Sara de Freitas's talk from ISDT11.

1. the ‘gamification’ of life

2. summary: gamification of life
four strands of consideration:
 grand challenges of society. key grand challenges of modern societies e.g.:
(a) population growth is leading to greater pressures on our environments
(climate change, restricted resources, education systems, energy sources) (b)
globalisation is leading to more interconnected and complex social structures
(self-organised criticality) > futurICT
 open innovation, crowd sourcing and the „rise of the community‟
 the role of ‘gamification’ in social (behavioural) change and awareness
raising. games/vws as cultural forms, games/vws processes (to be mapped
against human behaviour), motivation, engagement, social interactivity,
games/vws as interface/wrapper for other technologies. social and the
immersive
 examples demonstrating how virtual environments and social collaboration
are changing much about how we live, learn and work. will the future of
society move more towards social networked virtual communities? does virtual
world technology open up new solutions for old problems?
move towards more complex structures and socially driven innovation and
technology development

3. 1: grand challenges of society: e.g. population and
city growth, climate change leading to complexity
and data explosion challenges

4. challenges humanity is facing in the 21st century
(copyright: dirk helbing)
Lee C. Bollinger, president of Columbia University,
formulated the issue as follows: “The forces affecting
societies around the world ... are powerful and novel.
The spread of global market systems ... are ...
reshaping our world ..., raising profound questions.
These questions call for the kinds of analyses and
understandings that academic institutions are
uniquely capable of providing. Too many policy
failures are fundamentally failures of knowledge.”
1. Financial and economic crisis
2. Debts and inflation
3. Stability of the European Union
4. Political revolutions, war
5. Critical infrastructure risks
6. Environmental change
7. Epidemics (SARS, H1N1 pandemic)
8. Migration and integration
9. Extremism, terrorism
10. Corruption, organized crime

5. The Knowledge Accelerator
Creating a Living Earth Platform for a Sustainable Future
 FuturICT will build a Living Earth Platform for a
global-scale simulation of our techno-socio-
We have explored the universe, and economic-environmental system and more
have sent men to the moon. It turns
out, however, that our current  This will integrate Crisis Observatories running
massive data mining for the advance detection
knowledge of society is too limited of possible crises:
to efficiently tackle the global  financial market instabilities
challenges of humanity in the 21st  emerging conflicts
century. Thus, it’s time to pay  health risks and disease spreading
 environmental changes, etc.
attention to our Earth and create
an ICT Flagship to explore social  Participatory Platforms will inform decision-
life and everything it relates to. makers and involve citizens
Dirk Helbing
 The Innovation Accelerator will speed up
research, development, and the creation of new
>300 scientists from all over business opportunities.
the World  The focus on Managing Complexity will develop
integrative system designs and new decision-
making and governance tools.

6. predicting the sequence of possible impacts of earthquakes

7. Data Models Forecasts
demographic
infection
data contact
network
models
+ =
transport
data multi-
scale
geographic models
data
...complexity...
agent-
based
models
scenario
analysis predictions
Validation
priorities policies copyright Alex Vespignani and
FuturICT

8. 2: models of innovation and diffusion:
current trends and gala

9. towards open innovation? Linear
models, actor
network
theory, social
shaping of
technology
User
innovation,
open
innovation
models of innovation (linear model, actor network theory, social
shaping of technology) to open innovation (Chesborough) and user
innovation

10. rodgers innovation diffusion curve

12. innovation diffusion
design
theory stakeholder
engagement
LEARNING INSTRUCTION ASSESSMENT
Learning
objectives
GAME ELEMENTS:
Context User learning
GAME ELEMENTS:
Learner Specifics
participatory
design approaches
Clear player
goals
Instructional
User engagement User behavior
design
Debriefing
technology
GAME ELEMENTS: Player feedback GAME ELEMENTS:
Representation Pedagogy
Learning content System feedback
transfer
application areas
interactivity
feedback
adaptivity bcis/eegs
models and
frameworks 2006-2011 innovation diffusion model for gala

