PhD studentship in Work Integrated Learning – Artificial Intelligence

Work Integrated Learning (WIL) is University West’s overarching profile and basic principle applied to learning, the exchange of ideas, and educational development. The government has assigned the distinguished task of developing WIL to University West. Work integrated learning in education and research develops new, relevant and advanced knowledge both within the academy and among its partners, which also benefits society in general. University West offers a wide variety of study programs, has a good number of applicants and the students show a high entry rate on the labor market. The main research environments at University West are Production technology, Learning in and for the new working life and Child and youth studies and is conducted in collaboration with the surrounding society. Campus is centrally located in Trollhättan with about 15,000 students and 675 employees.




PhD studentship in Work Integrated Learning – with focus on Artificial Intelligence for emerging Virtual/Mixed/Augmented Reality platforms
The university is actively aiming towards equality and an inclusive work environment where diversity is seen as an asset.

In our mission to strengthen existing expertise in Artificial Intelligence on emerging interaction platforms for Industrial Work Integrated Learning (I-WIL) applications, University West offers a fully funded PhD student position in this domain.

The scientific work in the project

The PhD student’s scientific work will consist of exploring and developing knowledge about how to design, develop and situate Artificial Intelligence(AI)-powered Mixed Reality platforms (spanning Virtual and Augmented Reality) to best support work-integrated learning (WIL) processes in complex industrial settings. This includes developing and testing interactive prototypes in both controlled lab settings and naturalistic settings at partner organization sites. Important open questions regard for instance, how AI best can be used for improving knowledge sharing vertically and horizontally within organisations, including both novices and experts, in particular for aspects of tasks that demand flexible manual craftsmanship, long-term practical experience, “bigger picture” intuition, or other kinds of tacit knowledge.

The PhD project will likely relate to strands of research currently investigated at the University West Open Lab such as:

- Knowledge representation: Representation of (tacit) human knowledge for facilitating vertical cross-work role knowledge sharing (e.g. between machine maintenance experts and operators; medical doctors and nurses) or horizontal within-work role knowledge sharing (e.g. experts teaching novices). Focus is on representation of knowledge and skills hard to formalise into static text/pictorial instructions, with the purpose of facilitating Machine Learning-based clustering and mapping.
- Augmented human: Combining AI and human capabilities by, e.g., integrating AI for semantic scene understanding with intuitive spatial and embodied user interaction, targeting control and efficient work in complex industrial environments and direct access to relevant knowledge. Explore how AI can aid in deliberately mixing the real and the virtual and making the flexibility of VR/AR accessible when adapting to specific work situations, in particular to make work in/with VR/AR more sustainable.
- Prescriptive knowledge: Design principles for adaptable AI-driven VR solutions for existing workplace training programs in industrial settings. Theory for how to design AI-driven VR solutions that enable cross boundary knowledge sharing among companies in the industrial sector; frameworks for understanding the wicked situation of safety training in physical settings and how design principles for sustainable VR training can tackle the situation.

The PhD project is expected to contribute with socio-technical solutions that are innovative, practical, and relevant for Work-Integrated Learning as well as for the fields of Computer Science, Information Systems, and Human-Computer Interaction.

Scientific domain: Work-Integrated Learning (WIL)

Work-Integrated Learning is an interdisciplinary, postgraduate subject with a connection to social science and humanities. The subject is defined by issues focused on the relation between work life and meaningful learning. Work life is broadly defined and includes other forms of work than traditional work-pay relationships. The concept of meaningful learning can be understood through change and socialization processes connected to knowledge and competence. Attention is given to learning conditions, organization, processes, content, forms, and consequences of digitalization for the practices. Research within this subject includes but are not limited to: work in change due to technology intervention, relation between technology, education and work, and social conditions for learning at the workplace. The focus of the studies can be individuals, groups, organizations, mechanisms, structures, in relation to technology and digitalization.


Research center: The PhD project will be conducted in close collaboration with other doctoral students and researchers in the Work-Integrated Learning research environment at University West, https://www.hv.se/arbetsintegrerat-larande/ In particular, the PhD student will collaborate with existing doctoral students working on VR and AR-related projects associated with OpenLab, a place and a cross-disciplinary group of researchers prototyping and critically analyzing the potential use of emerging immersive media platforms such as Virtual Reality (VR), Mixed Reality (MR), and Augmented Reality (AR) for different purposes including sustainable industrial production and work integrated learning (WIL). Many of the projects involve external industrial and academic partners.



For more information about the project, qualifications and the recruitment process, please read the full advertisement here: https://hv.varbi.com/se/what:job/jobID:493058/type:job/where:4/apply:1