Administration
In 2006, there were many personnel changes in the steering committee at the department: our long-time department secretary Kati Suontaa retired in May, and department secretary Sirkka Palander left for a one-year leave of absence. As her substitute, we employed Pirjo Kukkonen, Bachelor of Social Sciences, who is responsible for the clerical services of the department and the secretarial duties on the steering committee. When research secretary Tiina Väisänen left for maternity leave at the end of 2006, Katja Niemelä, Master of Science in Economic and Business Administration, was employed as her substitute.
In 2006, the launching of the new salary system unquestionably required the largest effort in administrative services. In the new system, salaries are based on how demanding the duties of a post are and on the individual work effort. Each of the 20 immediate superiors along with their teams at the department were responsible for entering the evaluations into the UPJWeb system. After being approved by the head of the department they were forwarded to the university's evaluation team for inspection. The staff that receives wages from the budgeted means was transferred to the new salary system from the beginning of 2006, and the first new salaries were paid in arrears in October 2006. Staff on complementary funding were transferred on 1 January 2007.
Another important change in the processing of staff administration was implemented in October 2006, when the recording of staff affairs was transferred from the department to the campus service centre. However, this had no bearing on decision-making in staff affairs, which will remain the same as before. The faculty council of the Faculty of Science delegated some of its authority to the department as early as 2005, so that the steering committee or the head of the department can make the final decision on some appointments for the department, within the confines of the administrative ordinance of the university.
The staff of the department gathered in Kallvik, Vuosaari for their traditional strategy event in January 2006 to improve operations at the department, and in May for an outing with curling on the agenda. The monthly informal department meetings invited lively discussions among the staff, as usual.
Compared to last year, the staff of the department decreased with 1.6 person years.
In addition to staff administration, the centralized administration services at the department offered financial administration in matters of department finances and financial counselling, as well as assisting the department management with financial planning and reporting.
The research administration, for its part, serviced department projects on additional funding with financial planning and reporting as well as funding applications . In 2006, there were 58 active projects at the department. Numerically, there are most projects funded by the Academy of Finland (36 %) and Tekes (22 %) at the department. In euros, both the Academy of Finland and Tekes represent over 1 MEUR of the additional funding to the department. The importance of additional funding in the department's total budget is significant.
The Department of Computer Science has continued to offer its staff language-consultation and translation services, which have been widely utilized by the staff. In 2006, the language services also offered its expertise outside the department, when the IT Department bought the Swedish and English translations of its ICT Driving Licence from the department. The clerical services for students and administration of teaching continue under the auspices of the Head of Studies.
The main effort of the PR services were arranging various department events and a large number of press releases.
At the end of 2006, a total of 8 persons were employed in the administration unit.