BAKI - Laboratory study

Open Human-Computer Interaction Computer Science Bachelor Master Project Thesis Internship No Affiliation

Motivation

Virtual work can be a resource for health, but it can also pose particular risks for virtual workers and challenges for occupational health services [1]. Current occupational health and safety solutions are not always suitable for the occupational health care of virtual workers; there is a lack of visibility and access for occupational physicians and evidence-based digital tools [2]. Therefore, the Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (BAuA) recommends supporting occupational physicians and virtual workers with digital services [1].

To address these gaps in care and research, the BAKI junior research group combines expertise in occupational medicine with data science and human-computer interaction. In this way, occupational medical practice in the virtual work context will be digitally supported and further developed in an evidence-based way and in the spirit of holistic occupational medical care.

The goal of the junior research group is to develop a participatory, human-centred and iterative assistance system to support occupational physicians in their work, consisting of two modules:

The first module, ‘BAKI-AI’, collects physical, psychological, social, organisational and technical data relevant to occupational medicine from virtual workers and analyses and learns from this data to create individual resource and risk profiles. These profiles should visualise working conditions in a virtual context, which have been difficult to assess up to now, and should be seen as an extension of traditional risk assessments. In this way new starting points for occupational health practice should be identified, which enables predictions to be made for prevention. In the next step, company doctors should receive a classification or recommendation of suitable ocupational health care measures based on the latest scientific findings.

In the second module, ‘BAKI-Social’, telemedicine options such as social virtual reality (VR) and chatbots are explored, developed and evaluated in order to use digital social spaces to increase the visibility of company doctors and improve access to virtual workers and occupational health management measures in a virtual work context. The resource and risk profiles resulting from ‘BAKI-AI’ and the occupational health care measures derived from them are checked by company doctors via an intuitive and user-friendly interface of the assistance system, adjusted if necessary, selected and then released for ‘BAKI-Social’. Through the integration of digital technologies, ‘BAKI-Social’ creates a communication platform where employees can find out about their individual results and recommendations and interact via digital elements (asynchronous communication). If desired, direct contact with company doctors is also possible via ‘BAKI-Social’ (synchronous communication).

Scope of the Project/Thesis/Internship

To support the development of and data collection for ‘BAKI-AI’ in this topic a laboratory study should be implemented and conducted that simulates a virtual work environment. The study has already received approval from the ethics committee and consists of the following parts:

1. Introductory questionaire (10 to 15 minutes):
   • Collection of data to prepare the sensors (like weight and height), along with some other aspects like the experience with virtual work and the current mood of the participant.
2. Preparation of the participant (5 to 10 minutes):
   • Configuration for and explanation to the participant, of the study equipment.
   • Used devices/software: Smart band for body measurements, room sensor for measurements regarding the environment, software running on the working device to conduct measurements regarding the PC.
3. Simulated virtual work (1 hour):
   • The participant is separated by a partition wall from the study conductor, who for this study assumes the role of a manager in a virtual work context and is available for the participant via chat.
   • The acutal tasks during this hour are choosen from a pool of different tasks so that each participant receives 4 to 5 of them. They all have a fixed time limit after which the next tasks should be started and simulate various aspects of virtual work, like communcating via mail, participating in a video conference, or creating a presentation.
   • During this simulated work also technical problems will be simulated like the crash of a software or an undelivarable mail.
4. Final questionaire (5 to 10 minutes):
   • Collection of data like the amount of stress during the simulated work and the satisfaction with one’s own work.

Tasks and Planned Progression

1. Literature review and research familiarization
2. Finalisation and implementation of the study design; in particular the simulated virtual work
   • Prepration of the data collection:
     • questionaires
     • smart band and room sensor
     • measurement software
   • Specification of the simulated virtual work tasks:
     • creation/collection of concrete data/tasks to work on
   • Technical setup and implementation of the study:
     • PC workstations for both the participant and the study conductor
     • setup for simulated video conferences
     • preparation of simulated PC failures
3. Conducting the study and supporting the participants
   • the parts of the study are listed above
4. Analysis of the collected data
5. Documentation of progress and insights

Insights into the Work at the HCI and PIIS groups

In addition to contributing to ongoing research at the groups of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and Psychology of Intelligent Interactive Systems (PIIS), the topic (especially if done as an internship) will include potential involvement in organizational or technical support tasks regarding the broader research infrastructure of the groups.

References

[1] Nils Backhaus and Anita Tisch and Beate Beermann. 2021. Telearbeit, Homeoffice und Mobiles Arbeiten: Chancen, Herausforderungen und Gestaltungsaspekte aus Sicht des Arbeitsschutzes. Bundesanstalt fuer Arbeitsschutz und Arbeitsmedizin.

[2] Maximilian Bretschneider and Stephanie Droessler and Selina Magister and Maria Zeiser and Daniel Kaempf and Andreas Seidler. 2020. Digitalisierung und Psyche–Rahmenbedingungen fuer eine gesunde Arbeitswelt. Ergebnisse des Projektes GAP. Zeitschrift fuer Arbeitswissenschaft.

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