Serious Games for First Responders

In this chapter, serious games for fire and rescue services and medical personnel are investigated. Command training and joint training are considered for the value it can provide in all first responder services learning to work together

Designing a user interface for serious games: Observing differences in user response between gamers and non-gamers within the West Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service

As entertainment games become an established part of our media, public and private sector companies will look to utilise the benefits of games to train, educate and assess their workforce in engaging ways. This may require a generation unfamiliar with games technology to use them for the first time. As designers we need to consider this, to make sure that the User Interfaces (UI) we create are usable and easily understood to those unfamiliar with the medium. This body of research is a study into the design and testing of a serious game for West Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service (WYFRS). Do players of video games develop an understanding of the convention, knowledge and skills over time, which could be seen as a distinct language? – A kind of ‘game literacy.’ If so, then a serious game, which may have a mixed skill group, cannot solely rely on the conventions that work in entertainment games. Therefore, can a recognised UI design process from another discipline be used to develop a serious games UI? To investigate this, Goal-Directed Design is used as a research methodology with a particular focus on the impact learning domain knowledge has on the designer’s ability to create a suitable product for the client. This includes the author undergoing introductory Incident Command training to see the benefits that had on the project. In response to learning the Fire Service’s domain, a prototype product was developed to help the creation and examination of Incident Commanders for the Fire Service. This was then tested on five Fire Officers, of varying ages, to observe how they used and interacted with software unfamiliar to them. This provided an insight into aspects of UIs gamers and non-gamers have problems with and also to see if there is a technological gap between generations. This research suggests there may be a technology generation gap but it is not as polarised as either ‘native’ or ‘immigrant’ but more gradual. Goal Directed Design appears to set out a suitable approach for serious games developers to conduct user research

Large emergency-response exercises: qualitative characteristics - a survey

Exercises, drills, or simulations are widely used, by governments, agencies and commercial organizations, to simulate serious incidents and train staff how to respond to them. International cooperation has led to increasingly large-scale exercises, often involving hundreds or even thousands of participants in many locations. The difference between ‘large’ and ‘small’ exercises is more than one of size: (a) Large exercises are more ‘experiential’ and more likely to undermine any model of reality that single organizations may create; (b) they create a ‘play space’ in which organizations and individuals act out their own needs and identifications, and a ritual with strong social implications; (c) group-analytic psychotherapy suggests that the emotions aroused in a large group may be stronger and more difficult to control. Feelings are an unacknowledged major factor in the success or failure of exercises; (d) successful large exercises help improve the nature of trust between individuals and the organizations they represent, changing it from a situational trust to a personal trust; (e) it is more difficult to learn from large exercises or to apply the lessons identified; (f) however, large exercises can help develop organizations and individuals. Exercises (and simulation in general) need to be approached from a broader multidisciplinary direction if their full potential is to be realized

Spartan Daily, February 26, 2003

Volume 120, Issue 24https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/spartandaily/9820/thumbnail.jp

The next step after Japan? (Virtual reality, training and crisis management). Transatlantic Security Paper No. 2, June 2012

The recent crisis in Japan, which combined tsunami and technological events, shows that any crisis, especially those in developed and developing countries, is from here out a hybrid crisis, mixing natural factors and human/technological (NATECH). Faced with such dramatic events, which exceed any means available for emergency rescue service, it is necessary a) to remain prudent and b) to prepare. One of the means for preparing is unquestionably training. However, here, undoubtedly there are important constraints: How to train, for example, while reproducing vividly and realistically, an event? How to exceed the admittedly useful, although very limited, level of the table-top exercise? How also to avoid the unnecessary mobilization of dozens, even hundreds, of field and operation staffers to take part in an exercise which could lead to a disappointing outcome? A major crisis, a major exercise, in effect. The solution of virtual reality has emerged, in Europe and in the United States. It is also sometimes called “serious game”

The Role of Virtual Simulation in Incident Commander Education – A field study

The use of Virtual Simulation (VS) for emergency management and Incident Commander (IC) training and assessment has spread during the last decade. In VS, ICs act in computer-simulated 3D incident scenarios, e.g. fire incidents, road traffic collisions etc. Even though VS provides several benefits, there is a history of hesitation to implement and apply it in emergency education. This paper presents the results of a field study performed during the VS training in four classes of IC-students (90 students). The research focus was on the IC students` attitudes and experiences of VS training. Data were collected through observations and post-training questionnaires. The results show that students are predominantly positive towards virtual simulation. 72% of the IC-students state that they experienced presence to the same extent as in live simulation settings, where they experience high presence. Earlier, photorealism was considered to be necessary to provide virtual learning places with high experiences. According to this study, this is not equally important on a general base. The results argue for the benefits of using VS in IC training, even if there are challenges with the implementation. Furthermore, it contributes to a better understanding of user experiences and realism in VS training compared to live simulation

Applying affective design patterns in VR firefighter training simulator

We present a prototype of virtual reality training simulator for firefighters. Our approach is based on the concept of Affective Patterns in Serious Games. One of the most serious problems when it comes to training firefighters is to maintain the right level of their commitment. The idea to solve the problem of repetitive and monotonous exercises is to combine them with those implemented in VR. While creating the solution for optimizing a psychological background of knowledge acquisition in training, we used concepts from the Motivational Intensity Theory

The Cowl - v.78 - n.11 - Nov 21, 2013

The Cowl - student newspaper of Providence College. Volume 78 - No. 11 - November 21, 2013. 24 pages

The Cowl - v. 70 - n. n/a - Sept 15, 2005 70th Anniversary Edition

The Cowl - student newspaper of Providence College. Volume 70 - Number n/a - September 15, 2005 70th Anniversary Edition. 8 pages

The Santa Clara, 2018-01-11

https://scholarcommons.scu.edu/tsc/1057/thumbnail.jp