesses’ productdesign. In addition to the technological applications, the projects emphasizedeveloping the human resources and business competitiveness and attend to therole of the person as the user of technology. The group collaborates closely withpublic sector organizations.

User Psychology Laboratory

The Agora User Psychology Laboratory investigates the behavior of the user withtechnologies and services in various types of interactive situations. The models ofuser behavior are significantly valuable in, for example, for device and softwaredesign, in education and training, and in industrial R&D processes.Basic research, as well as usability analyses of companies’ products and services,is conducted in the laboratory. Applications can be found in wide areas of humanactivity. Examples of research topics include mobile services, e-learning, agenttechnologies, ubiquitous computing, vehicle–driver interaction, surgery simulation,emotional computing and mobile social networks.At the core of the research in the laboratory is a holistic view of the user. Subsequently,the research must be multidisciplinary. The laboratory’s researchers come from thefields of cognitive science, information systems, education, psychology, and artresearch.

Virtual Environment Center

The Agora Virtual Environment Center (AVEC) conducts research in the fields of computergraphics and virtual reality. It also offers visualisation and graphics programming servicesto various departments within the University of Jyväskylä and to companies. AVEC alsoarranges seminars and lecture courses.The foci of AVEC are virtual reality applications, interactions in virtual environments,and programming architectures for virtual reality applications. When selecting andimplementing research topics, AVEC’s management emphasizes issues that havetechnical, financial, and/or scientific significance. The topics also develop the use ofvirtual reality visualisation in both research and industry.Virtual reality visualisation can be used to improve understanding of complex structuresand phenomena. For example, a virtual prototype can reduce the amount of time anindustry invests in the product development cycle, and a simulated model of a product canbe built and tested in a virtual environment. Virtual reality simulations can significantlyimprove a product’s quality and functionality.

Innoroad Laboratory

The Agora Innoroad Laboratory serves as a forum for international cooperation andregional collaboration in multidisciplinary research on road traffic and other driver andtransportation-related issues.The Lab’s key strengths include the modeling, optimisation, and application of ICTtools in traffic and transportation, as well as research in predicting human error. Amongthe projects ongoing in the lab is research funded by the Research Council of Norwayon optimising newspaper delivery and waste collection, and the development of newoptimization tools for communal logistic applications, funded by the KAKS foundation.A driving simulator is used to study people’s driving skills and what they do undervarious circumstances. This device also provides training and evaluation for professionalsfor whom driving is an essential element, such as the drivers of emergency vehicles. Thesimulator also provides opportunities to evaluate the driving skills of, for instance, oldand young drivers, and to develop innovations and new products that enhance driving,traffic, and transportation systems.

ervice Sciences Laboratory

Services science is an interdisciplinary field that seeks to bring together knowledgefrom diverse areas to improve the service operations, performance, and innovationwithin industry and the public sector. In essence, it represents a melding of technologywith an understanding of human behaviour and thinking, as well as business processesand organization. With methods such as scientific computing, overall IT-expertiseand knowledge on human behaviour, the Agora Service Sciences Laboratory aims atcreating new service solutions that can range, for instance, from new applications, betterunderstanding of the research subject or new improved operations models to enhancedlogistical structures.Much of the research done in the Service Sciences Laboratory has been related topromoting health care and wellbeing of people through an interdisciplinary andmultipartner approach. The experts at the Agora Center have collaborated tightly acrossdisciplines with each other, the end-users and other partners to create new innovativesolutions to enhance the operations of social and health care services. For example, in theconducted NOVA-project the operations of an emergency duty clinic of Central FinlandHealth Care District have been enhanced through ICT-based simulations targeting thebasic and special health care processes and structure, health care economics and qualityof the activities. The successfully met aim was to speed up the patient’s treatment processfrom the diagnosing phase to the ward.

Online Journal Human Technology

The international journal [http://www.humantechnology.jyu.fi/ Human Technology: An Interdisciplinary Journal on Humans in ICT Environments] is an open-access, on-line, scholarly journal that explores currenttopics regarding the interaction between people and technology.Innovative, peer-reviewed articles in Human Technology address the issues and challenges surrounding the role of humans in all areas ofour ICT-infused societies. It draws its authors, referees, editors, and readers from boththe scientific and business communities around the world.

International Acknowledge 2005–2007

*Internationally Awarded Breakthroughs in Research:
** [http://www.srcd.org/| Society for Research in Child Development] , and International Society for the Study of Behavioural Development, awarded professor Lea Pulkkinen
**Philips Nordic Prize, awarded professor Heikki Lyytinen
**Czech Academy Bernard Bolzano Honorary Medal, awarded Pekka Neittaanmäki
*Several Internationally Funded Projects, [http://ec.europa.eu/research/fp6/mariecurie-actions/indexhtm_en.html| EU:n Marie Curie Excellence Team] among others.
*International Open Access Online Journal Human Technology [http://www.humantechnology.jyu.fi/| Human Technology]
* The Centre of Excellence, Learning and Motivation, appointed by the Academy of Finland
*Center for Scientific Computing and Optimization in Multidisciplinary Applications [http://www.mit.jyu.fi/scoma/index.php| SCOMA]
*Two [http://www.fidipro.fi/| FiDiPro-professorships]
*The Commission and Funding from the [http://www.nordicinnovation.net/index.cfm?id=1-0-0| Nordic Innovation Centre] to coordinate the Nordic Serious Games Development and Research Work.

ee also

University of Jyväskylä

External links

* [https://www.jyu.fi/erillis/agoracenter/en Agora Center]
* [http://www.humantechnology.jyu.fi/ Journal of Human Technology]