Viktoria Pammer-Schindler

I am an associate professor in HCI and EdTech at Graz University of Technology and Deputy Head of the Institute of Human-Centred Computing. I am also a research area manager at the Know-Center.

Research - Teaching - CV - Contact

Teaching

Ongoing Lectures:

• Introduction to Scientific Working: Winter term
• Introduction to Computational Social Systems (one module, and supervision of selected team projects in this course): Winter term
• Research Seminar (for Digital Societies Major in the CSS master): Winter term
• Introduction to Data Science and AI: Summer term
• Designing Interactive Systems: Summer term - shortlisted for the excellent teaching award at TU Graz in 2018 and 2020
• Conversational Systems: Winter term

Open Theses

If you are interested in doing a bachelor thesis, master project, or master thesis with me, please contact me. The topics are along my research interests. I always try to align the thesis topic with my own research interests, the student interests, and ongoing projects. Hence, it is necessary to have a personal conversation before you start a thesis with me.

I am currently looking for students in the following topics. Not all topics have a detailed description, and for any topic you are interested in please reach out. For most topics, we have interesting international collaborations should you be interested in combining your master thesis with a stay abroad.

For most topics, the work can be scoped and adjusted to bachelor thesis, seminar/project, master project, or master thesis level. In general, a bachelor thesis and master project means software implementation based on theory-led design principles and rationale and coherent documentation with different levels of theory grounding, implementation and documentation quality expected; a seminar/project means the theory-led development of an interaction concept and coherent documentation; and a master thesis means carrying out a full research project including literature review, software prototype implementation, a user study, and of course coherent communication of research work in a written masters' thesis and oral presentation.

• Mixed-Initiative GenAI-based Agents in Online Collaboration
• Machine translation in collaboration
• Guided visual data analytics
• Guided reading (text-based vs voice-based; based on different guiding strategies)
• Voice-based Human-AI interaction
• Digital and AI-enabled technologies for nature and outdoor activities
• AI-enabled environments for well-being

Ongoing Theses:

PhD

• Alina Kopkow - Interaction paradigms for LLM-based chatbots
• Christof Wolf-Brenner - (No?) Ethics considerations in AI-enabled business
• Mia Bangerl - Designing for long-term human learning in video-based and AI-supported collaboration
• Leonie Disch. Designing AI-based technology to support knowledge construction in complex professional contexts, such as open science or data analytics.
• Irmtraud Wolfbauer - Digitalising vocational training; self-identity of apprentices, and reflection guidance to support knowledge transfer from training to work practice.

Master

• Haris Hadzimahmutovic - Asking questions about a student-facing learning dashboard to an LLM-based chatbot.
• Abdelrahman Ramadan - Voice-based interaction about key concepts in a text.
• Vanessa Komar - GenAI-based proactive technology as partner in creativity
• Tamara David - Generative AI for creative collaboration.
• Elias Doppelreiter - Computer-supported translation in online collaboration.
• Katharina Stefan - Multi-dimensional differences between face-2-face and video-based collaboration.

Closed Theses:

PhD

• Michael Fruhwirth, 2024. Designing Support for Data-Driven Business Model Innovation in Offline-Established Organizations
• Behzad Mirzababaei, 2024. Developing Full Tutorial Conversational Agents for Argumentation as a Learning Activity (full thesis)
• Carla Barreiros, 2020. A Nature-Inspired Tree Visual Language to Achieve a Positive Human Interaction in the Internet of Things Paradigm (co-supervision with Eduardo Veas, (full thesis)
• Angela Fessl, 2017. In-App Reflection Guidance for Workplace Learning (co-supervision with Stefanie Lindstaedt, short version published in IEEE Transactions on Learning Technologies)

Master

• Alina Kopkow, 2024 - A genAI-based tutorial chatbot for discussing green entrepreneurship business cases
• Sebastian Überreiter, 2024 - Knowledge construction in virtual reality. The master thesis was extended to a paper at the ACM Mensch und Computer 2024: Beyond Textbooks: A Study on Supporting Learning of Molecule Naming in a Virtual Reality Environment
• Nikita Lvov, 2023. Forest representations of shared knowledge bases
• Ilja Simic, 2022. A Conversational Agent for Discussing the News Quality of Articles.
• Amel Hamidovic, 2021. Reflection analytics for conversational agents in apprenticeship training
• Patrick Steyer, 2020. Rebo - A feasibility study on moving from a static dialogue structure for reflection for apprentices to a conversational agent
• Andreas Wöls, 2020 - Chatbot-based reflection prompts and actiivty log data for time management
• Armin Köfler, 2017 - Verbesserung des Lagebewusstseins und der Maßnahmenergreifung bei der Sicherung von Grossveranstaltungen (Extended abstract at i-Know 2017 Workshop on Data-Driven Decision Support in Digitized Work Environments, journal paper accepted at deGruyter information technology)
• Sabine Lukas, 2017 - Prozessoptimierung auf Basis eines Multi-Level Management Systems für Waldbrandszenarien (Paper at i-Know 2017 Workshop on Data-Driven Decision Support in Digitized Work Environments)
• Dominik Widnig, 2017 - Geo Heroes - a location based mixed reality game (Youtube Video of the game)
• Andreas Müller, 2017 - Learning in online communities in the case of StarCraft
• Christofer Öjeling, 2016 - Physical Sokoban. An augmented reality game. A paper was presented at ISMAR. The thesis was supervised by myself at the Know-Center, while the thesis was formally supervised at Chalmers University of Technology and University of Gothenburg, examined by Graham Kemo and supervised by K.V.S. Prasad.
• Markus Perndorfer, 2015 - Detecting social interactions via mobile sensing [pdf in TUGOnline]. Download the (anonymised) mobile phone sensing data that Markus collected as part of his master thesis [dataset].
• Martin Daum, 2015 - Locating lost items using pedestrian dead reckoning on smartphones [pdf in TUGOnline].
• Alfred Wertner, 2014 - Stress Prediction for Knowledge Workers based on PC Activity and Noise Level

Selected bachelor theses

• Max Gerlach, 2021. Habit Plant. Online video

In the past, I also held the following lectures:

• Introduction to Knowledge Technologies: Summer terms 2018, 2019
• Sensors and User Models: 2015, 2016
• Semantic Technologies, TU Graz, winter terms 2012/2013, 2013/2014 - together with Wolfgang Kienreich.