Reuse and repurposing are two of the most basic software concepts. They are powerful practices th... more Reuse and repurposing are two of the most basic software concepts. They are powerful practices that can deliver significant improvements in software productivity and quality, as well as substantially lower software development and maintenance costs. Unfortunately, few serious gaming research entities have been able to capitalize on the tremendous benefits that reuse and repurposing offer. The rapid growth of the serious game research community in the EU has set the stage for a large diversity in serious gaming scientific research in terms of the application domains (military, health, business, engineering), scientific disciplines (psychology, computer science, social science), and development solutions. It is often argued that the large growth has created a problematically fragmented serious gaming community. The fragmentation makes it difficult to maximize contributions and successes, avoid overlap, enable resource reuse, as well as harmonized development efforts through interopera...
Software ecosystems are defined as collections of organizations that are related through software... more Software ecosystems are defined as collections of organizations that are related through software or a software related concept. Within such ecosystems, reusability is fundamental to software sustainability and cost-efficiency. Design for reusability brings the technical promise of high quality software that emerges from clean design, fitness for a purpose and a low defect count. This ensures the software is extensible to cater for or modifiable for different pipelines, data and purposes. Functionally, it facilitates the transition from Serious Games (SG) software projects that have been known to consume endless resources, and deliver expensive products, to successful SG projects in terms of quality, costs and timeframe. From an educational perspective, efforts at national and international level aim to increase the accessibility of serious game development via reusable, open components repositories. To enable SG researchers, developers, and implementers adopt reusability, it is nec...
The challenge of delivering personalized learning experiences is amplified by the size of classro... more The challenge of delivering personalized learning experiences is amplified by the size of classrooms and of online learning communities. In turn, serious games are increasingly recognized for their potential to improve education, but a typical requirement from instructors is to gain insight into how the students are playing. When we bring games into the rapidly growing online learning communities, the challenges multiply and hinder the potential effectiveness of serious games. There is a need to deliver a comprehensive, flexible and intelligent learning framework that facilitates better understanding of learners' knowledge, effective assessment of their progress and continuous evaluation and optimization of the environments in which they learn. This paper aims to explore the potential in the use of games and learning analytics towards scaffolding and supporting teaching and learning experience. The conceptual model discussed aims to highlight key considerations that may advance the current state of learning analytics, adaptive learning and serious games, by leveraging serious games as an ideal medium for gathering data and performing adaptations. This opportunity has the potential to affect the design and deployment of education and training in the future.
Digital technologies have increased the pace of knowledge creation, sharing, and the way in which... more Digital technologies have increased the pace of knowledge creation, sharing, and the way in which learning is being undertaken. This chapter considers how Serious Games (SGs) as a digital technology endeavours to support effective lifelong learning. Three fundamental characteristics of the SG ecosystem, namely, game mechanics, interoperability, and assessment, are considered here as strategic elements that impact upon how SGs are to support learning, how they affect the learning environment, and ultimately, the SG development process. A prospective deconstruction of SGs into its pedagogical elements and its game mechanic nodes is presented to make aware the interoperability modus from which topical (domain) frameworks or architectures can be structured and assessed. To this end, the chapter explores the conceptual underpinnings through a case study on the eAdventure platform and argues that the key elements form the foundation for strategic development and implementation of SGs.
The challenge of delivering personalized learning experiences is often increased by the size of c... more The challenge of delivering personalized learning experiences is often increased by the size of classrooms and online learning communities. Serious Games (SGs) are increasingly recognized for their potential to improve education. However, the issues related to their development and their level of effectiveness can be seriously affected when brought too rapidly into growing online learning communities. Deeper insights into how the students are playing is needed to deliver a comprehensive and intelligent learning framework that facilitates better understanding of learners' knowledge, effective assessment of their progress and continuous evaluation and optimization of the environments in which they learn. This paper discusses current SOTA and aims to explore the potential in the use of games and learning analytics towards scaffolding and supporting teaching and learning experience. The conceptual model (ecosystem and architecture) discussed in this paper aims to highlight the key c...
