Enhancing Scientific publications with serious games Esther van der Drift & Koen Ekelschot Enhancing Scientific publications with serious games Esther

Problem statement How can we enhance scientific publications in the field of social sciences through the use of serious games? Core points Scientific publications Social sciences Serious games Esther

Motivation Traditional article Enriched publications / Rich Internet Publications / The article of the future Serious games? Esther

Motivation Serious games for educational purposes much more common these days No research on using serious games for scientific communication Serious games can be much more engaging and fun than multimedia applications. Esther

Motivation Why social sciences? Understandable for non-experts (less jargon than say, biology) Diverse (e.g. cultural anthropology, educational sciences, psychology and sociology) Experiments, communication concepts & theories Koen

Current state of research Defining serious games “A mental contest, played with a computer in accordance with specific rules that uses entertainment to further government or corporate training, education, health, public policy, and strategic communication objectives." Types of serious games: Knowledge-based: Code Red: Triage Skill-based: Re-mission Koen

Work hypothesis What kind of research is done in social sciences? Are there elements that can be mapped to serious games? Visualizing/performing the experiment ??? A few examples of how one could develop a game based on scientific research Koen

Hobbits and orcs problem Esther Jug problem

Research method Literature review Serious games Different types Effects on learning/understanding Game elements / indicators Conceptual, procedural, attitudinal Research in social sciences Cognitive theories Performing experiments Esther

Literature Games: Rollings, A. & Adams, E. (2003). On Game Design. Indianapolis: New Riders Stapleton, A. (2004) Serious Games: Serious Opportunities. Paper presented at the Australian Game Developers’ Conference, Academic Summit, Melbourne, VIC. Van der Spek, E.D., Wouters, P., & van Oostendorp, H. (2009). Code Red: Triage. Or, COgnition-Based DEsign Rules Enhancing Decisionmaking TRaining in a Game Environment. In Games and Virtual Worlds for Serious Applications, 2009(pp. 166-169). Coventry: IEEE. Zyda, M. (2005). From Visual Simulation to Virtual Reality to Games. Computer, 38(9), 25-32. Koen

Literature Social science: Anderson, J.R., (2000). Cognitive Psychology and Its Implications. New York: Worth Publishers. Huang, M.H., & Chang, Y.W. (2008). Characteristics of research output in social sciences and humanities: From a research evaluation perspective. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 59(11), 1819-1828. Loftus, E. F. (1996). Eyewitness testimony. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Loftus, E. F., & Pickerall, J. (1995). The formation of false memories. Psychiatric Annals, 25, 720-725. López, J., & Cáceres, M. (2010). Virtual games in social science education. Computers & Education, 55(3), 1336-1345. Koen

Planning 20-12: Types of research finished 30-12: Generalizing examples of games 10-01: Demo finished 15-01: Conclusions finished 17-01: Paper finished 24-01: Last refinements Koen