In the context of extended reality, the term immersion is commonly used as a property denoting to which extent a technology can deliver an illusion of reality while occluding the users’ sensory access to the physical environment. In this paper we discuss an alternative interpretation of immersion, used in the My Sound Space project. The project is a research endeavor aiming to develop a sound environment system that enables a personalized sound space suitable for individual work places. The medium, which in our case is sound, is transparent and thus becomes an entangled part of the surrounding environment. This type of immersion is only partly occluding the users sensory access to physical reality. The purpose of using the sound space is not to become immersed by the sounds, rather to use the sounds to direct cognitive attention to get immersed in another cognitive activity. © 2018 Association for Computing Machinery.

The design of sonic environments is in need of more active strategies, taking into account not only the physical but also the social and sensorial aspects of a place. This implies abandoning traditional, mono-disciplinary responses in favour of interdisciplinary methods and approaches. In this study we explored the possibility of inserting context-sensitive sound textures to improve the experience of an activity-based office workplace. For this purpose, we developed the concept of the ’sound bubble’ - a micro-space in which the user is embedded by a semi-transparent added sound environment that will operate as a subtle sound mask, attracting the attention without needing to hide the disturbing environment. This should help users (the workers) to stay in an ’everyday listening’ mode. This means, not focusing on the environment in particular but on their tasks, while preserving the link with the surrounding space and activities. 

A growing number of organizations are moving towards more open and collaborative workplaces. In these offices workers share a common open space, often with flexible seating based on activities, so called activity-based offices. Most problems in these workplaces are related to sound. Thus, the question of how to design suitable acoustic environments, supporting both collaborative and individual work, has emerged. Noise-reduction approaches do not suffice. In this study we explored the possibility of adding context-sensitive, activity-based sound environments to enhance the office workplace. For this purpose, we developed the “sound bubble,” a prototype for individual work, sonically immersing the listener and generating a sensation of an encapsulating sonic environment. A total of 43 test subjects participated in an experience-based test using the sound bubble prototype while conducting self-selected, ordinary work tasks in their office landscape. Their behaviors during the test were observed and documented. All participants took a post-experience questionnaire about experiences working in the sound bubble, and two subjects were interviewed. The responses show that the sound bubble can enhance auditory work conditions for individual work that demands concentration.

Moving towards more open and collaborative workplaces has been an emerging trend in the last decades. This change has led to workers sharing a common open space, with seating’s based on current activity, so called activity-based offices. Consequently, it becomes difficult to design sonic environments that cater to different needs in the same space. In this study we explored the possibility of adding site-specific but location-adaptive sound environments to enhance the experience of an activity-based office workplace. For this purpose, we developed the concept of the “sound bubble,” a micro-space in which the user is embedded by a semi-transparent sound environment. The purpose of the bubble is to help the user ignore irrelevant and disturbing noise while working in an open landscape. The sound bubble supports the user to stay in “everyday listening” mode, i.e., not focusing on anything particular in the surrounding environment while being able to keep a link with it. The sound bubble was evaluated by a total of 43 test subjects participating in an experience-based test, conducting their usual work tasks in an office landscape. Our results show that the sound bubble can enhance auditory work conditions for individual work requiring concentration.

Being the first university in the world to provide doctoral program in Work-integrated Learning (WIL), we face the challenge of how to integrate doctoral courses into the WIL philosophy, which is the profile of the University West, Sweden. To exemplify what we mean by such a notion of integration, we introduce and demonstrate our proposed ontological approach to integrate a PhDcourse into the fundamental concepts underpinning WIL. The WIL within the context of informatics research (which is a subfield of the IS discipline) playsfive different roles of (1) the main course content, (2) the target occupation ofthe students and occupational field of the teachers, (3) the analytical perspective of the research activities in the course, (4) the educational method where teachers and students conduct collaborative research activities as a cognitive apprenticeship learning model, and (5) a co-authored research paper as outcome.The outcomes of such a conducted approach and lessons learned from the course will be thoroughly described. In the course, a meta-analysis of WIL informatics research will be performed to examine four dimensions which are: theories relevant for WIL; methods used in WIL research; occupational fields in WIL informatics studies; and roles of technology in WIL research. The course is arranged in the these phases: Local investigation; locally rooted research within the informatics field is examined by the course participants in dialogue with the authors of a number of published articles in order to see the extent and the how aspects of these identified WIL-oriented research work; Local synthesis; both teachers and the PhD students (i.e., course participants) explore the results and synthesize a local WIL-model; Global overview; a number of related international literature is selected and studied; Global synthesis; The local WIL model is compared to the global investigation. Co-authoring; a research paper is co-authored by the course participants and presented at a conference. By doing so, we enhance our understandings and thus contribute to one additional practical application of WIL's pedagogical philosophy, which influences the course content, the course format, the activities, the teaching-learning model,and the outcome of the course.

This paper address the problem of sound disturbance in open office environments. We have in a design-based research study explored how digital, real time generated sound can be added to a work environment and how these sound environments are perceived by respondents when performing work tasks. Being such a complex situation, we have in this first explorative study chosen to focus on designing a digital sound system for activity-based offices, where the physical environment is already designed for particular activities. Our approach is to explore if workplaces can be enhanced by adding appropriate acoustic designs to the ambient environment. Our results show that test subjects perceived that acoustic design could enhance the ambient environments if the acoustic design is pertinent with the environment as a whole. 

This paper addresses the problem of sound disturbance in open office environments. We have in a design-based research study explored how digital, real time generated sound can be added to a work environment and how these sound environments are perceived by respondents when performing work tasks. In this first explorative study we have chosen to focus on designing a digital sound system for activity-based offices, where the physical environment is already designed for particular activities. Our approach is to explore if adding appropriate acoustic designs to the ambient environment can enhance workplaces. Our results show that test subjects perceived that acoustic design could enhance the ambient environments if the acoustic design is pertinent with the environment as a whole.