The document proposes a gamification framework aimed at enhancing motivation in research activities at Nagoya University. It outlines a prototype system called 'research activity concierge,' which organizes, visualizes, and monitors research tasks while incorporating game design elements to improve student engagement. Future work includes verifying the framework's effectiveness through practical use and comparing activity levels with and without the system.

1. Proposed Framework for Gamifying
Research Activities
Shigeki Ohira† Saya Sugiura‡ Katashi Nagao‡
†Information Technology Center, Nagoya University
‡Graduate School of Information Science, Nagoya University
E-mail: ohira@nagoya-u.jp
10/7/2015 TEEM2015
Technological Ecosystems for Enhancing Multiculturality (TEEM’15)
Track 4. Gamification Ecosystems

2. In the TEEM2014
• We proposed Gamified Discussion System
• As future work, we raised the following tasks
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Today’s theme

3. Introduction
• Research activities
– Survey, seminar, experiment, writing paper, etc.
– Steady works
– Sometimes going well and other times not so well
– Often continue without immediate visible results
• For students in research laboratory
– Desirable to increase motivation naturally
• Best way is to enjoy research itself
– Difficult to maintain a high level of motivation
• Until research is on track and everyday tasks become more
interesting
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4. Purpose and Approach
• Establish comprehensive gamification framework
for general research activities
• Provide a research activity platform
– Carefully recording, organizing and visualizing activities
by attaching reciprocal relations
• Organizing issues and tasks arising in discussion
• Visualizing results when issues & tasks transition to real actions
• Introduce a gamification framework for activities
– Break down research into detailed activities
– Help maintain the cycle of research activity
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5. Study Assumptions
• Gamification is not a panacea for motivation
• What is important for primary research activities
– Discussion within research group
– Setting appropriate issues and tasks on students’ own
• Focus on discussion
– Clarify what must be done in everyday research activity
– Organize issues and tasks based on opinions and advice
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6. Gamification Framework for Research Activity
• Classify various actions in research activity
• Apply gamification to give appropriate feedback
for each action
• Define gamification framework
– Eight game design elements:
• Goals: Step-by-step goal setting
• Visualization: Show student’s changing status and progress
• Rules: Enable users in research laboratory to evaluate one another
• Design: Provide rewards for using system
• Social: Promote competition and cooperation among users
• Tutorial: Familiarize novices with how to use system
• Difficulty adjustment: Adjust degree of difficulty and complexity of goals
• Play cycle: Perpetuate cycle from goal setting, to action, to accomplishment

7. Research Activities and Actions
• Classify research activities into 11 main activities
– Gaining expertise (22)
– Deciding research themes (4)
– Implementation (6)
– Deciding evaluation methods (3)
– Experimentation (9)
– Project meetings (8)
– Seminar presentation (8)
– Discussion (6)
– Conference participation (8)
– Conference presentation (18)
– Writing papers (8)
• Subdivide activities into about 500 actions
– Simple and practicable
– Students gain a range of experience
• Prepare about 240 performance results
– Automatically-measured with existing systems
Divide each main activity
into several sub-activities
(numbers in parentheses)

8. Research Activity Map:
Activity Tree and Action-Result Graphs
Gaining expertiseConference presentation
Deciding
Research
themes
Implementation
Deciding
Evaluation
methods
Experimentation
Project meetings
Seminar presentation
Discussion
Conference participation
Writing papers

9. e.g.) Discussion (main activity)
Main activity
Sub-activities
Actions
Results
• [Discussion]→[Ask question at seminar]
– Actions: Ask <*> questions
– Results: Asked <*> questions,
Cumulative question number has topped <**> times
Discussion

10. e.g.) Programming
Actions
Results
Implementation
Main activity
Sub-activities
Programming
• [Gaining expertise],[Implementation]→[Programming]
– Actions: Write server/client program, Write I/O process of DB
– Results: Committed <*> times, Wrote <**> lines of code,
Cumulative total of code has topped <***> lines, …
Gaining expertise
(sub-activity of Gaining expertise
and Implementation)

