This document discusses integrating learning analytics into the game authoring tool uAdventure. It proposes mapping in-game actions and events to the Experience API (xAPI) standard to automatically capture player interaction data. This would simplify applying game learning analytics to provide formative and summative evaluation of games. The uAdventure analytics model describes how it automatically generates xAPI traces from player interactions like completing levels, interacting with characters or objects, and changing variables. This integrated approach provides benefits like free learning analytics support and ability to use generic analysis and visualization tools compatible with xAPI.

1. Integrating
learning analytics
into a game
authoring tool
Ivan J. Perez-Colado, Victor M. Perez-Colado, Manuel Freire-Moran,
Ivan Martinez-Ortiz, Baltasar Fernandez-Manjon
Dept. of Software Engineering and Artificial Intelligence, Facultad de Informática,
Universidad Complutense de Madrid Madrid, Spain
ICWL 2017: 16th International Conference on Web-based Learning

2. Introduction: Game learning analytics
● Game analytics (GA): collecting and analyzing videogame user interactions to
generate a better insight of the game experience
● Learning analytics (LA): analysis of user’s interactions with educational purposes
●Game learning analytics (GLA) = GA + LA → better evidence-based
use of the games in education
●GLA is a complex ad-hoc process specific for each game and
each analytics system.

3. GLA role in serious games lifecycle
● Game learning designers to validate their designs
● Provide formative and summative evaluation
ANALYTICS MODEL

4. Simplifying GLA in games
● Applying GLA would be greatly simplified by having built-in
support within the game authoring tools.
● Linking the game model with the analytics model and
automatically generating traces → Reduces costs
●We are providing integrated GLA support into uAdventure, our
game authoring tool.

5. xAPI Serious Games application profile
New standard interactions model
developed and implemented in
Experience API (xAPI) by UCM with ADL
(Ángel Serrano et al, 2017).
The model allows tracking of all
in-game interactions as xAPI traces
(e.g. level started or completed,
interactions with NPC or game items,
options selected, score increased)
https://www.adlnet.gov/serious-games-cop

6. Game Learning Analytics infrastructure
Game trackers
Cloud GLA server
infrastructure
Realising an Applied Gaming Eco-System

7. Systematization of Analytics Dashboards
As long as traces follow xAPI format, these analysis
and visualizations do not require further
configuration!
Also possible to extend with game-dependent
analysis and visualizations for specific games and
game characteristics.

8. An Analytics model for uAdventure
● uAdventure (uA) is a serious game authoring tool
○ built on top of the Unity game platform
●xAPI profile for SG is focused on:
○ Completables: level, quest, race...
○ Alternatives: menus, questions, path,
dialogue choices...
○ Meaningful Variables: score, health, or
game-dependant variables.
○ Custom Interactions: accessed into an area,
used an item, or interacted with a character.
Meaningful
Variables
Completables
Alternatives
Custom
Interactions

9. An Analytics model for uAdventure
●xAPI traces are composed of: Actor, Verb, Object and Result.
○ For example: “Dan has completed the level 1 winning in 2 minutes”
○ in xAPI for serious games:
{
"actor": { "name": "Dan" },
"verb": {
"id": "http://adlnet.gov/expapi/verbs/completed"
},
"object": {
"id": "1",
"definition": {
"type": "https://w3id.org/xapi/seriousgames/activity-types/level"
}
},
"timestamp": "2017-09-18T14:55:56.688Z",
"result": {
"success": true,
"extensions": {
"time": 120
}
}
}

10. Session Events
●Analytics servers need to identify players:
○ Logged players: Can be connected with an LMS
○ Pseudonymous players: Can continue a game in multiple sessions
○ Anonymous players
●Authentication and Authorization are provided by the GLA
server.
●uAdventure supports Login (For non-anonymous use), with an
small login form.

11. User Interaction Events
●Raw input events: mouse tracking, clicks and keyboard inputs
○ Can be grouped to extract meaning.
●Game progress or interaction with scene elements are much
more valuable
●Automatically uAdventure does:
○ Send “Interacted” SG-xAPI traces whenever a player interacts with an in-
game element.
○ Identifies: type of interaction (such as “examine” or “use”)

12. Scene and Cutscene changes
● Scenes: provide backdrops within which the player moves and interacts
with items and other characters.
● Automatically uAdventure does:
Send “Interacted” SG-xAPI traces whenever a player interacts with an in-game
element. And Identifies the type of interaction (such as “examine” or “use”)
● What uAdventure lets the user is to change what that scene is:

