Cari Colleghi,

Allego la call relativa a due borse di dottorato di ricerca ad University College Cork (Irlanda) in ambito HCI e CSCW.

Saluti,

Lui

===

Applications are open for fully funded PhDs (duration: 4 years) under ADVANCE CRT. ADVANCE CRT is a Science Foundation Ireland Centre for Research Training focused on Future Networks and the Internet of Things with applications in sustainable and independent living.

Through co-supervision between the Schools of Computer Science & IT (Dr Klaas-Jan Stol, Prof Dirk Pesch) and Applied Psychology (Prof Luigina Ciolfi) at University College Cork, excellent applicants are sought for two proposed doctoral research projects with HCI/CSCW orientation as part of the 2022-2023 ADVANCE CRT recruitment round:

Project 1: Understanding Digitally-Mediated Hybrid Work Practices of IT Professionals (DigiHyPe)
Supervisors: Dr Klaas-Jan Stol (School of Computer Science & IT) (Lead Supervisor); Prof Luigina Ciolfi (School of Applied Psychology) (Second Supervisor).

This project aims to examine the digitally-mediated experiences and practices of IT professionals tackling the “new normal” of hybrid work in IT organisations, particularly in relation to collaborative projects and teamwork. The Covid-19 pandemic has shifted working patterns in the high-tech sector in significant and unprecedented ways: initially through fast pivoting to working from home, and more recently through novel attempts to develop “hybrid” work policies, with employees negotiating and adopting new spatial, temporal, and organisational patterns of work and with new practices emerging within teams and organisations. Collaboration and cooperation among colleagues are likely to emerge in novel ways, due to the novel configuration of knowledge and resources, mutual awareness, availability patterns, communication and coordination mechanisms, and of the digital tools being used for all of this.

While there is considerable research on forms of flexible work such as ‘remote working’, we are now entering an age of hybrid work at scale. Furthermore, hybrid work is emerging in all its complexity not only in terms of locations, but also of scheduling, communication patterns, team building, etc. Thus, there is an urgent need to investigate “modern” remote working, characterized by large-scale, dynamic, and highly tailored configurations of how IT professionals collaborate. To that end, this project has the following primary research goals:

To identify new and emerging practices of collaborative digitally-mediated hybrid work in the high- tech/software sector, and their impact on both professionals and organisations.
To understand how digital tools and services are used as part of these practices to support collaboration, coordination and cooperation.
To identify the requirements, opportunities, and challenges of future technologies that can improve support for collaborative hybrid work and the individuals and teams that perform it.
To develop a novel ‘framework of collaboration in hybrid work’ that synthesises findings from detailed analyses of the field studies, which provides guidance to organisations that seek to improve their collaboration mechanisms, and to provide a theoretical foundation for future research and development.

It is envisaged that the research will comprise a series of field studies at organisations, using a mixed- methods approach. Potential research methods include case study, ethnography, and the Delphi method.

This project will build on, extend, and challenge prior knowledge on digitally-mediated flexible work and on collaboration and cooperation in the IT sector, particularly within software development teams. There is an established body of work across Software Engineering/Information Systems and HCI/CSCW that has built an in-depth understanding of these issues via field-based methods, and which also provides a set of concepts and frameworks to be applied to the study of flexible forms of work and to the design of software to support it. This project will contribute to this established corpus of empirical research by critiquing and expanding existing concepts, tools, and frameworks detailing the practices of collaboration and cooperation in flexible work situations in the IT sector. As the world around us is changing, the current historical juncture in time offers an exciting and unique opportunity to contribute in significant ways and to have a direct impact on organisational practice in the IT sector, and more broadly on the ongoing opportunities to shape the future of work and the digital tools that will be used going forward.

Full description of the project can be found in the ADVANCE CRT 2022-2023 Project Booklet, under Dr Stol’s list of potential projects.

Project 2: InterArct
Supervisors: Prof Dirk Pesch (School of Computer Science & IT) (Lead Supervisor); Prof Luigina Ciolfi (School of Applied Psychology) (Second Supervisor).

The InterArct project focuses on novel approaches to human computer interaction with art and performance installations in museums and galleries. In order to interact with art installations, many formats are possible, ranging from local, physical to remote interaction. At the same time, the interaction with art should also be accessible to people’s different abilities. The Covid pandemic has led to the closure or limited access to museums and with the potential of future pandemics, remote interaction and/or virtual interaction with exhibits could address some of this in the future as well. Furthermore, contemporary artists are increasingly incorporating digital interactive elements into their practice, and look at available new technologies for inspiration and exploration.

In the InterArct project, we plan to develop an inclusive, accessible and flexible approach to interaction with contemporary art exhibits. We envisage leveraging gesture and facial recognition through a range of technologies (depending on researcher skills) such as radio signal based, image recognition based, wearable sensor based or other approaches. The project will build on prior work done by the two supervisors on radio signal based event and activity detection and programmable and reactive interaction with museum exhibits. The project will seek suitable contemporary art venues and practitioners and future contemporary art installations to demonstrate the capabilities of the developed technologies. The project aims to collaborate with the Glucksman Art Gallery on the University College Cork campus as an exhibition and experimentation space.

The project will have strong societal impact as it has the potential to make interaction with contemporary art much more accessible. The work, while focused in this project on art, can also have a wide range of other applications in interaction with everyday objects in homes, businesses, supporting people with disabilities for example.

Full description of the project can be found in the ADVANCE CRT 2022-2023 Project Booklet, under Prof Pesch’s list of potential projects.

For information on ADAVANCE CRT funding support, the application process, eligibility criteria, and full list of potential projects, see: https://www.advance-crt.ie/apply/

The deadline for applications is the 1st of April 2022

—

Prof Luigina Ciolfi (she/her)
Professor of Human Computer Interaction
School of Applied Psychology, University College Cork, Ireland
Tel +353 (0)21 490 4597
My UCC Research Profile

Member, British Psychological Society; Senior Member & Distinguished Speaker, ACM; Steering Committee Member, EUSSET | Associate Editor, The CSCW Journal | Personal Website

My working day may not be your working day. Please don’t feel obliged to reply to this e-mail outside of your normal working hours