Neverwinter Nights in Alberta: Conceptions of Narrativity through Fantasy Role-Playing Games in a Graduate Classroom

Computer role-playing games offer a unique opportunity to aid graduate-level analysis of hypermedia narratives. In this paper, we discuss the application of complex game authoring tools in HUCO-616: Multimedia in the Humanities, a graduate multimedia course in humanities computing (Huco) at the University of Alberta. Offered annually, this course is intended for students in the second year of their program. Much of the content for this article relates to experiences in the academic years 2003-05. The Huco program embraces a pedagogical imperative to marry theoretical and practical elements (Sinclair and Gouglas 2002; Gouglas, Sinclair, and Morrison, forthcoming). We believe that only those learners who have facility with a particular technology can effectively understand how that technology alters and informs interactions with source material. To paraphrase George Grant (1976), the computer does indeed impose on us the way it will be used; only through informed use can we understand this impact. For many students, the practical component of HUCO-616 was an unprecedented educational experience that required them to reflect on concepts of narrative and interactivity through active engagement with hypermedia environments and the creation of personal digital narratives (Exhibit 1). This approach contrasts common pedagogical practice in various social science and humanities programs where students are rarely asked to try their hands at creating the types of work they are being trained to study

Campus Mysteries: Serious Walking Around

The Campus Mysteries project developed an augmented reality game platform called fAR-Play and a learning game called Campus Mysteries with the platform. This paper reports on the development of the platform, the development of the game, and a assessment of the playability of the game. We conclude that augmented reality games are a viable model for learning and that the process of development is itself the site of learning

Produce and Protection: Covent Garden Market, the Socioeconomic Elite, and the Downtown Core in London, Ontario, 1843–1915

This article evaluates the historical significance of the farmers' market in London, Ontario, the centre-piece of the city's booster activity. The author uses a systematic analysis of mercantile credit reports, city directories, and assessment rolls, combined with anecdotal evidence from local newspapers, diaries, and council records. The paper argues that Covent Garden Market initiated and entrenched economic and social patterns of development that privileged a minority of the city's merchants. Capitalizing on their initial advantage of location, these merchants and councillors maintained their hold on the market's monopoly of place by rigorously enforcing and tightening market regulations, maintaining a constant police presence, and petitioning the town for a rigid enforcement of the market by-laws. The market enhanced the economic influence of this elite under the pretense of protecting the general populace from unscrupulous vendors. The market proved a social and economic arena, a centre of urban and rural relations, outside of which economic failure proved a real possibility.Le présent article évalue l’importance historique du marché public, pivot de l’activité en ébullition de la ville de London (Ontario). Pour ce faire, l’auteur fait une analyse systématique des rapports de solvabilité commerciale, des annuaires de la ville et des rôles d’évaluation. Cette analyse se base également sur des témoignages anecdotiques tirés des journaux locaux, de journaux personnels et des dossiers du conseil de ville. Le document soutient que le marché de Covent Garden a initié et implanté des modèles de développement économique et social qui privilégiaient une minorité de marchands de la ville. Tirant profit de l’avantage initial que leur procurait l’emplacement qu’ils occupaient au marché, ces marchands y ont conservé, grâce à l’aide de conseillers municipaux, le monopole de l’espace. À cette fin, ils ont fait rigoureusement appliquer et renforcer les règlements régissant le marché; ils ont également demandé à la ville d’assurer une constante présence policière au marché et d’appliquer systématiquement les arrêtés municipaux s’y rapportant. Prétextant qu’elle cherchait à protéger la population de vendeurs peu scrupuleux, cette élite s’est servie du marché pour accroître son influence économique. Le marché s’est avéré une scène sociale et économique, un centre de relations urbaines et rurales à l’extérieur duquel la faillite économique était une réelle menace

175 222 Cambridge University Press Cambridge, UK ;; New York

Insanity, institutions and society : the case of the Robben Island Lunatic Asylum, 1846-1910 / Harriet Deacon -- The confinement of the insane in Switzerland, 1900-1970 : Cery (Vaud) and Bel-Air (Geneva) asylums / Jacques Gasser and Genevi?ve Heller -- Family strategies and medical power : 'voluntary' committal in a Parisian asylum, 1876-1914 / Patricia E. Prestwich -- The confinement of the insane in Victorian Canada : the Hamilton and Toronto asylums, c. 1861-1891 / David Wright, James Moran and Sean Gouglas -- Passage to the asylum : the role of the police in committals of the insane in Victoria, Australia, 1848-1900 / Catharine Coleborne -- The Wittenauer Heilst?tten in Berlin : a case record study of psychiatric patients in Germany, 1919-1960 / Andrea D?rries and Thomas Beddies -- Curative asylum, custodial hospital : the South Carolina Lunatic Asylum and State Hospital, 1828-1920 / Peter McCandless -- The state, family, and the insane in Japan, 1900-1945 / Akihito Suzuki -- The limits of psychiatric reform in Argentina, 1890-1946 / Jonathan D. Ablard -- Becoming mad in revolutionary Mexico : mentally ill patients at the General Insane Asylum, Mexico, 1910-1930 / Cristina Rivera-Garza -- Psychiatry and confinement in India / Sanjeev Jain -- Confinement and colonialism in Nigeria / Jonathan Sadowsky -- 'Ireland's crowded madhouses' : the institutional confinement of the insane in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Ireland / Elizabeth Malcolm -- The administration of insanity in England 1800 to 1870 / Elaine Murphy

