Study Guide

Learning outcomes

The student is able to
- describe differences between virtual world and physical world
- identify business opportunities in the internet and networks
- apply an understanding of the internet society to build new markets
- combine business and information technology knowledge
- utilize opportunities of digitalization for business

Teaching methods

The course consists of 8 chapters.
Each chapter contains a quiz (except chapter 8). To achieve grade one, you do the quizzes.
To achieve grade two, students also need to be active on the discussion forums.
To achieve grade three, there is a specific task, which you also need to do. To achieve grade four or five, students will also need to return an essay. The essay should be written in English. The essays will be also peer reviewed.

Location and time

This course will start on 15.1.2025 and will end 31.5.2025 .Note if you do assignment for grade 4 to 5, you need to submit that 15 days earlier to allow time for peer reviews,

To access the course go to canvas.laurea.fi. If you are a student from some other university of applied sciences, you should have received directions on how to log in, (you can also access through Haka-authentication). If you have problems with access, please also contact the teacher.

The course is a hop on hop off course. In the beginning all registered are encouraged and prompted to visit the online learning platform. The teacher might be sending emails to students, whom he has not yet seen on the platform. After this the students can study at their own pace. Towards the end, the teacher will encourage students to get everything done in time.

Note that you can get your grade, when you are ready. When you want to be graded, please do the hop off assignment. This will indicate to the teacher, that you want to be graded. The teacher will visit the platform weekly/biweekly and among other things give grades to those who requested to be graded.



The Digitalisation of Finnish universities as seen on a practical level through this course:

the course has been available through campusonline.fi and its predecessors. In 2024 "ristiinopiskelu" feature (cross studying) became available. It means that you can find access to this course also from inside your local course offering system (pakki). However, I still feel that there is a need for a simple portal like campusonline.fi which shows all of the offering. My recommendation is use campusonline.fi to find the course and then see if you can also register to it through your local course offering system.

In the summer of 2024 course participation can be purchased also through a webshop.

Laurea has adopted Haka authentication for visiting students. It was in a piloting phase during spring 2022. It should now be fully operational. This means the student can use through Haka authentication the same username and password as at his or her home institution. Note, however, that if you are a first time visitor to Laurea you need to register your account (this will be clearly visible as an option on the canvas.laurea.fi site)

Learning materials and recommended literature

All material will be on the online platform. At the end in each chapter you should also find a list of literature.

If you want a sneak peek into the course go to the home page villesaarikoski.com.

Alternative completion methods of implementation

This is a MOOC type course. The course has been created to be rather scalable and alternative ways of doing the course also need to be highly scalable. For this reason there are presently no alternative ways.

Co-operation with working life and/or RDI

Digital transformation is taking place in the community at large and at the work place in general.

Some companies may feel threatened by change others embrace it. This course works with no company in particular, but welcomes feedback from practice.

Important dates

The registration period to the course is extended so that you can register up to 1 1/2 months before the end of the course.

See time and place for dates when the course starts and ends.

Forms of internationality

The course instructor is seeking for opportunities to teach the course either online or in a classroom setting in campuses around the world.

The course has been taught in a classroom setting for example in New Delhi India at IILM in November 2017 (https://www.iilm.edu/) at the WSG University of Economy in Poland in 2012-2015 (http://www.cwz.wsg.byd.pl/en/homepage.1.html). Special implementations of the course have also been purchased by other universities of applied sciences.

Note that with an online course a teacher can "drop in anywhere in the world to teach". without leaving his home office.

Students workload

The course has been designed to be time and place independent.

Within the start and end times, the student can choose when to start and when to finish and when to study. Please make a plan to ensure that you allocate enough time for your studies.

1 credit is 27 hours of study. This is a five credit course. Plan to use time and you will get more out of the course.

Content and scheduling

I have uploaded the content of the course on to my web page villesaarikoski.com. Note that the actual course will be conducted on the online learning platform canvas and will contain additional elements (quizzes, places to return your assignments etc)

Grading scale

Approved/Failed