In 1999, there were 1982 undergraduate students majoring in computer science and 70 post-graduate students. In the same year, 258 new students and 40 students upgrading their studies were enrolled at the Department. A total of 42 students were enrolled based on their earlier studies. These are students who wished to change their major subject to computer science or students who have been studying computer science at another university or at a vocational school. The Department has about one thousand students who take computer science as a minor subject.
| Enrolment (number of students) | 1995 | 1996 | 1997 | 1998 | 1999 |
| Admission limit | 260 | 260 | 260 | 270 | 270 |
| New students enrolled | 424 | 288 | 265 | 279 | 258 |
| Students enrolled on earlier studies | 26 | 20 | 22 | 55 | 42 |
| Upgrading students enrolled | -- | -- | -- | -- | 40 |
| Total number of students enrolled | 1576 | 1613 | 1688 | 1793 | 1982 |
| Percentage of female students | 26 | 24 | 22 | 21 | 22 |
In 1999, 55 students completed their MSc degree in computer science. The number of MSc degrees has been fairly constant during recent years. During 1995-99, students completed their theses and graduated according to the following table.
| Degrees and theses (number of) | 1995 | 1996 | 1997 | 1998 | 1999 |
| Master's Theses | 49 | 63 | 67 | 53 | 63 |
| MSc degrees | 44 | 51 | 62 | 48 | 55 |
It may be worth noticing that about 10% of the students finishing their computer science studies (Master Thesis) do not take the Master's degree.
| Teaching | 1995 | 1996 | 1997 | 1998 | 1999 |
| Credits (credit units) | 15 037 | 17 178 | 17 494 | 17 863 | 21 345 |
| Given instruction (hours) | 13 860 | 14 673 | 14 480 | 13 739 | 16 529 |
| Teachers (manpower years) | 51 | 49 | 46 | 43 | 47 |
| Credit units/teacher years | 295 | 350 | 380 | 415 | 401 |
| Students/teacher years | 31 | 33 | 37 | 42 | 43 |
The correspondence between credit units and the European Credit Transfer System has been somewhat vague, typically a factor of 1.5 has been used. The University of Helsinki has now decided that starting from 1.7.2000 as a rule the rate 1 cu = 2 ECTS will be used.
The Evaluation of education for the information industry (1999) was organised by the Finnish Higher Education Evaluation Council, and it was performed as a self-assessment exercise. All in all, 15 universities and polytechnics with IT programmes took part in the assessment. The report was published in March 2000 including recommendations for the universities (Hara, Hyvönen, Myers, Kangasniemi: Evaluation of Education for the Information Industry. Publications of Finnish Higher Education Evaluation Council 8:2000). Some good practices were highly evaluated, like cooperation between universities, a programme designed to attract female students, academic freedom and focusing on some specialisation areas of research. The report also expressed concern about classes with too many students, and recommended the Department to improve the collecting of feedback from students. The Department was also recommended to initiate more activity related to industry and internationalisation.
The curriculum was redesigned to remove overlaps in course contents and to remove bottlenecks increasing graduation time. Within the Computer Science subprogramme, two new specialisation areas were introduced. The former General specialisation area was split into Algorithms and Intelligent Systems, and the Software specialisation area was split into Software Engineering and Distributed Systems and Data Communication. Many courses in computer science were divided into smaller parts and the minimum requirements of mathematics (in Computer Science) were decreased from 26 to 15 credit units.
Especially with the first year students in mind two new types of courses were designed. In the first one the students are given the basic skills in working with computers. The goal of the second one is to give a broad view about computer science, with a special emphasis on the research work going on in the Department.
Two new activities were started in the autumn of 1999. In the area of science education, the Department commenced collaboration with upper secondary schools, and in order to decrease the shortage of IT staff in the industry, a new system of ``upgrading studies'' was started.
The Department pays attention to the quality level of teaching. In all courses the teaching assistants are supervised through an intensive and continuous interaction with the lecturer. For new teaching assistants there is an introductory seminar about university education, and further seminars are organised for all staff, typically once per semester.
In order to help the students to organise their studies in a more functional way the Department made teacher-based tutoring mandatory in 1996. The system also turned out to be an efficient way to get feedback from the students. The mandatory teacher-based tutoring was extended to cover the students of the ``upgrading studies''.
The Department cooperates with national and international institutions in both education and research.
The system of flexible study opportunities is based on a cooperation agreement (JOO) among the institutions of higher education in the Helsinki area, Turku and Jyväskylä. Students may put together a degree that best suits them by taking courses in one of the participating universities in subjects not available at their own university. Some restrictions have, however, been made due to a lack of resources.
