A Qualitative Analysis of Online Gaming:

The popularity of Massively Multi-Player Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs) has risen dramatically over the last decade. Some gamers spend many hours a day in these virtual environments interacting with others gamers, completing quests, and forming social groups. The present study set out to explore the experiences and feelings of online gamers. The study comprised 71 interviews with online gamers (52 males and 19 females) from 11 different countries. Many themes emerged from the analyses of the interview transcripts including (i) relationship with social networking, (ii) social interaction, (iii) the community, (iv) learning real-life skills, (v) reinforcement schedules and operant conditioning, (vi) game design and content, (vii) escaping from real life, (viii) playing longer than intended, and (ix) gamers’ obligations towards others in online worlds. These findings specifically showed the social networking capabilities of online gaming, the community aspects and the psychological mechanisms within MMORPGs that can lead to excessive online gaming. The implications of these findings are discussed in relation to previous qualitative and quantitative research in the area

PARP Goes Transcription

AbstractPARP-1, an enzyme that catalyzes the attachment of ADP ribose units to target proteins, plays at least two important roles in transcription regulation. First, PARP-1 modifies histones and creates an anionic poly(ADPribose) matrix that binds histones, thereby promoting the decondensation of higher-order chromatin structures. Second, PARP-1 acts as a component of enhancer/promoter regulatory complexes. Recent studies have shown that both of these activities are critical for gene regulation in vivo

Student Experiences with Mobile Electronic Updates from a Virtual Learning Environment

This paper describes the development of two mobile applications to disseminate course and module information to university students by sending notifications and electronic updates to their mobile devices. The two mobile applications are based on RSS and Twitter and provide notifications to users which are similar in format and transmission mode to these Web 2.0 entities. The aim of this study is to understand the potential benefits of using the mobile applications as assistive technologies to the existing virtual learning environment. The study uses the ARCS model of motivational design and instruction theory (attention, relevance, confidence, satisfaction) as a tool to enhance students’ experience and their subject engagement. User feedback revealed that although users were given flexibility with regards to temporal updates, they preferred temporal updates at specific times and not in real time. A lack of wireless access in some areas commonly used by students proved a further limitation