Transcript Enhancing Scientific publications with serious games

Esther van der Drift & Koen Ekelschot
Problem statement

How can we enhance scientific
publications in the field of social
sciences through the use of serious
games?

Core points
 Scientific publications
 Social sciences
 Serious games
Motivation
Traditional article
 Enriched publications / Rich Internet
Publications / The article of the future
 Serious games?

Motivation
Serious games for educational purposes
much more common these days
 No research on using serious games for
scientific communication

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Serious games can be much more
engaging and fun than multimedia
applications.
Motivation

Why social sciences?
 Understandable for non-experts (less jargon
than say, biology)
 Diverse (e.g. cultural anthropology,
educational sciences, psychology and
sociology)
 Experiments, communication concepts &
theories
Current state of research

Defining serious games
 “A mental contest, played with a computer in
accordance with specific rules that uses
entertainment to further government or
corporate training, education, health, public
policy, and strategic communication
objectives."

Types of serious games:
 Knowledge-based: Code Red: Triage
 Skill-based: Re-mission
Work hypothesis
What kind of research is done in social
sciences?
 Are there elements that can be mapped to
serious games?

 Visualizing/performing the experiment
 ???

A few examples of how one could develop
a game based on scientific research
Hobbits and orcs problem
Jug problem
Research method

Literature review
 Serious games
○ Different types
○ Effects on learning/understanding
 Game elements / indicators
○ Conceptual, procedural, attitudinal
 Research in social sciences
○ Cognitive theories
○ Performing experiments
Literature
Games:
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Rollings, A. & Adams, E. (2003). On Game Design.
Indianapolis: New Riders
Stapleton, A. (2004) Serious Games: Serious
Opportunities. Paper presented at the Australian
Game Developers’ Conference, Academic Summit,
Melbourne, VIC.
Van der Spek, E.D., Wouters, P., & van Oostendorp,
H. (2009). Code Red: Triage. Or, COgnition-Based
DEsign Rules Enhancing Decisionmaking TRaining
in a Game Environment. In Games and Virtual
Worlds for Serious Applications, 2009(pp. 166-169).
Coventry: IEEE.
Zyda, M. (2005). From Visual Simulation to Virtual
Reality to Games. Computer, 38(9), 25-32.
Literature
Social science:
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Anderson, J.R., (2000). Cognitive Psychology and Its
Implications. New York: Worth Publishers.
Huang, M.H., & Chang, Y.W. (2008). Characteristics of
research output in social sciences and humanities: From
a research evaluation perspective. Journal of the
American Society for Information Science and
Technology, 59(11), 1819-1828.
Loftus, E. F. (1996). Eyewitness testimony. Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press.
Loftus, E. F., & Pickerall, J. (1995). The formation of false
memories. Psychiatric Annals, 25, 720-725.
López, J., & Cáceres, M. (2010). Virtual games in social
science education. Computers & Education, 55(3), 13361345.
Planning
20-12: Types of research finished
 30-12: Generalizing examples of games
 10-01: Demo finished
 15-01: Conclusions finished
 17-01: Paper finished
 24-01: Last refinements
