This chapter examines how students in a two-campus, cross-disciplinary program in Music, Communication and Technology (MCT) experience the sense of presence of peer students and teachers, some physically co-localized while others are present via an audiovisual communications system. The chapter starts by briefly delineating the MCT program, the audiovisual communications system and the learning space built around it, named the Portal, and the research project SALTO which frames the current study. We then review research literature on presence relevant to this particular context and use this as a basis for the design of an online survey using a combination of Likert items and free text response. Our main findings, based on responses from the 16 students who participated in the survey, are that the mediating technologies of the Portal affect the experience of presence negatively, but that formal learning scenarios are less affected than informal scenarios that require social interaction.

The article discusses the ways in which the MotionComposer (MC), a newly developed device that turns movement into music, engages users with different abilities, so as to provide positive psychological and somatic effects. It begins with a case study – the story of one application of the device involving a young man with cerebral palsy. His experiences are typical of many others and provide some useful generalisations. The article then discusses a number of goals and related design principles that have been important in the development of the device, including a discussion of two conflicting strategies which must be reconciled: On the one hand, there is a need for clear causality. On the other hand, for such a device to remain interesting over time, there is a need for variation. A technical description of the hardware and software is given, followed by a discussion of general mapping issues pertaining to the different sound environments or interaction modes of the MC.

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Higher education is facing disruptive changes in many fields. Students wants to have the option of learning anywhere, anytime and in any format. Universities need to develop and deliver to future students a complete learning ecosystem. At the same time universities are facing challenges such as growing costs and the pressure to give the students the knowledge, competence, skills and ability to continuously adapt to future job environments. As a consequence, many universities are investigating new ways of collaboration and sharing resources to cater to the demands of students, industry and society. An example of this collaboration is a new joint master between the two largest Universities in Norway: University of Oslo (UiO) and Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). In this paper, we present the lessons learned from almost two years of teaching and learning in the new joint master's programme, "Music, Communication and Technology" (MCT), between NTNU and UiO. This programme is a run in a two-campus learning space built as a two-way, audio-visual, high-quality, low-latency communication channel between the two campuses, called "The Portal". Moreover, MCT is the subject of research for the SALTO (Student Active Learning in a Two campus Organisation) project, where novel techniques in teaching and learning are explored, such as team-based learning (TBL), flipped classroom, and other forms of student active learning. Educational elements in this master, provides the student with 21st century skills and deliver knowledge within humanities, entrepreneurship and technology. We elaborate on the technical, pedagogical and learning space-related challenges toward delivering teaching and learning in these cross-university settings. The paper concludes with a set of strategies that can be used to improve student active learning in different scenarios.

This article presents a framework for describing, understanding and evaluating the experience of voice in acousmatic electroacoustic music and related genres through the maximal–minimal model. This model, which is inspired by literary theory, theories of radiophonic voice as well as theories of electroacoustic music, presents maximal and minimal voice as loosely defined poles constituting end points on a continuum on which experienced voices can be localised. Here, maximal voice, which parallels the informative and clearly articulated speaking voice dominant in the radio medium, is described as the converging fulfilment of seven premises. These premises are seen as partly interconnected conditions related to particular aspects or features of the experience of voice. At the other end of the continuum, minimal voice is defined as a boundary zone between voice and non-voice, a zone which is related to the negative fulfilment of the seven premises. The two poles are presented as centre and periphery, respectively, with the seven premises constituting multiple axes spreading out from the centre. These features, it is argued, parallel Lakoff's cluster model of categorisation. Lastly, the article briefly discusses the use of the framework in analysis of electroacoustic works with voice, and it demonstrates two ways in which the evaluations according to the framework can be visualised.