Theses

Background

Ideation meetings have the purpose to leverage the creative potential of teams by developing new and useful solutions to predefined challenges. In this project, we want to develop concrete design principles for AI aided live-feedback for virtual ideation meetings as well as learn about team dynamics in virtual teams with AI feedback more broadly. With increasing functional capabilities, automated facilitation can become more intuitively integrated into collaborative work practices and should also foster robust and effective collaboration processes even for less experienced facilitators and teams. When it comes to creative collaboration, the question arises how intelligent user interfaces (IUIs) and meeting assistance can be utilized for facilitating team collaboration in different phases of these specific processes. Virtual meetings suggest themselves for the usage of AI to support human facilitators by detecting signals within a team or helping to structure the meeting, as all communication is mediated via digital channels, which can be wiretapped.  Given these promising potentials of AI facilitation support, we want to explore the applicability (and boundary conditions) of AI (e.g. manifested assistant systems with IUIs) for virtual group meetings.

Assignments:

We support theses that explore various aspects of the use of digital facilitators, from theoretical, conceptual, technical, or empirical perspectives. Possible topics of interest include:

• Requirements for AI facilitators in ideation meetings from a user and moderator perspective
• Task sharing between human facilitators and AI-based facilitators in ideation meetings
• Development, implementation and evaluation of empirical studies (Wizard-of-Oz) investigating response to different interventions of the AI facilitator
• Impact of AI-based facilitators on team collaboration in ideation teams

Orientation

Informatics/Psychology: 70/30

Software/Hardware: 90/10

Theory/Practice: 30/70

Hintergrund:

Kreativitätstechniken und nutzerzentrierte Gestaltungsansätze wie Design Thinking bieten für Organisationen enorme Potentiale, wünschenswerte und innovative Lösungen kollaborativ zu entwickeln. Design Thinking ist dabei ein Ansatz, der verschiedene Stakeholder mit unterschiedlichem Hintergrund in einen mehrphasigen Problemlösungsprozess einbindet und derzeit viel Beachtung in Forschung und Praxis findet. Im Gegensatz zu anderen Methoden ist Design Thinking weniger ein strikter Prozess, sondern mehr eine Sammlung von Methoden und Werkzeugen, die zur Problemlösung angewandt werden können. Auf Grund dieser Flexibilität, der sehr heterogenen Teamzusammensetzung und der Breite höchst interaktiver Methoden, verlangt Design Thinking hohe Moderations- und Methodenkompetenz auf Seiten der ModeratorInnen. ModeratorInnen haben die fordernde Aufgabe, Team und Prozess gleichzeitig im Auge zu behalten und steuern. Der Erfolg von Design Thinking hängt häufig zentral von einer guten Moderation ab.

Ein vielversprechender Ansatz, ModeratorInnenen zu entlasten und Design Thinking auch für weniger erfahrene Teams und ModeratorInnen zugänglich zu machen, liegt in der Augmentierung durch digitale Assistenzsysteme, z.B. sprachbasierte Agenten.

Aufgabenstellung:

Wir unterstützen Abschlussarbeiten, die verschiedene Aspekte des Einsatzes von digitalen Assistenzsystemen/Conversational Agents im Design Thinking, aus theoretischer, konzeptioneller, technischer oder empirischer Perspektive untersuchen. Mögliche Themenschwerpunkte sind dabei (beschränken sich aber nicht auf diese):

• Anforderungen and Assistenzsysteme im DT aus Nutzer- und ModeratorInnenperspektive
• Aufgabenteilung zwischen menschlichen ModeratorInnen und sprachbasierten Agenten im DT
• Entwicklung, Umsetzung und Evaluation von Prototypen zur Unterstützung ausgewählter Methoden des DT
• Einfluss von sprachbasierten Agenten auf die Teamzusammenarbeit in DT Teams

Eigene Vorschläge für Abschlussarbeiten entlang dieser inhatlichen Schwerpunkte sind gern gesehen.

Virtual group meetings are omnipresent in times of the COVID-19 pandemic. At the same time, however, virtual meetings incur numerous technological limitations and HCI challenges. In particular, most current virtual meeting solutions hinder perception of correct gaze, body language, emotions, deictic relations, or eye-to-eye contact. Moreover, in virtual meetings the communication between multiple people is captured via microphones and cameras in real-time and, thus, they cause several ethical, societal, legal, and privacy issues.

In this thesis, the student should develop and evaluate advanced virtual group meeting analytics and feedback mechanisms for video conference tools such as Zoom or BigBlueButton by using AI-based detection of emotions, body language, or attention.

Orientation

Informatics/Psychology: 70/30
Software/Hardware: 90/10
Theory/Practice: 30/70

Background:

Demand for digital workplace technologies has increased due to new types of work, especially in times of pandemic. Digital technologies such as people analytics and process mining collect, store and analyze employee data in companies across all industries. The goal of these technologies is to support objective management decisions, increase team efficiency, and provide transparency for managers and teams. However, obstacles to the adoption of these technologies include privacy concerns and employee monitoring. Who can see what data and how is the data used? How can (agile) teams benefit from their data? The way transparency is implemented in the tools plays a crucial role in the acceptance of the technology.

Task:

The topic can be worked on as part of both a bachelor's and a master's thesis, whereby the scope can be adapted accordingly. The thesis should investigate the socio-technical interaction between a digital workplace technology, e.g., people analytics or process mining, and a team with regard to issues relevant to transparency. It may focus on one of the following aspects, but is not limited to them:

• Observe and theorize the status quo how teams in organizations make use of tools like people analytics or process mining (benefits, risks, use cases)
• Derive design requirements for digital workplace technologies that foster transparency in teams
• Implement and evaluate a prototype to enhance transparency in teams

Preferably, the topic can be researched using qualitative methods (case study research) or design-oriented methods (design science research, action design research). As the context is teams in organizations, collaborations with external partners are highly welcome.