Reuse and repurposing are two of the most basic software concepts. They are powerful practices th... more Reuse and repurposing are two of the most basic software concepts. They are powerful practices that can deliver significant improvements in software productivity and quality, as well as substantially lower software development and maintenance costs. Unfortunately, few serious gaming research entities have been able to capitalize on the tremendous benefits that reuse and repurposing offer. The rapid growth of the serious game research community in the EU has set the stage for a large diversity in serious gaming scientific research in terms of the application domains (military, health, business, engineering), scientific disciplines (psychology, computer science, social science), and development solutions. It is often argued that the large growth has created a problematically fragmented serious gaming community. The fragmentation makes it difficult to maximize contributions and successes, avoid overlap, enable resource reuse, as well as harmonized development efforts through interopera...
Software ecosystems are defined as collections of organizations that are related through software... more Software ecosystems are defined as collections of organizations that are related through software or a software related concept. Within such ecosystems, reusability is fundamental to software sustainability and cost-efficiency. Design for reusability brings the technical promise of high quality software that emerges from clean design, fitness for a purpose and a low defect count. This ensures the software is extensible to cater for or modifiable for different pipelines, data and purposes. Functionally, it facilitates the transition from Serious Games (SG) software projects that have been known to consume endless resources, and deliver expensive products, to successful SG projects in terms of quality, costs and timeframe. From an educational perspective, efforts at national and international level aim to increase the accessibility of serious game development via reusable, open components repositories. To enable SG researchers, developers, and implementers adopt reusability, it is nec...
The challenge of delivering personalized learning experiences is amplified by the size of classro... more The challenge of delivering personalized learning experiences is amplified by the size of classrooms and of online learning communities. In turn, serious games are increasingly recognized for their potential to improve education, but a typical requirement from instructors is to gain insight into how the students are playing. When we bring games into the rapidly growing online learning communities, the challenges multiply and hinder the potential effectiveness of serious games. There is a need to deliver a comprehensive, flexible and intelligent learning framework that facilitates better understanding of learners' knowledge, effective assessment of their progress and continuous evaluation and optimization of the environments in which they learn. This paper aims to explore the potential in the use of games and learning analytics towards scaffolding and supporting teaching and learning experience. The conceptual model discussed aims to highlight key considerations that may advance the current state of learning analytics, adaptive learning and serious games, by leveraging serious games as an ideal medium for gathering data and performing adaptations. This opportunity has the potential to affect the design and deployment of education and training in the future.
Digital technologies have increased the pace of knowledge creation, sharing, and the way in which... more Digital technologies have increased the pace of knowledge creation, sharing, and the way in which learning is being undertaken. This chapter considers how Serious Games (SGs) as a digital technology endeavours to support effective lifelong learning. Three fundamental characteristics of the SG ecosystem, namely, game mechanics, interoperability, and assessment, are considered here as strategic elements that impact upon how SGs are to support learning, how they affect the learning environment, and ultimately, the SG development process. A prospective deconstruction of SGs into its pedagogical elements and its game mechanic nodes is presented to make aware the interoperability modus from which topical (domain) frameworks or architectures can be structured and assessed. To this end, the chapter explores the conceptual underpinnings through a case study on the eAdventure platform and argues that the key elements form the foundation for strategic development and implementation of SGs.
The challenge of delivering personalized learning experiences is often increased by the size of c... more The challenge of delivering personalized learning experiences is often increased by the size of classrooms and online learning communities. Serious Games (SGs) are increasingly recognized for their potential to improve education. However, the issues related to their development and their level of effectiveness can be seriously affected when brought too rapidly into growing online learning communities. Deeper insights into how the students are playing is needed to deliver a comprehensive and intelligent learning framework that facilitates better understanding of learners' knowledge, effective assessment of their progress and continuous evaluation and optimization of the environments in which they learn. This paper discusses current SOTA and aims to explore the potential in the use of games and learning analytics towards scaffolding and supporting teaching and learning experience. The conceptual model (ecosystem and architecture) discussed in this paper aims to highlight the key c...
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