Research at InterMedia

InterMedia's research is interdisciplinary in character and contains an exploratory blend of design, communication and learning features and concepts. We work in a range of different configurations, theoretically and practically. InterMedia's mode of work is based on a collaborative model of research organisation.

Our research activities are organised in four clusters which follow specific settings and fields of knowledge:

• Design and Learning in Education
• ICT and Learning at Work
• Communication Design
• CaseDesign

Over-arching these settings and fields of knowledge are particular perspectives on learning, interaction design and communication design: 

Learning

InterMedia's research programme is based on a socio-cultural perspective on learning, cognition and development. This perspective originates from Russian psychology and American pragmatism. In contemporary discourse this is often called the turn towards social practice. This perspective is developed today and is new across the world. From this socio-cultural perspective we do research on different orientations. These include cultural historical activity theory and micro-studies of interaction and meaning making. Our main emphasis is to understand the relationship between learning, digital tools and how social institutions operate.  Many of the research projects use the concept of learning trajectories in order to explain how learning takes place over longer periods of time and across settings.

Thematically we study learning with different types of tools and environments like: Simulations/3D environment, CSCL environments (Future learning environments), learning management systems, viten.no (science), knowledge management systems, etc.

Interaction design

Research into learning and ICT at InterMedia will typically include design research. By use of design experiments we develop prototypes in a learning context where interactive experiences merge with learning. Interaction design as a field of study and practice grows out of human-computer interaction and expands into the design. Retaining the knowledge base of effective and efficient use of digital environments interaction design concerns both design and evaluation of use. Central concepts are interactive meaning-making, user experiences, and the quality of learning.

Communication design

Research into Communication Design draws together practice and theory in the making and analysis if mediated environments, experiences and uses. Informed by a socio-cultural perspective, we also draw on an interdisciplinary blend of approaches from the Humanities and Social Sciences, linking these with Informatics. It is the mediated meaning making (as texts, in contexts, via and through design and use) that is our concern.