13. 3: gamification: a vehicle for social
change? the social and the immersive

14. gamification trends
beginning of 2010 the games industry posted total sales of $1.17 billion for the
month of january
value of sg in 2008 was between $ 1 - 2 billion, recent reports circulating in us and
europe are talking about $ 9 -11 billion
international software federation of europe (isfe, 2010):
74% of those aged 16-19 considered themselves gamers (n=3000), 60% of those 20-
24, 56% 25-29 and 38% 30-44.
32% of the total uk population consider themselves gamers (n=3000). 31% of females
described themselves as gamers and 34% of males.
several studies demonstrating the efficacy of serious games for training in particular
through behavioural change (sg-ets, hope lab’s re:mission, pulse project)
wide uptake of social software (e.g. facebook, wikipedia), crowdsourcing
learning in multimodal ways: mixed reality, augmented reality, mobile learning,
haptics (more flexible approaches)
converging technologies: mobile devices, ar devices, bci/eegs, sensor networks,
robotics, virtual world mashups, gps, geocoding, web technologies and services (soa)

15. the social...
remote sensing
Web2.0
Internet
crowd sourcing
second life
Satellites
gps
GPS prediction markets

17. more complex social structures emerging...

19. copyright Milos Kravcik

20. towards open innovation? Linear
models, actor
network
theory, social
shaping of
technology
User
innovation,
open
innovation
models of innovation (linear model, actor network theory, social
shaping of technology) to open innovation (Chesborough) and user
innovation

21. and the
immersive…

22. serious games institute: a hybrid model
sgi: an agenda for applied
sgi: an agenda for applied
research..
research..

23. mapping our systems more closely
against human behaviour
design
theory neuro-psychology
approaches to
learning with
LEARNING INSTRUCTION ASSESSMENT
Learning
games
objectives
GAME ELEMENTS: GAME ELEMENTS:
Context User learning Learner Specifics
Clear player
goals
Instructional
User engagement User behavior
design
artificial
Debriefing
GAME ELEMENTS: Player feedback GAME ELEMENTS:
Representation Pedagogy
Learning content System feedback
intelligence and
life
multimodal
interfaces
interactivity semantic web,
standards and
feedback
metadata
adaptivity
models and
frameworks 2006-2011

25. projects & games at the serious games institute
meducator
alice
code of
everand
roma
nova
simaula mirror vtrade
gala
customer futurict
floodsim
modes
edugamelab
maseltov
sex
health
game

26. 4: examples of virtual environments and
serious games in learning and teaching

27. immersion and engagement: sg-ets
Yes No Male Female Male Female
100% 50 100
90% 45 90
% who prefer learning method
80% 40 80
% who play game type
70%
% Responses
35 70
60%
30 60
50%
25 50
40%
20 40
30%
15 30
20%
10% 10 20
0% 5 10
<30 30-39 40+ <30 30-39 40+
0 0
Action Adventure Arcade Education Fighting Puzzles Role play Simulation Sports Strategy Other Tutor Reading E-learning Video game Audio Workshop Internet Video Job Role-play
Males Females
Age (years) Games Type Learning method

28. triage trainer – preliminary trial results
triage trainer (tt) trial summary:
5 trials: september 2007 – january 2008
independently conducted by the university of
birmingham
trial participants:
91 uk nhs doctors, nurses & paramedics
all on alsg major incident medical management
and support (mimms) training courses
participants were randomly distributed:
tt game (n = 47)
non-game (n = 44)

29. triage trainer – preliminary trial results
tt game group:
15 minute tutorial in game play / user interface
60 minutes playing the tt game on their own
instructor available to answer questions
non-game group:
75 minute normal alsg instructor-led table top
exercise
involved sorting cards with vital signs variables
written on them into priority groups

30. triage trainer – (knight et al., 2010)
trial results of tt game trainees versus non-game trainees:
tagging accuracy of tt game trainees:
significantly higher accuracy [χ2 = 13.126, p<0.05]
step accuracy of tt game trainees. comparing the ratios of
participants who achieved an 8/8
accuracy rating (i.e. followed the correct protocol for all 8
casualties):
significantly more accurate (28%) than the non-game
group (7%) [χ2 = 7.29, p<0.05]
time taken by tt game trainees to complete triage of all 8
casualties:
no significant difference on time taken (p>0.05)

31. triage trainer – preliminary trial results
possible conclusions:
a ‘serious game’ such as the triage trainer offers the potential
to:
enhance learning; and
improve transfer of training
possible reasons are that the game offers:
opportunity to practice skills and knowledge gained on the
course in a more realistic and more engaging
environment
personalised feedback which enables the game player to
correct procedural errors made, through repeated play

