Developing a Serious Game to Explore Joint All Domain Command and Control

Changes in the geopolitical landscape and increasing technological complexity have prompted the U.S. Military to coin Multi-Domain Operations (MDO) and Joint All-Domain Command and Control as terms to describe an over-arching strategy that frames the complexity of warfare across both traditional and emerging warfighting domains. Teaching new and advanced concepts associated with these terms requires both innovation as well as distinct education and training tools in order to realize the cultural change advocated by senior military leaders. BSN, a Collectible Card Game, was developed to teach concepts integral to MDO and initiate discussion on military strategy

A sweetspot for innovation:developing games with purpose through student-staff collaboration

Within industry as well as academia, developing games that have wider impact on society has been of particular interest in the last decade. The increasing use of terms such as ‘games with purpose’, ‘serious games’ and gamification’ has been mirrored in a flurry of activity in games research. Broader applications of games beyond entertainment are now well-understood and accepted, with universities and companies excelling in creating games to serve particular needs. However, it is not explicitly clear how undergraduates of game design and development courses can be directly involved in serious game creation. With most undergraduates inspired by commercial games development, and the games industry requiring that universities teach specific technical skills in their courses, balancing the research aspirations of academics with the educational requirements of an appropriate undergraduate course can be a difficult balancing act. In this paper, the authors present three case studies of games with purpose developed through collaboration between undergraduate students and academic staff. In all cases, the educational value of the projects for the students is considered in relation to the research value for the academics, who face increasing demands to develop research outcomes despite a necessity to provide a first-rate learning experience and nurture future game developers

A Framework for Structuring Learning Assessment in a Massively Multiplayer Online Educational Game: Experiment Centered Design

Educational games offer an opportunity to engage and inspire students to take interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematical (STEM) subjects. Unobtrusive learning assessment techniques coupled with machine learning algorithms can be utilized to record students' in-game actions and formulate a model of the students' knowledge without interrupting the students' play. This paper introduces “Experiment Centered Assessment Design” (XCD), a framework for structuring a learning assessment feedback loop. XCD builds on the “Evidence Centered Assessment Design” (ECD) approach, which uses tasks to elicit evidence about students and their learning. XCD defines every task as an experiment in the scientific method, where an experiment maps a test of factors to observable outcomes. This XCD framework was applied to prototype quests in a massively multiplayer online (MMO) educational game. Future work would build upon the XCD framework and use machine learning techniques to provide feedback to students, teachers, and researchers

Exploring a Curriculum-Embedded, Constructivist-Inspired, Augmented Reality Game Within an Early Elementary Social Studies Curriculum and Its Influence on Student Experiences, Learning Outcomes, and Teacher Instructional Practices

Game-based learning has entered the mainstream, yet little research has examined its influence within an early elementary setting, in the subject of history, or within the context of entire curricular unit. This dissertation examines two years\u27 worth of data during which an augmented reality, geolocated mobile game was embedded within a second-grade history unit. Using a designed-based research approach, I designed and implemented this digital game using the ARIS platform and then examined impacts upon student experiences, student learning within and beyond the intended curriculum, and on teachers’ decision-making and planning. Over the course of the two years, 58 students and 3 teachers participated.Analysis indicates that early elementary students can experience flow and a magic circle while playing a constructivist-influenced game. While indicators of curriculum specified learning are inconclusive, data suggest that there may be a game-effect for learning beyond the curriculum, greater retention for some students, and a greater level of enthusiasm and sense of ownership of historical content. Findings also suggest teachers’ perceptions of curriculum-embedded games evolved over two years from that of being an ‘add-on’ to being a catalyst for learning. Their role shifted from that of direct instructor to that of facilitator, thus influencing their instructional decision-making. Implications for research, game-design, and teaching are provided

Her Story: Accidental Library Instruction

Game-based learning is a relatively new pedagogical method that typically targets students of the current and upcoming generations. Librarians have gradually begun experimenting with gamifying elements of library and research skills instruction to varying degrees of success. While some case studies and theoretical analyses are available currently, more published data will be necessary to evaluate and direct the development of game-based library instruction in the coming years. This paper explores attempts to use game-based learning techniques in library instruction courses and sessions, specifically highlighting Project Velius (developed by the University of Alabama Libraries) and its similarities to the commercially successful game Her Story, which was created for purely entertainment purposes but manages to present as an effective library instruction tool nonetheless. This examination suggests that academic libraries may be more capable in this arena than commonly believed, and the author ultimately recommends that academic libraries further embrace this pedagogical trend

THE QUEST GAME-FRAME: BALANCING SERIOUS GAMES FOR INVESTIGATING PRIVACY DECISIONS

Digitalisation permeates all areas of social life. The use of digital games in research settings to analyse social phenomena is thereby no exception. However, games that can successfully achieve research ob- jectives and at the same time create an engaging experience require thoughtful balancing. When inves- tigating decision-making, for example, asking players directly about their reasoning in the game is breaking the game flow and prone to distorting influences from the game experience. This paper presents the design science (DS) process of a quest-based game-frame (QGF) oriented on the investigation of privacy decision-making. The design-empirical cycle of the QGF is outlined and applied to design two privacy decision scenarios for investigating reflection tendencies. The conducted binational experiment reflects the behaviour of 78 educators, university students and high-school students from Austria and Norway in online ordering security and fake news sharing while monitoring the game flow. Results demonstrate the potential of the QGF for unobtrusively investigating privacy decisions while maintaining high fluency of performance. Significant differences between educators and high-school students are found in time spent for reflection before making online security decisions. Additionally, Norwegian high-school students show a low awareness when deciding on real/fake news sharing

Five Lenses on Team Tutor Challenges: A Multidisciplinary Approach

This chapter describes five disciplinary domains of research or lenses that contribute to the design of a team tutor. We focus on four significant challenges in developing Intelligent Team Tutoring Systems (ITTSs), and explore how the five lenses can offer guidance for these challenges. The four challenges arise in the design of team member interactions, performance metrics and skill development, feedback, and tutor authoring. The five lenses or research domains that we apply to these four challenges are Tutor Engineering, Learning Sciences, Science of Teams, Data Analyst, and Human–Computer Interaction. This matrix of applications from each perspective offers a framework to guide designers in creating ITTSs