Digital anthropology and educational eGames: learning through behavioural patterns in digital, game-based contexts

The selected publications are focused on the relations between users, eGames and the educational context, and how they interact together, so that both learning and user performance are improved through feedback provision. A key part of this analysis is the identification of behavioural, anthropological patterns, so that users can be clustered based on their actions, and the steps taken in the system (e.g. social network, online community, or virtual campus). In doing so, we can analyse large data sets of information made by a broad user sample,which will provide more accurate statistical reports and readings. Furthermore, this research is focused on how users can be clustered based on individual and group behaviour, so that a personalized support through feedback is provided, and the personal learning process is improved as well as the group interaction. We take inputs from every person and from the group they belong to, cluster the contributions, find behavioural patterns and provide personalized feedback to the individual and the group, based on personal and group findings. And we do all this in the context of educational games integrated in learning communities and learning management systems. To carry out this research we design a set of research questions along the 10-year published work presented in this thesis. We ask if the users can be clustered together based on the inputs provided by them and their groups; if and how these data are useful to improve the learner performance and the group interaction; if and how feedback becomes a useful tool for such pedagogical goal; if and how eGames become a powerful context to deploy the pedagogical methodology and the various research methods and activities that make use of that feedback to encourage learning and interaction; if and how a game design and a learning design must be defined and implemented to achieve these objectives, and to facilitate the productive authoring and integration of eGames in pedagogical contexts and frameworks. We conclude that educational games are a resourceful tool to provide a user experience towards a better personalized learning performance and an enhance group interaction along the way. To do so, eGames, while integrated in an educational context, must follow a specific set of user and technical requirements, so that the playful context supports the pedagogical model underneath. We also conclude that, while playing, users can be clustered based on their personal behaviour and interaction with others, thanks to the pattern identification. Based on this information, a set of recommendations are provided Digital Anthropology and educational eGames 6 /216 to the user and the group in the form of personalized feedback, timely managed for an optimum impact on learning performance and group interaction level. In this research, Digital Anthropology is introduced as a concept at a late stage to provide a backbone across various academic fields including: Social Science, Cognitive Science, Behavioural Science, Educational games and, of course, Technology-enhance learning. Although just recently described as an evolution of traditional anthropology, this approach to digital behaviour and social structure facilitates the understanding amongst fields and a comprehensive view towards a combined approach. This research takes forward the already existing work and published research onusers and eGames for learning, and turns the focus onto the next step — the clustering of users based on their behaviour and offering proper, personalized feedback to the user based on that clustering, rather than just on isolated inputs from every user. Indeed, this pattern recognition in the described context of eGames in educational contexts, and towards the presented aim of personalized counselling to the user and the group through feedback, is something that has not been accomplished before.

Metropolitan Governance and Institutional Design: Transportation in the Jakarta Metropolitan Region

In the Jakarta Metropolitan Region (JMR), the lack of co-ordination and appropriate governance has resulted in paralyzing traffic jams at the metropolitan scale that cannot be resolved by a single government entity. The issue of metropolitan governance is especially crucial here as the JMR lacks an established and formally pre-designed system of governance (e.g., in a constitution or other legal regulations). Instead, it relies on the interaction, coordination and cooperation of a multitude of different stakeholders, ranging from local and regional authorities to private entities and citizens. This chapter offers a discussion on the various governance approaches relating to an appropriate institutional design required for transportation issues at the metropolitan scale. The case used is a regional Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system as an extension to the metropolitan transport system. Institutional design analysis is applied to the case and three possible improvements - i) a ‘Megapolitan’ concept, ii) a regional spatial plan and iii) inter-local government cooperation; were identified that correspond to current debates on metropolitan governance approaches of regionalism, localism and new regionalism. The findings, which are relevant to similar metropolitan regions, suggest that i) improvements at the meso-level of institutional design are more readily accepted and effective than improvements at the macro-level and ii) that the appropriate institutional design for governing metropolitan transportation in the JMR requires enhanced coordination and cooperation amongst four important actors - local governments, the regional agency, the central government, and private companies.