13. Meaningful Variables
The game state is represented by variables and flags.
● Therefore changes in variables can be relevant for the analysis.
However, xAPI is a action based standard.
✘ A change in a variable itself is not an action, but a consequence.
✓ The change is appended (as extension) to the corresponding origin action.
Puzzle = false Puzzle = true
/w
&
Puzzle = true

14. Alternatives
An alternative represent a selection or choose between different options in the game.
Mainly in uAdventure we can directly identify:
● Choices in Dialogs:
They can be manually marked as
correct or incorrect and have an ID.
● Exit selection in Scenes:
Scenes can be redefined
as an Alternative of exits.
✘ Not exiting = Incorrect
✓ Exiting = Correct
Different exits as choicesQuestion scene spec.
Different responses as choices

15. Completables
They might be finished at some point... Right?

16. Completables
A completable is a task to be solved in the game => It defines the game progress.
● Game, stages, missions, quests, minigames, etc. are examples of completables.
In uAdventure these concepts are embedded into the game story.
● A superstructure that groups the actions and milestones is supports the process of
identifying when this progress happens and what parts have been completed.
○ This is managed in the uAdventure Analytics tab for Completables
■ All the completables in a game define the general progress.
Start
End
Main
Progress
Completable progress popup
Variables
identify the
score
Milestone editor popup

17. The completable progress popup can be used to
associate a progress for each milestone that has been
completed inside of a completable.
Completables
The milestone editor popup
shows the author different
choices to identify the
condition that fires the
milestone and configurations.
If condition is chosen, game
variables can be used freely.
Also, completables can be completed in parallel or
even be repeated several times.

18. Mapping game events to SG-xAPI
● Complete summary of every trace uAdventure sends
● From game Events to xAPI traces
● Utility from LA point of view:
○ The closer to the interaction with game events
○ The lesser meaningful than the other ones connected to game progression

19. MappinggameeventstoSG-xAPI

20. Discussion and Conclusions
●Few serious games formally evaluated but we propose a new
evidence-driven model, mapping in-game actions to events.
●The uAdventure analytics model describes how player
interactions are automatically captured and transformed into
events that the GLA system can collect and analyze.
●uAdventure + GLA presents multiple benefits to game
developers
● Automatically integrate free support for LA, and can take
advantage of several generic analyses and visualizations in SG
xAPI-aware GLA platforms.

21. References
● M. Freire, Á. Serrano-Laguna, B. M. Iglesias, I. Martínez-Ortiz, P. Moreno-Ger, and B.
Fernández-Manjón, “Game Learning Analytics: Learning Analytics for Serious Games,” in
Learning, Design, and Technology, Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2016, pp. 1–29.
● I. Perez Colado, V. Perez Colado, I. Martínez-Ortiz, M. Freire, and B. Fernandez-Manjon,
“uAdventure: The eAdventure reboot - Combining the experience of commercial gaming tools and
tailored educational tools,” IEEE Glob. Eng. Educ. Conf., no. April, pp. 1754–1761, 2017.
● J. Torrente, A. del Blanco, E. J. Marchiori, P. Moreno-Ger, and B. Fernandez-Manjon, “<e-
Adventure>: Introducing educational games in the learning process,” in IEEE EDUCON 2010
Conference, 2010, pp. 1121–1126.
● A. Serrano-Laguna, I. Martinez-Ortiz, J. Haag, D. Regan, A. Johnson, and B. Fernandez-
Manjon, “Applying standards to systematize learning analytics in serious games,” Comput. Stand.
Interfaces, vol. 50, no. September, pp. 116–123, 2016.
● “xAPI - ADL Net @ www.adlnet.gov.” .
● Á. Serrano-laguna, J. Torrente, P. Moreno-ger, and B. Fernández-manjón, “Tracing a little for big
Improvements : Application of Learning Analytics and Videogames for Student Assessment,”
Procedia Comput. Sci., 2012.
● C. Alonso-Fernandez, A. Calvo, M. Freire, I. Martinez-Ortiz, and B. Fernandez-Manjon,
“Systematizing game learning analytics for serious games,” 2017 IEEE Glob. Eng. Educ. Conf.,
no. April, pp. 1106–1113, 2017.

22. Want to be involved in uAdventure?
check our Github repository
https://github.com/e-ucm/uadventure
Any questions?
- Mail: balta@fdi.ucm.es
- Twitter: @BaltaFM
- GScholar: https://scholar.google.es/citations?user=eNJxjcwAAAAJ&hl=en
- ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Baltasar_Fernandez-Manjon
- SlideShare: https://www.slideshare.net/BaltasarFernandezManjon
ICWL 2017