Structured reflection breaks embedded in an online course – effects on learning experience, time on task and performance

The purpose of this article is to gain an insight into the effects of practicing short, frequent,and structured reflection breaks interspersed with the learning material in a computer-based course. To that end, the study sets up a standardized control trial with two groups of secondary school pupils. The study shows that while performance is not affected by these embedded “reflection rituals,” they significantly impact time on task and perceived learning. The study also suggests that the exposure to such built-in opportunities for reflection modifies the engagement with the content and fosters the claimed readiness for application of a similar reflective approach to learning in other occasions.

Performance assessment in serious games: Compensating for the effects of randomness

This paper is about performance assessment in serious games. We conceive serious gaming as a process of player-lead decision taking. Starting from combinatorics and item-response theory we provide an analytical model that makes explicit to what extent observed player performances (decisions) are blurred by chance processes (guessing behaviors). We found large effects both theoretically and practically. In two existing serious games random guess scores were found to explain up to 41% of total scores. Monte Carlo simulation of random game play confirmed the substantial impact of randomness on performance. For valid performance assessments, be it in-game or post-game, the effects of randomness should be included to produce re-calibrated scores that can reasonably be interpreted as the players´ achievements.

Towards Real-time Speech Emotion Recognition for Affective E-Learning

The original article is available as an open access file on the Springer website in the following link: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10639-015-9388-2

Evaluation of Serious Games: A Holistic Approach

Digital games constitute a major emerging technology that is expected to enter mainstream educational use within a few years. The highly engaging and motivating character of such games bears great potential to support immersive, meaningful, and situated learning experiences. To seize this potential, meaningful quality and impact measurements are indispensible. Although there is a growing body of evidence on the efficacy of games for learning, evaluation is often poorly designed, incomplete, biased, if not entirely absent. Well-designed evaluations demonstrating the educational effect as well as the return on investment of serious games may foster broader adoption by educational institutions and training providers, and support the development of the serious game industry. The European project RAGE introduces a comprehensive and multi-perspective framework for serious game evaluation, which is presented in this paper.

Amplifying applied game development and uptake

The established (digital) leisure game industry is historically one dominated by large international hardware vendors (e.g. Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo), major publishers and supported by a complex network of development studios, distributors and retailers. New modes of digital distribution and development practice are challenging this business model and the leisure games industry landscape is one experiencing rapid change. The established (digital) leisure games industry, at least anecdotally, appears reluctant to participate actively in the applied games sector (Stewart et al., 2013). There are a number of potential explanations as to why this may indeed be the case including ; A concentration on large-scale consolidation of their (proprietary) platforms, content, entertainment brand and credibility which arguably could be weakened by association with the conflicting notion of purposefulness (in applied games) in market niches without clear business models or quantifiable returns on investment. In contrast, the applied games industry exhibits the characteristics of an emerging, immature industry namely: weak interconnectedness, limited knowledge exchange, an absence of harmonising standards, limited specialisations, limited division of labour and arguably insufficient evidence of the products efficacies (Stewart et al., 2013; Garcia Sanchez, 2013) and could, arguably, be characterised as a dysfunctional market. To test these assertions the Realising an Applied Gaming Ecosystem (RAGE) project will develop a number of self contained gaming assets to be actively employed in the creation of a number of applied games to be implemented and evaluated as regional pilots across a variety of European educational, training and vocational contexts. RAGE is a European Commission Horizon 2020 project with twenty (pan European) partners from industry, research and education with the aim of developing, transforming and enriching advanced technologies from the leisure games industry into self-contained gaming assets (i.e. solutions showing economic value potential) that could support a variety of stakeholders including teachers, students, and, significantly, game studios interested in developing applied games. RAGE will provide these assets together with a large quantity of high-quality knowledge resources through a self-sustainable Ecosystem, a social space that connects research, the gaming industries, intermediaries, education providers, policy makers and end-users in order to stimulate the development and application of applied games in educational, training and vocational contexts. The authors identify barriers (real and perceived) and opportunities facing stakeholders in engaging, exploring new emergent business models ,developing, establishing and sustaining an applied gaming eco system in Europe.

D9.1 - RAGE Dissemination Plan

This Dissemination Plan aims to guide and support the efforts of each and all RAGE partners in convincing Applied Games stakeholders to use the outputs of the Project. This is a live document as it will be periodically updated, enhanced and completed along the entire RAGE project lifecycle.

D10.1 - Quality Assurance Handbook

The purpose of this Quality Assurance Handbook (QAH) is to present and describe quality standards and procedures to be applied in the internal management and execution of the Research and Innovation Action 644187 RAGE (Realising and Applied Gaming Eco-system). This document is based on the terms and conditions established in the Grant Agreement (nº 644187) signed by the European Commission and the project coordinator, and its Annexes as well as the RAGE Consortium Agreement specifications and requirements

D10.2 - Research Data Management Plan, version 1.0

This document is the first out of three iterations of the DMP that will be formally delivered during the project. Version 2 is due in month 24 and version 3 towards the end of the project. The DMP thus is not a fixed document; it evolves and gains more precision and substance during the lifespan of the project. In this first version we describe the planned research data sets related to the RAGE evaluation and validation activities, and the fifteen principles that will guide data management in RAGE. The former are described in the format of the EU data management template, and the latter in terms of their guiding principle, how we propose to implement them, and when they will be implemented. This document is thus first of all relevant to WP5 and WP8 members.