ABSTRACT Multidisciplinary Students And Instructors: A Second-Year Games Course

Computer games are a multi-billion dollar industry and have become an important part of our private and social lives. It is only natural, then, that the technology used to create games should become part of a computing science curriculum. However, game development is more than a massive programming endeavor. Today’s games are largely about generating content within multidisciplinary teams. CMPUT 250 is a new computing science course at the University of Alberta that emphasizes creating games in multidisciplinary teams. This paper describes our experiences with the course, emphasizing the issues of multidisciplinary interactions: teaching, teamwork, and evaluation

Before the Beginning: The Formation of Humanities Computing as a Discipline in Canada

In his book 'Humanities Computing', in a chapter fittingly titled "Discipline," Willard McCarty attempts to define the discipline of Humanities Computing by understanding what is happening within the discipline. According to McCarty it is through this understanding that "we may get to the disciplinary conditions from which specific methods arise as desire or need direct." This suggests that one way to understand the beginnings of a discipline are to look not at the founding people, but at the desires and needs articulated at the time. This paper will therefore look at how an agenda was set for humanities computing in English Canada around a particular moment of emergence, in this case the emergence of a scholarly society, the Ontario Consortium for Computing in the Humanities, which evolved into the national Consortium for Computers in the Humanities (COCH/COSH)

Assessing Serious Games: The GRAND Assessment Framework

The videogame industry is a considerable market: in 2012, the industry was worth over $86 billion USD and about seventy-two percent of American households play videogames. It is unsurprising, then, that commercial and educational developers and/or researchers have sought to capitalise on videogames. Games and simulation technologies have been used for educational purposes for thousands of years prior to the digital era (Gee 2007). Digital games, however, offer many new affordances including increased accessibility, reinforced automation (i.e., fair and consistent application of rules), embedded data-gathering for assessment, dynamic adaptation to student needs, the ability to simulate complex situations for student inquiry in a safe context, and reduced overall costs (Jin and Low 2011). However, it is difficult to assess the process of serious game development and effectiveness of educational play. Many serious games retrofit assessment late into the project, creating a gap between original intents and the game's current uses, limiting effectiveness of measuring and meeting the project's goals. As such, we propose an assessment framework that synthesises work from various fields (educational assessment, game design, usability, project management) that aims to guide researchers and game developers through a project from its inception to the end by presenting specific topics to address and questions to answer throughout the game design phase of the project. By building assessment into the game development from the get-go, original intents and a game's current uses can more closely align, allowing for stronger, purposeful games.   L’industrie du jeu vidéo est un marché appréciable. En 2012, elle dépassait 86 milliards de dollars US et environ soixante-douze pour cent des ménages américains jouent aux jeux vidéo. Il n’est pas surprenant alors que des concepteurs et des chercheurs de la sphère commerciale et éducationnelle ont cherché à tirer profit des jeux vidéo. Bien avant l’avènement de l’ère numérique, jeux et technologie de simulation étaient utilisés à des fins pédagogiques (Gee 2007). Le jeu vidéo offre toutefois de nouvelles affordances : accessibilité accrue, automatisation renforcée (c.-à-d. l’application juste et systématique des règles), collecte de données intégrée pour l’évaluation, adaptation dynamique aux besoins des élèves, possibilité de simuler des situations complexes pour l’expérience de recherche de l’élève dans un contexte sécuritaire et, finalement, réduction des coûts globaux (Jin and Low 2011). Il est toutefois difficile d’évaluer le processus de conception de jeux sérieux et l’efficacité du jeu éducationnel. De nombreux jeux sérieux intègrent l’évaluation tard dans le projet, créant un écart entre les intentions originelles et les utilisations actuelles du jeu, limitant ainsi l’efficacité à mesurer et respecter les objectifs du projet. À ce titre, nous proposons un cadre d’évaluation synthétisant les travaux dans divers domaines (évaluation pédagogique, conception de jeu, facilité d’utilisation, gestion de projet) qui guiderait chercheurs et concepteurs de jeux dans un projet, de son lancement à sa fin, en présentant des sujets précis à traiter et des questions à répondre pendant la phase conception du jeu du projet. L’incorporation dès le départ de l’évaluation dans la conception du jeu permettrait un meilleur alignement des intentions premières et des utilisations actuelles du jeu, permettant ainsi une expérience de jeux plus forte et plus significative