Convergence of Gamification and Machine Learning: A Systematic Literature Review

Recent developments in human–computer interaction technologies raised the attention towards gamification techniques, that can be defined as using game elements in a non-gaming context. Furthermore, advancement in machine learning (ML) methods and its potential to enhance other technologies, resulted in the inception of a new era where ML and gamification are combined. This new direction thrilled us to conduct a systematic literature review in order to investigate the current literature in the field, to explore the convergence of these two technologies, highlighting their influence on one another, and the reported benefits and challenges. The results of the study reflect the various usage of this confluence, mainly in, learning and educational activities, personalizing gamification to the users, behavioral change efforts, adapting the gamification context and optimizing the gamification tasks. Adding to that, data collection for machine learning by gamification technology and teaching machine learning with the help of gamification were identified. Finally, we point out their benefits and challenges towards streamlining future research endeavors.publishedVersio

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

Gamification of telematics data to enhance operators’ behaviour for improvement of machine productivity in loading cycles

Construction industry is suffering from low productivity rate in various projects such as excavation. Although this issue is discussed in literature and several approaches are proposed to address it, productivity rate is still low in construction industry compared to other domains like manufacturing. Three core components directly affect the overall productivity in construction sector, i.e. labour productivity, raw material productivity, and machine or equipment productivity. With a focus on construction machinery, three factors influence productivity at excavation sites; i.e. 1) machine-based productivity and its configuration, 2) site layout and environmental conditions, and 3) operators’ behaviour. Operators’ competence and motivation represent two key parameters that affect their behaviour. On one side, gamification has attracted a growing area of interest both in literature and practice, seeking to place a layer of entertainment and pleasure to the top of serious activities (with a focus on improving the applicant’s motivation and behaviour). On the other side, telematics systems are utilized to collect operational data of the machine, and calculate its productivity rate. Telematics data are presented to operators (via a built-in screen available in the cabin of the machine) to provide real-time feedback about machine performance. In addition, these data can support machine owners to perceive operators’ behaviour on a real-time basis. To conclude, telematics systems are providing real-time data which can be a great input into gamification. A guideline is proposed in this dissertation that helps gamification designers to develop more transparent gamification models. This guideline is utilized to introduce a gamification model that gamifies telematics data with a focus on enhancing operators’ behaviour (machine productivity) in loading and transferring activities. The model was implemented at two sites(one recycling and one mining site) and could encourage operators (who were operating wheel-loaders and dump-trucks) to prevent redundant activities like texting, phoning, and even eating while operating the machine. Subsequently, it enhanced overall machine productivity up to 37% during the site observation. To summarize, a gamified platform in which different operators from different organizations can share their achievements, or can get scored and ranked in a leader-board will potentially lead to a more proper operators’ behaviour at work and subsequently can improve overall productivity rate at construction sites

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

Gamification of telematics data to enhance operators’ behaviour for improvement of machine productivity in loading cycles

Construction industry is suffering from low productivity rate in various projects such as excavation. Although this issue is discussed in literature and several approaches are proposed to address it, productivity rate is still low in construction industry compared to other domains like manufacturing. A gamified platform in which different operators from different organizations can share their achievements, or can get scored and ranked in a leader-board will potentially address this issue