Thesis work is performed to a large extent outside the Department in industries or commercial undertakings, or on request from outside. About 50% of the Master's Theses and of the software engineering projects were performed outside the Department in 1999.
Starting in 1999, the Department cooperates with six upper secondary schools in the Helsinki area. In all, 25 upper secondary school pupils were accepted to study some computer science courses (with screening based on a special entrance exam). They may substitute school courses with courses in computer science at the Department. If the students later decide to continue their studies at the Department, computer science courses completed at the Department during school time will become part of their degree.
The Department participates in the EC Socrates/Erasmus exchange student programme as well as the Nordic NORDplus programme. Seven foreign exchange students studied at the Department, while eleven students from the Department studied abroad in 1999.
The instruction at the Department is mostly in Finnish. However the course Introduction to the Use of Computers was given in Swedish and English, as well. Also a few seminars and course exercises were given in English.
The Department (UH) is involved in two graduate schools, the Helsinki Graduate School in Computer Science and Engineering (HeCSE) and the Graduate School in Computational Biology, Bioinformatics, and Biometry (ComBi). Students also pursue postgraduate studies outside the schools. The following table shows some statistics for year 1999.
| Postgraduate students (number of) | HeCSE | ComBi | Other | Total |
| Funded assistantships | 12 | 3 | 11 | 26 |
| Postgraduate students enrolled | 30 | 5 | 35 | 70 |
| Graduated students since 1995 | 7 | 0 | 1 | 7 |
| Manpower years (of funded students) | 7.3 | 2.1 | 27.7 | 37.1 |
It is to be noted that the ComBi graduate school was founded only in 1998 and no student has yet (by 1999) graduated. The HeCSE graduate school was founded in 1995. Out of the students in the category Other, some work at the Department as teaching or research assistants, or in research projects with external funding, but many also work in companies outside the university. The listed manpower years concern students working at the Department.
During the years 1995-1999, post-graduate students completed their thesis as shown in the following table.
| Postgraduate degrees (number of) | 1995 | 1996 | 1997 | 1998 | 1999 |
| PhLic degrees | 2 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 2 |
| PhD degrees | 1 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 3 |
The Helsinki Graduate School in Computer Science and Engineering (HeCSE, http://www.cs.Helsinki.FI/hecse/) is a postgraduate programme in computer science and computer engineering jointly offered by the Helsinki University of Technology and the University of Helsinki. The main areas of HeCSE are:
The Finnish graduate schools in computer science (Helsinki, Jyväskylä, Turku, Tampere and Eastern Finland) cooperate. Joint courses are arranged and students of one graduate school can participate in the courses arranged by another graduate school. Also participation in some courses arranged by the industry sector is possible.
The Graduate School in Computational Biology, Bioinformatics, and Biometry (ComBi) is a postgraduate programme jointly offered by the University of Helsinki, the Universities of Tampere and Turku, and the Rolf Nevanlinna Institute.
The research goal of ComBi is to develop computational, mathematical, and statistical methods and models for research in biology. To that end, ComBi will educate PhD's with high-quality methodological expertise. In their thesis work the students are expected to apply this expertise to computational, data analysis, or modelling problems in biology or in some related field. The thesis projects are carried out in close cooperation with one or more research groups in the application area.
Computational biology is a new field of research which develops models and software implementations for computational problems in molecular biology, biotechnology, and genetics. Such means are needed both in the basic research and in the industrial applications of biotechnology. Computer-aided DNA sequencing, sequence comparison, prediction of protein structures, docking of molecules, and the interpretation of electron microscopy or NMR data are examples of typical computationally intensive tasks. Bioinformatics refers to the development and use of (molecular) biology databases.
Biometry investigates statistical modeling problems related for example to genetic mapping (linkage analysis), to the genetic and environmental risk factors of complex diseases, or to the spreading of infectious diseases. Further topics include population dynamics and numerical taxonomy with applications to ecology, microbiology, and genetics. Management of spatial data (GIS) is also often needed.
The school is coordinated by the Department. Professor Esko Ukkonen is the Director of ComBi.
A new temporary programme for upgrading studies in computer science started in the autumn of 1999. It aims at teaching IT knowledge to persons with a degree in another subject, to persons who have no degree but a certain amount of computer science studies from before, or to students who want to change their major subject into computer science. In all, 40 participants were admitted in 1999 based on a separate selection process. The programme continues in the year 2000 when more students are admitted.
The students are divided into tutor groups. Each group has a teacher or supervisor who guides the students to set up individual study plans. The students usually start their studies with second year courses according to the model study schedule. There is also a basic course aiming at refreshing basic knowledge in programming and software implementation in a modern environment that the students should attend.