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:

• Artificial Intelligence 1: Winter term
• Introduction to Computational Social Systems: Winter term (module socio-technical design)
• Conversational Systems: Winter term (module: Human-Computer Interaction aspects and interaction design)
• Human-Centred Design (former: Designing Interactive Systems): Summer term - shortlisted for the excellent teaching award at TU Graz in 2018 and 2020

Learning how to do Design-Oriented Research in HCI and EdTech

• HCI = Human-Computer Interaction
• EdTech = Educational Technology

• Theory-led: The interactive and intelligent (based on data analytics, and methods from AI) technologies we design use existing theories and knowledge about how to design technologies, how people work and learn effectively.
• Interactive and intelligent systems: Systems are interactive, and based on data analytics and methods from AI, such as classification, clustering, generative AI.
• Socio-technical perspective: I do user-centred/human-centred design, and think not only about a single user, but about the social system (family, organisation, society) around the user.
• Learning perspective: I focus on task performance (what users want to do NOW) as well as long-term (competence) development (“does AI make us more stupid?”)

• contemporary computational data analsis and AI
• how to use theories and knowledge about
• the design of interactive systems
• interactions of technology, human and complex (socio-technical) environments
• human cognition and behaviour
• empirical methods from HCI, with a focus on mixed methods for data analysis
• to think of technologies in the context of our lives.

• Introduction to Scientific Working
• Bachelor theses and projects
• Seminar/Project
• Seminar
• Research Seminar (for Digital Societies Major in the CSS master): Winter term, offered at the University of Graz (not TU Graz, but in collaboration) - This course is specific to the named major and does not fall into the below systematic. It is maybe well described as a "collaborative trial master thesis".
• Master thesis

Open Research Topics for Students

If you are interested in doing introduction to scientific working, a bachelor thesis, master project, seminar, or master thesis with me

• Read the above teaching concept.
• Read about my research interests
• Read open research topics.
• Contact me via email.

For most topics, we have interesting international collaborations with top research groups in Australia, China, Canada, and in Europe; should you be interested in combining your master thesis with a stay abroad (funding would need to be discussed separately). For most topics, the work can be scoped and adjusted to bachelor thesis, seminar/project, master project, or master thesis level (see above).

Ongoing Theses:

PhD

• Alina Kopkow - Interaction paradigms for LLM-based chatbots
• 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.

Master

• Fabian Staber - Interaction design for voice-based artefact-centered conversation.
• Florian Leski - GenAI assisted medical report understanding for patients.
• Una Ibrahimpasic - Voice-based vs text-based chatbot interaction in different tasks
• Ahmed Abdelbaky - GenAI-supoported data analytics for personal portfolio risk analysis.
• Bolis Hakim - GenAI-supported data analytics in cross-disciplinary business analytics
• Emilia Isailovic - Computational analysis of human-human conversations in AI-facilitated creative collaboration (co-supervision with Prof. Barbara Schuppler).
• Haris Hadzimahmutovic - Asking questions about a student-facing learning dashboard to an LLM-based chatbot.
• Vanessa Komar - GenAI-based proactive technology as partner in creativity (collaboration with Profs. Michael Liut and Manuel Ninaus).
• Elias Doppelreiter - Computer-supported translation in online 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

• Katharina Stefan - Difference between Face-to-face vs. computermediated interpersonal Synchronization
• Tamara David, 2025 - Generative AI supported human-2-human (creative) collaboration. The master thesis was extended to the A* ACM CHI publication Bangerl et al. 2025 - CreAItive Collaboration
• 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.