Gamification of E-Participation: A Literature Review

Gamification is one of the most commonly employed approaches for motivating individuals to participate in several types of activities. One of its largest application areas has been e-participation (i.e. citizen engagement in policy-making). Even though the required ICT infrastructure to facilitate e- participation mostly exists today, the focus of the problem has shifted towards humans; citizens are not motivated enough to participate. Gamification is a potential approach to increase motivation towards e- participation. However, currently there is a dearth in our understanding of how gamification is being applied and researched as well as what kinds of result there exist from gamification. The aim of this paper is to synthesize research and findings on gamified e-participation, providing directions for future research in this area

Gamification, citizen science, and civic technologies: In search of the common good

In this paper, we discuss the importance of gameplay as a valuable tool in citizen sensing initiatives aimed at enabling creative collaboration and civic engagement. We present a review of selected citizen science and civic technologies’ projects highlighting an emerging culture of massive collaborative initiatives that make use of crowdsourcing, enabling users to voluntarily contribute their time, effort and resources towards scientific research and civic issues. Moreover, we discuss how these initiatives could benefit from the inclusion of gameplay in their interaction processes. For that matter, we present a gamified citizen sensing project we are devising for users to enter and retrieve information on commercially available food products which contain ingredients associated with an increased risk of cancer and other diseases. Through gameplay, we expect to crowdsource an open database of potentially unhealthy food products, raising awareness among consumers about the risks of certain artificial additives. Finally, we argue that the use of gamification processes can engage voluntary participation in initiatives aimed at citizenship – including those which demand complex and repetitive tasks for the collection of data – and call for a more ethical, critical, and meaningful use of these new potential technologies, and for greater awareness of our new civic responsibilities.Keywords: interaction design, gamification, citizen sensing, mobile applications, artificial food additives

Gamification, citizen science, and civic technologies: In search of the common good

In this paper, we discuss the importance of gameplay as a valuable tool in citizen sensing initiatives aimed at enabling creative collaboration and civic engagement. We present a review of selected citizen science and civic technologies’ projects highlighting an emerging culture of massive collaborative initiatives that make use of crowdsourcing, enabling users to voluntarily contribute their time, effort and resources towards scientific research and civic issues. Moreover, we discuss how these initiatives could benefit from the inclusion of gameplay in their interaction processes. For that matter, we present a gamified citizen sensing project we are devising for users to enter and retrieve information on commercially available food products which contain ingredients associated with an increased risk of cancer and other diseases. Through gameplay, we expect to crowdsource an open database of potentially unhealthy food products, raising awareness among consumers about the risks of certain artificial additives. Finally, we argue that the use of gamification processes can engage voluntary participation in initiatives aimed at citizenship – including those which demand complex and repetitive tasks for the collection of data – and call for a more ethical, critical, and meaningful use of these new potential technologies, and for greater awareness of our new civic responsibilities

HotCity—A Gamified Token System for Reporting Waste Heat Sources

Urban planning needs to discover and incorporate new energy sources to meet climate protection targets in the future. Waste heat from industrial and urban infrastructure has proven to be a viable solution, but its proper identification can be challenging, especially for smaller and unconventional sources. Our project relies on the principles of gamification enhanced by a blockchain based token system and crowdsourcing as methods to collect and utilise spatial data such as the location and the size of previously unused heat sources. The mobile platform-neutral HotCity App en ables users to collectively patrol the city in search of waste heat sources and to gain tokens that can be exchanged for rewards. The blockchain platform Ardor was used for cheat proofing and to enable transparency for the reward system. The field test conducted in winter 2020/2021 showed high usability scores as well as high acceptance ratings of our approach opening up new use case scenarios in the context of spatial energy planning.©2022 Elsevier. This manuscript version is made available under the Creative Commons Attribution–NonCommercial–NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY–NC–ND 4.0) license, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/fi=vertaisarvioitu|en=peerReviewed

Future Energy Networks and the Role of Interactive Gaming as Simulation

As energy systems integration deepens to support the development of a cleaner and more intelligent energy infrastructure, it will be increasingly important for consumers to better understand their relationship to energy systems and to take more proactive roles in managing energy. Foregrounding the importance of systems comprehension, we argue for the strong potential of interactive games to be helpful in engaging consumers in sustainable energy practices, as they can demonstrate complex system dynamics through simulation-based experiences. Focusing on interrogations of engagement and social change posed by gaming theorists and designers, and using several flagship interactive games as points of reference, we discuss the elements of game space that make it capable of simulating complex systems and large-scale implications of energy decisions richly and effectively. We discuss social, technological, and narrative elements of game play, pairing a theoretical investigation with a practical exploration of how energyrelated games can link with data in the real world, with particular emphasis on the emerging Internet of Things. Our conclusions emphasise the importance of game simulation toward the longer-term goal of cultivating more complex patterns of interaction and cultural analysis around energy use; this is based on the assertion that energy, a social resource, must be managed in ways that are equally social