What serious game studios want from ICT research: identifying developers’ needs

Although many scholars recognise the great potential of games for teaching and learning, the EU-based industry for such “serious” games” is highly fragmented and its growth figures remain well behind those of the leisure game market. Serious gaming has been designated as a priority area by the European Commission in its Horizon 2020 Framework Programme for Research and Innovation. The RAGE project, which is funded as part of the Horizon 2020 Programme, is a technology-driven research and innovation project that will make available a series of self-contained gaming software modules that support game studios in the development of serious games. As game studios are a critical factor in the uptake of serious games, the RAGE projects will base its work on their views and needs as to achieve maximum impact. This paper presents the results of a survey among European game studios about their development related needs and expectations. The survey is aimed at identifying a baseline reference for successfully supporting game studios with advanced ICTs for serious games.

RAGE Architecture for Reusable Serious Gaming Technology Components

For seizing the potential of serious games, the RAGE project - funded by the Horizon-2020 Programme of the European Commission - will make available an interoperable set of advanced technology components (software assets) that support game studios at serious game development. This paper describes the overall software architecture and design conditions that are needed for the easy integration and reuse of such software assets in existing game platforms. Based on the component-based software engineering paradigm the RAGE architecture takes into account the portability of assets to different operating systems, different programming languages and different game engines. It avoids dependencies on external software frameworks and minimizes code that may hinder integration with game engine code. Furthermore it relies on a limited set of standard software patterns and well-established coding practices. The RAGE architecture has been successfully validated by implementing and testing basic software assets in four major programming languages (C#, C++, Java and Typescript/JavaScript, respectively). A demonstrator implementation of asset integration with an existing game engine was created and validated. The presented RAGE architecture paves the way for large scale development and application of cross-engine reusable software assets for enhancing the quality and diversity of serious gaming.

D4.2 – Full Design Document

This deliverable outlines the design blueprints for the RAGE application scenario games and forms the rest of the scope for WP4’s tasks. The game designs have been developed in collaboration with application scenario partners in WP5, and informed by WP1, 2 & 3. Additionally peer-feedback has been provided by game developers across WP4. The designs outline the integration of the RAGE assets developed in WP2 and WP3. Each section provides in detail the game play descriptions, game dynamics and mechanics, pedagogies and technical implementation of the RAGE assets into the game applications as described in detailed in WP5’s application documents. The full description of the application objectives and associated learning outcomes has been provided in the project’s MS2 Application Scenario Outlines document.

RAGE Reusable Game Software Components and Their Integration into Serious Game Engines

This paper presents and validates a methodology for integrating reusable software components in diverse game engines. While conforming to the RAGE com-ponent-based architecture described elsewhere, the paper explains how the interac-tions and data exchange processes between a reusable software component and a game engine should be implemented for procuring seamless integration. To this end, a RAGE-compliant C# software component providing a difficulty adaptation routine was integrated with an exemplary strategic tile-based game “TileZero”. Implementa-tions in MonoGame, Unity and Xamarin, respectively, have demonstrated successful portability of the adaptation component. Also, portability across various delivery platforms (Windows desktop, iOS, Android, Windows Phone) was established. Thereby this study has established the validity of the RAGE architecture and its un-derlying interaction processes for the cross-platform and cross-game engine reuse of software components. The RAGE architecture thereby accommodates the large scale development and application of reusable software components for serious gaming.

De digitale revolutie

Maakt ICT ons nou knapper of juist dommer? In amper twintig jaar is het maatschappelijk leven voor een groot deel verplaatst naar de virtuele ruimte. Alles en iedereen wordt digitaal met elkaar verbonden. Wat is de invloed van al die nieuwe technologie op ons begrip van de wereld, op ons gedrag, op onze cultuur? Wat betekent het voor het onderwijs? Deze sessie bespreekt de rol van media voor onze cognitieve ontwikkeling. Daartoe worden de ervaringen met oude media zoals geschreven tekst, radio en TV gekoppeld aan de wereld van Twitter, Apple, Facebook en Google, en wordt de blik gericht op wat ons nog te wachten staat.

De Digitale Revolutie

Maakt ICT ons nou knapper of juist dommer? In amper twintig jaar is het maatschappelijk leven voor een groot deel verplaatst naar de virtuele ruimte. Alles en iedereen wordt digitaal met elkaar verbonden. Wat is de invloed van al die nieuwe technologie op ons begrip van de wereld, op ons gedrag, op onze cultuur? Wat betekent het voor het onderwijs? Deze sessie bespreekt de rol van media voor onze cognitieve ontwikkeling. Daartoe worden de ervaringen met oude media zoals geschreven tekst, radio en TV gekoppeld aan de wereld van Twitter, Apple, Facebook en Google, en wordt de blik gericht op wat ons nog te wachten staat.

Serious gaming: wondermiddel of luchtkasteel?

Games voor onderwijs en training worden een serieuze zaak. Marktprognoses melden een jaarlijkse groei van 18% tot een wereldwijd volume van meer dan 5 miljard Euro in 2020. Games bieden leerlingen een virtuele praktijk, waarin ze actief kunnen oefenen. Studietaken worden levensechte uitdagingen die tot indringende leerervaringen leiden. Dat schept nieuwe mogelijkheden juist in het MBO, waar praktische ervaring vaak belangrijker is dan theoretische kennis. Deze sessie geeft een snelle update over serious games. Diverse game-mechanismen worden besproken aan de hand van actuele voorbeelden.