11. Research Activity Concierge (prototype)
• Three basic tools
– Research Activity Organizer/Visualizer/Watchdog
• RAO
– Organizing issues and tasks
based on
seminar content
• RAV
– Visualizing research
activity based on
performance of
issues and tasks
• RAW
– Monitoring
information I/O
from RAO and RAV
– Give information feedback
Research Activity Concierge
RAO
Research Activity Map
Setting actions
Users
RAVRAW
External tools and systems
(proprietary and commercial software)
Research Activities
Contents
server Selecting
statements
Organizing statements
Seminar
contents
Storing data
Changing status
and visualization
Notifying stats and
recommendation
Collecting of
activity log
Running actions
Mutual
evaluation
User’s process
System process
Check
progress

12. RAO: Research Activity Organizer
• Step 1) Select statements in Discussion Browser
• Step 2) Organize statements using RAO
– Create notes for various research activities
– Record detailed information in memos
– Quote statements and linking to memos
– Attach status attribute and tags to created memos
• “Task”, “In-progress”, “Completed”
Discussion Browser
RAO

13. RAV: Research Activity Visualizer
• Use external tools and systems
– Quantitatively handling results of putting issues and
tasks into practice
– Provide API/plug-in
– Collect outlines of
actions based on
issues and tasks
• Visualize issues, tasks,
and relationships to results
from related activities
– Provide overall view of the state of each activity
– Jump from currently in-progress issues and tasks to
RAO’s notes and memos
– Recommend next actions and guide users (unimplemented)
TDAnnotator TDEditor
Eclipse,
Visual Studio,
VCS Tools
Discussion
Recorder/Browser
Research
Activity
Visualizer
Paper
Writing
Survey
Excel,
Numerical Analysis
& CAE Tools
PowerPoint,
Presentation
Practice
Development
Presentation
Discussion
Experiment
&
Analysis

14. RAW: Research Activity Watchdog
• Send notification to users
– Run on PC, tablet, smartphone, smartwatch
• Present issue and task progress and results of
monitoring research activity statistics
• Recommend actions to do next
• Give gamification feedback
– Awarding badges, evaluating activities
• Enable easy communication
within research group
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15. RAC MyPage
Use Case and Ongoing Data Collection
You should create API
for paper writing.
[Note]
“Development tasks”
[Memo]
Editor hook
RAV
Run action
“Create script”
Summarize work,
describe memo,
make self-assessment
RAW
Send notification
Evaluate results
of activity
Feedback
Organize statements
Create note/memo
Discussion
User
Others
Commit to server
・ Seminar content
・ Notes, memos
・ Source code
・ Logs
- Action
- Evaluation
- UI operation
Select action
“Write server program”
Check stats/badges,
use items
Check progress
and feedback
RAO
RAO

16. Summary and Future Work
• Summary
– Introduction of comprehensive gamification framework
for general research activity
– Development of prototype system
“Research Activity Concierge”
• Future task
– Verify effectiveness of proposed gamification framework
through practical use
• Compare the amount of activity with/without system use
• Verify the cost and effectiveness of mutual evaluation
※ Now under test operation.
Plan to start operation in Oct. 2015 (2nd semester beginning in Japan)
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17. Obrigado pela sua atenção
THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION

18. Preliminary Slides SLIDES
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19. Evaluation of Action as Goal Setting
• Three types
– Self-assessment
• Five points
• Sweet tendency
– Mutual evaluation
• Not required (in good faith)
• Quantitatively and Qualitatively
– Automatic evaluation
• Using external tools and systems
• Quantitatively
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20. DRIP Cycle
• A cycle of four phases representing knowledge
activities focused on discussion
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Investigation
Recording new knowledge
based on past discussion
Preparation
Creating of presentation
materials using records
Reflection
Arranging of
discussion content
Discussion
Creating of reusable
discussion content