Anagenesis: A framework for a gameful, playful and democratic future smart cities

acceptedVersionPeer reviewe

Mobile services for green living

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor in Information Management, specialization in Geographic Information SystemsUrban cycling is a sustainable transport mode that many cities are promoting. However, few cities are taking advantage of geospatial technologies to represent and analyse behavioural patterns and barriers faced during cycling. This thesis is within the fields of geoinformatics and serious games, and the motivation came from our desire to help both citizens and cities to better understand cyclist behaviour and mobility patterns. We attempted to learn more about the impact of gamified strategies on engagement with cycling, the reasons for choosing between mobile cycling applications and the way such applications would provide commuting information. Furthermore, we explored the potential benefits of offering tools to build decision-making for mobility more transparent, to increase cycling data availability, and to analyse commuting patterns. In general, we found our research useful to enhance green living actions by increasing citizens’ willingness to commute by bicycle or communicating cycling conditions in cities. For urban cycling, data coming from mobile phones can provide a better assessment and enrich the analysis presented in traditional mobility plans. However, the diversity of current mobile applications targeting cyclists does not provide useful data for analysing commuter (inner-city, non-sporting) cycling. Just a few cyclists are adopting these applications as part of their commuting routine, while on the other hand cities are lacking a valuable source of constantly updated cycling information helpful to understand cycling patterns and the role of bicycles in urban transport. This thesis analyses how the incentives of location-based games or geo-games might increase urban cycling engagement and, through this engagement, crowdsource cycling data collection to allow cities to better comprehend cycling patterns. Consequently, the experiment followed a between-groups design to measure the impact of virtual rewards provided by the Cyclist Geo-c application on the levels of intention, satisfaction, and engagement with cycling. Then, to identify the frictions which potentially inhibit bicycle commuting, we analysed the bicycle trips crowdsourced with the geo-game. Our analysis relied on a hexagonal grid of 30-metre cell side to aggregate trip trajectories, calculate the friction intensity and locate the frictions. The thesis reports on the results of an experiment which involved a total of 57 participants in three European cities: M¨unster (Germany), Castell ´o (Spain), and Valletta (Malta). We found participants reported higher satisfaction and engagement with cycling during the experiment in the collaboration condition. However, we did not find a significant impact on the participants’ worldview when it comes to the intentions to start or increase cycling. The results support the use of collaboration-based rewards in the design of game-based applications to promote urban cycling. Furthermore, we validated a procedure to identify not only the cyclists’ preferred streets but also the frictions faced during cycling analysing the crowdsourced trips. We successfully identified 284 places potentially having frictions: 71 in M¨unster, Germany; 70 in Castell ´ o, Spain; and 143 in Valletta, Malta. At such places, participants recorded trip segments at speeds below 5 Km/h indicating a deviation from a hypothetical scenario with a constant cycling speed. This thesis encompasses the cyclist and city perspectives of offering virtual incentives in geo-games and crowdsourcing cycling data collection to better comprehend cycling conditions in cities. We also compiled a set of tools and recommendations for researchers, practitioners, mobile developers, urban planners and cyclist associations interested in fostering sustainable transport and the use of bicycles

The Gamification of Crowdsourcing Systems: Empirical Investigations and Design

Recent developments in modern information and communication technologies have spawned two rising phenomena, gamification and crowdsourcing, which are increasingly being combined into gamified crowdsourcing systems. While a growing number of organizations employ crowdsourcing as a way to outsource tasks related to the inventing, producing, funding, or distributing of their products and services to the crowd – a large group of people reachable via the internet – crowdsourcing initiatives become enriched with design features from games to motivate the crowd to participate in these efforts. From a practical perspective, this combination seems intuitively appealing, since using gamification in crowdsourcing systems promises to increase motivations, participation and output quality, as well as to replace traditionally used financial incentives. However, people in large groups all have individual interests and motivations, which makes it complex to design gamification approaches for crowds. Further, crowdsourcing systems exist in various forms and are used for various tasks and problems, thus requiring different incentive mechanisms for different crowdsourcing types. The lack of a coherent understanding of the different facets of gamified crowdsourcing systems and the lack of knowledge about the motivational and behavioral effects of applying various types of gamification features in different crowdsourcing systems inhibit us from designing solutions that harness gamification’s full potential. Further, previous research canonically uses competitive gamification, although crowdsourcing systems often strive to produce cooperative outcomes. However, the potentially relevant field of cooperative gamification has to date barely been explored. With a specific focus on these shortcomings, this dissertation presents several studies to advance the understanding of using gamification in crowdsourcing systems

Methods, strategies and tools to improve citizens’ engagement in the smart cities’ context: A serious games classification

The United Nations Member States defined in 2015 the Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development, mainly composed of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). With the purpose of guaranteeing the economic growth, by tackling urgent calls in terms of climate change, poverty, sustainable consumption and production, in order to improve health and education and to reduce inequality, the SDGs have to be implemented in strategies, plans and daily actions. In particular, the SDG11-“Sustainable cities and communities”, is the one most related to urban development, with the aim to make cities and communities more safe, inclusive, resilient and sustainable. In sustainable or smart cities, the communities, the people’s needs and the user’s awareness are key issues. Recent literature contains several social elements in the urban planning field and recognizes the fundamental role fulfilled by human factors. Users are the focus in delivering new urban services and in achieving sustainability in the longer terms and therefore they are observed as key actors to attain real sustainability. Nowadays, this goal seems closer thanks to the use of new interactive technologies, that allows users to apply innovative learning methods as well as social research methods. Among the learning tools, the Serious Games represent a very promising medium to be adopted in this context. In fact, the aim of this paper is to analyse and discuss the main characters of the Serious Games, to understand the several possibilities and application fields where they can be applied, discovering their potentiality towards sustainability issues. This is possible because one of the most important features of the Serious Games is to make interesting and entertaining issues improving the knowledge of users’ actions. The Serious Games have multiple learning objectives and they can be applied in many areas for all targets of people, by representing a strategic hub to promote educational programs and involve the adoption of new lifestyles based on the idea of sustainable actions and behaviours