PhD Scholarship at the University of South Australia

Collaborative creativity and innovation in virtual environments

A PhD scholarship is available to support a fully funded doctoral candidate exploring how shared virtual environments might foster collaborative creativity and innovation.

Description

Recent advances in ICT, networking, and social media technologies have illustrated how social formation can be affected by technological change. Multimodal approaches to interactive systems, where multiple human communication and sensory systems are engaged in interacting with computers and other humans, offer as yet unrealised potential in the creative arts, tele-collaboration, online education and scenario simulation (serious games). This program of research will consider emerging communication and visualisation technologies, in the form of networked, augmented and virtual reality systems, and investigate how these emerging technologies are likely to transform social interaction, collaboration, behaviour, and society.

The program of research will employ hybrid methods derived from the creative arts, Human Computer Interaction research, and human movement and performance analysis, along with agile software development methods, to develop systems for, and gain insights into, multimodal human computer interaction and inter-personal interaction in virtual and augmented environments. The PhD candidate will investigate how shared virtual environments affect human interaction and collaborative creativity across disciplines and how creativity in the arts and sciences might contribute to social transformation.

The research will address questions such as:

·       How shared virtual environments affect human interaction and collaborative creativity?

·       How creativity in the arts and sciences may be transformed by such technologies?

Research Environment

Research will be undertaken within the Creative Computing Studio of the School of Art, Architecture and Design; a University of South Australia research facility equipped with state of the art Virtual and Augmented Reality equipment, motion capture and other interactive systems. The successful candidate will also be aligned with the University’s Advanced Computing Research Centre and benefit from working within the context of the Australian Research Council funded Collaborative Embodied Movement Design Network, which includes partners Swinburne University, Deakin University, University of Melbourne, University of New South Wales, Queensland University of Technology, and Coventry University (UK).

The Principal Supervisor will be Professor Simon Biggs, an expert in interactive media and human computer interaction in the context of the creative arts and Director of the Creative Computing Studio. Co-supervisors include Professor Bruce Thomas, Director of the Wearable Computer Lab within the Advanced Computing Research Centre (of which he is Deputy Director), a world leading researcher in Human Computer Interaction and ubiquitous computing; Dr. Alison Gwilt, an internationally recognised researcher in smart textiles, wearable technologies and sustainable fashion; and Dr. Scott Delahunta (Deakin and Coventry Universities), a renowned researcher in the area of dance, human movement, and performance analysis. Dr. Delahunta is Director of Motion Bank at Mainz University of Applied Sciences in Germany, which will provide further opportunities for the successful candidate to extend their research.

The research will focus on developing a prototype multimodal interactive system and a series of experimental scenarios for the system. The successful candidate will contribute to the synthesis of research methods from the creative arts, HCI and human movement analysis to deliver an enhanced framework for evaluating human interaction in such environments and delivering insights into the systems efficacy and how it might be further developed and applied.

Eligibility

The PhD scholarship is open to Australian Citizens, Permanent Residents of Australia and international students.

It is expected applicants will fulfil the requirements of candidature for a PhD place at the University of South Australia, which means holding a first class Honours degree (or equivalent). International applicants must also meet the University’s English language proficiency standards. The Scholarship will be awarded on the basis that the candidate be studying full-time and be resident in Adelaide, South Australia, for the duration of the PhD.

The candidate will benefit from a full fee waiver (for eligible Australian residents) and an annual living stipend of AUS$26,682.00 for the three-year duration of the studentship. The period of the candidature is expected to be from February 2018 – February 2021.

How to apply

Proposals for the studentship must include:

·       A project proposal, including rationale, proposed methodology and methods, anticipated outcomes and a timeline.

·       A full curriculum vitae.

·       A portfolio of creative work, if relevant.

·       Evidence of academic achievement (i.e. full academic transcripts).

·       The names and contact details of two academic referees.

The application should be received no later than Friday 8 December, 2017.

Shortlisted applicants will be required to attend a selection panel interview.

Further information on the application process can be found at: http://aad.unisa.edu.au/research/prospective-higher-degree-research-student-information/

This scholarship is supported by the University of South Australia's Research Themes Investment Scheme.

Further information

If you are interested in this opportunity please contact Professor Simon Biggs at: simon.biggs@unisa.edu.au

or by mail at:

Professor Simon Biggs

School of Art, Architecture and Design

University of South Australia

GPO Box 2471

Adelaide

South Australia

5001 - 0455

 

Australia