Gamification of assembly planning in virtual environment

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to study the effect of the gamification of virtual assembly planning on the user performance, user experience and engagement. / Design/methodology/approach: A multi-touch table was used to manipulate virtual parts and gamification features were integrated into the virtual assembly environment. An experiment was conducted in two conditions: a gamified and a non-gamified virtual environment. Subjects had to assemble a virtual pump. The user performance was evaluated in terms of the number of errors, the feasibility of the generated assembly sequence and the user feedback. / Findings: The gamification reduced the number of errors and increased the score representing the number of right decisions. The results of the subjective and objective analysis showed that the number of errors decreased with engagement in the gamified assembly. The increase in the overall user experience reduced the number of errors. The subjective evaluation showed a significant difference between the gamified and the non-gamified assembly in terms of the level of engagement, the learning usability and the overall experience. / Research limitations/implications: The effective learning retention after training has not been tested, and longitudinal studies are necessary. The effect of the used gamification elements has been evaluated as a whole; further work could isolate the most beneficial features and add other elements that might be more beneficial for learning. / Originality/value: The research reported in this paper provides valuable insights into the gamification of virtual assembly using a low-cost multi-touch interface. The results are promising for training operators to assemble a product at the design stage

Realising virtual trading : what price virtual reality?

Computerisation is about to overtake markets that traditionally depended on physical presence to bring buyers and sellers together in one place. Providing appropriate interfaces for trading environments is a challenging task. In the context of financial trading, the behaviour of different trading parties (investors, brokers and dealers), trading signals, economic and financial indicators, and trading systems, constitutes a complex environment which is difficult to capture in a mathematical model, a computer simulation, or a textual description. This paper discusses the prospects for developing new environments for Virtual Trading that combine VR modelling with a new approach to computer-based modelling that has been developed at the University of Warwick [1]

Service software engineering for innovative infrastructure for global financial services

The recent financial crisis motivates our re-thinking of the engineering principles for service software and infrastructures intended to create business value in vital sectors. Existing monolithic, inwarddirected, cost insensitive and highly regulated technical and organizational infrastructures for financial services make it difficult for the domain to benefit from opportunities offered by new computing models such as cloud computing, software as a service, hardware as a service, and utility computing. The scale and global impact of the recent financial and economic crisis justify our domain focus to explore, from a service software engineering perspective, potential for increased uptake of "software as a service" in financial services as well as extrapolating our results to services in other vital domains. We describe in this paper an on going research agenda to develop service software engineering (SSE) for Innovative Global Infrastructure for Financial Services. We propose novel service software engineering involving a coherent blend of domain knowledge, policy modelling, social, cultural, and global factors with converged IT, telecom and media. Parts of this paper are based on an European Union Framework Program FP7 ICT call 5 proposal addressing challenge 1- Objective 1.2 - Service/Software Engineering methods and tools

Big earth data: a comprehensive analysis of visualization analytics issues

Big Earth Data analysis is a complex task requiring the integration of many skills and technologies. This paper provides a comprehensive review of the technology and terminology within the Big Earth Data problem space and presents examples of state-of-the-art projects in each major branch of Big Earth Data research. Current issues within Big Earth Data research are highlighted and potential future solutions identified.N/