32. research challenges
fragmented research and development communities (e.g. gala)
literature in different disciplinary areas (e.g. psychology, educational science,
computer science, neuro-science, law, medicine etc.)
vws a new area so lack of frameworks and metrics for effective learning
technical and cost issues preventing uptake
division between practice and theory
conservatism of education sector
new paradigm of learning emerging slowly – so hard to define for academics
and practitioners
need for academy and industry to work together
networks emerging but need for more defragmentation and interworking
establish methods and evaluation strategies
need for ethical considerations in different context

33. immersion and engagement: roma nova
vtrade

34. artificial intelligence and crowd modelling

35. multimodal integration

36. bcis and interface design: neuro-psychology approaches

37. awareness raising: climate health impact and floodsim
vtrade

38. behavioural change: code of everand and metycoon

39. can gamification solve world-scale
problems?

40. reflections
so does gamification offer a solution to the grand challenges?
 scalability of game environments to large global
communities
 adaptivity to user requirements
 closer modelling of user behaviour (feedback loop)
 behavioural change
 flow, feedback, visual and actual realism leading to
higher levels of immersion
 increased motivation and engagement
user innovation with games technologies (e.g. ai, haptics,
biofeedback, sensors networks etc) from convergence, mash
ups and user/community interaction

41. conclusions
so are applications of vw/games technologies really changing our
approaches to working, learning, social interactions and how we
consider experiences?
providing new tools for flow, feedback, visual and actual realism
leading to higher levels of immersion
great potential for the medium for supporting immersive
education through increased motivation and engagement
potential changes for e-assessment, recruitment and cpd (gbl
assessment, peer assessment, collaborative assessment,
competency analysis, skills development, monitoring
performance, mentoring)
move towards immersive learning experiences and design: with
increased motivation, immediate feedback and sophisticated user
models
need for serious games community to work with user communities
and educationalists to answer some of the key grand challenges

42. upcoming second wednesday events:
 playgen workshop in london, 12th october
 robotics workshop 9th november
upcoming conferences:
ieee vs-games conference in genoa, november 2012
virtual world conference, 14th september 2011
upcoming workshops:
emergency response and management training workshop,
17th november
any questions contact: prof. sara de freitas
s.defreitas@coventry.ac.uk

43. selected references
de Freitas, S., Jarvis, S. (2008). Towards a development approach for serious games. In T.M. Connolly, M.
Stansfield, & E. Boyle (Eds) Games-based learning advancements for multi-sensory human-computer interfaces:
Techniques and effective practices. IGI Global. Hershey, PA.
Jarvis, S., de Freitas, S. (2009). Evaluation of a Serious Game to support Triage Training: In-game Feedback and
its effect on Learning Transfer. Proceedings of 2009 Conference in Games and Virtual Worlds for Serious
Applications, IEEE.
Anderson, E.F., McLoughlin, L., Liarokapis, F., Peters, C., Petridis, P., de Freitas, S. Serious Games in Cultural
Heritage, 10th VAST International Symposium on Virtual Reality, Archaeology and Cultural Heritage (VAST '09),
VAST-STAR, Short and Project Proceedings, Eurographics, Malta, 22-25 September, 29-48, (2009).
de Freitas, S., Rebolledo-Mendez, G., Liarokapis, F., Magoulas, G., Poulovassilis A. (2010). Learning as immersive
experiences: using the four dimensional framework for designing and evaluating immersive learning experiences
in a virtual world. British Journal of Educational Technology
Knight, J., Carly, S., Tregunna, B., Jarvis, S., Smithies, R., de Freitas, S., Mackway-Jones, K. & Dunwell, I. (2010).
Serious gaming technology in major incident triage training: A pragmatic controlled trial. Resuscitation Journal
81(9): 1174-9
de Freitas, S. (2011) Game for Change. Nature, 470 (7334): 330-331.
Sharpe, R., Beetham, H. & de Freitas, S. (Eds) (2010) Rethinking Learning in the Digital Age, London & New York:
Routledge.
de Freitas, S. & Maharg, P. (Eds) (2011) Digital Games and Learning. London and New York: Continuum Press
de Freitas, S. & Maharg, P. (Series Eds) (2011-) Digital Games and Learning. London and New York: Routledge.