Masters and Doctoral Theses on Serious Games

A list maintained by Katrin Becker at SFU, ‘Serious Games Pathfinder‘:

The following is a list of Master’s and Doctoral theses that have been completed that have to do with serious games (and in some cases more broadly with digital games). Doctoral Theses are marked in bold. You can get more info on each thesis by clicking on the associated ‘details’ link.

Note: I am just starting to develop this list. So far, almost all the theses are Canadian ones. If anyone has a thesis they would like me to add, please let me know the following:

Name, Title, Year, Degree, Country, Institution, Department, Abstract, URL to the thesis (If you are willing, I’d like your nationality too).

Please send info on theses that are about DIGITAL GAMES ONLY (I am not interested in theses about Game Theory (i.e. math), ELearning, Virtual Spaces, Social Websites, Blogging, Graphics, AI, … UNLESS they specifically focus on applications to or for digital games)

I reproduce below the listing she has for 2008:

2008

details	Applications of CSP solving in computer games (camera control)	Ali, Mohammed Liakat
details	The invention of good games: understanding learning design in commercial video games	Becker, Katrin
details	Gamers as learners: Emergent culture, enculturation, and informal learning in massively multiplayer online games	Chu, Sarah
details	Consistency Maintenance for Multiplayer Video Games	Fletcher, Robert D. S
details	Homeless: It’s No Game – Measuring the Effectiveness of a Persuasive Videogame	Lavender, Terrance
details	The “Heat Game”: an augmented reality game for scientific literacy	Rees, Carol
details	Beyond Fun and Games: Interactive Theatre and Serious Videogames with Social Impact	Shyba, Lori
details	Believability, Adaptivity, and Performativity: Three Lenses for the Analysis of Interactive Storytelling.	Tanenbaum, Joshua Glen
details	Adolescent problem gambling: relationship with affect regulation, Internet addiction, and problematic video game playing	Taylor, Robyn N
details	Video game expertise and visual search and discrimination	Wu, Sijing
details	Computer-aided exercise	Yim, Jeffrey W.H

Visualisation in Archaeology

An interesting project hosted by Southampton in the UK and English Heritage – see the full website here. They’re hosting what looks to be a fascinating wee conference in October:

Visualisation In Context:
An Interplay of Practice and Theory
22 – 23 October 2009
Hosted by the University of Southampton

The 2009 VIA Workshop is designed to probe the intersections between theory (which might traditionally be represented in terms of critique – linear and written) and practice (which might increasingly be expressed in terms of production – non-linear and visual) within the field of archaeology as well as other disciplines from the humanities and the sciences.

Check out the VIA  showcase:

Online Research Showcase

Centred on the visualisation of data in both archaeology and the wider fields of the social sciences, arts, and science and technology studies. Like the bibliography, these summaries aim to link practitioners across disciplines, highlight innovative visual projects, and offer a platform for future planning and discussion of best practices around archaeological visual method and theory.

		Archaeology and Community Museology: Ancient Egyptian Daily Life Scenes in Museums
		Gemma Tully University of Southampton

		Choreographic Morphologies: Interdisciplinary Crossovers in the Use of Digital Visualisation Methods in Dance and Archaeology
		Helen Bailey, Stuart Dunn, James Hewison, Martin Turner King’s College London University of Bedfordshire University of Manchester

		Fractured Media: Challenging the Dimensions of Archaeology’s Typical Visual Modes of Engagement
		Sara Perry University of Southampton

		Framing Machu Picchu: Science, Photography and the Making of Patrimony
		Amy Cox University of Florida

		Imag(in)ing the Other at Dura-Europos
		Jennifer Baird Birkbeck College, University of London

		Institutionalising Images: Early Visualisation Networks in Aegean Archaeology
		Deborah Harlan University of Sheffield

		Interactive Panoramas and 3D Modelling Based on Panoramas
		Karol Kwiatek, Martin Woolner, Simon Standing, Jes Martens University of Plymouth, Institute of Creative and Cultural Industries University of Oslo, Norway, Museum of Cultural History

		OKAPI Island in Second Life
		Ruth Tringham, Noah Wittman, Colleen Morgan University of California, Berkeley

		Pervasive Gaming, Education, and Cultural Heritage: Emplaced Interpretive Games at the Presidio of San Francisco
		Ruth Tringham, Colleen Morgan University of California, Berkeley The Presidio Archaeology Lab

		Reflexive Representations: The Partibility of Archaeology
		Andrew Cochrane, Ian Russell Cardiff University University College Dublin

		Representing Prehistory: The Biographies of the Robenhausen Lake Dwelling Collections at the Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (2008-2009)
		Katherine Cooper University of Cambridge

		SahulTime: Rethinking Archaeological Representation in the Digital Age
		Matthew Coller Monash University, Melbourne, Australia

		Scandalous Artefacts
		Alessandro Zambelli Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London

		Strategies of Visualisation in German Archaeology, 19th-20th C
		Stefanie Klamm Max Planck Institute for the History of Science Humboldt University, Berlin

		The Archaeological Eye: Visualisation and the Disciplinary Foundations of British Archaeology
		Sara Perry University of Southampton

		The Gateway to Sarup
		Niels H. Andersen, Maria Isenbecker, Camilla Bjarnø, Jan Solheim Moesgård Museum, DenmarkSamsøgades Skole, Denmark Supported by the Danish Ministry of Culture and the Danish Ministry of Education

		The Remediated Places Project
		Ruth Tringham, Michael Ashley, Steve Mills, Eric Blind, Jason Quinlan, Colleen Morgan University of California, Berkeley

Top 100 Learning Games, according to Upside Learning

From the Upside Learning Blog

1. It is All Fun and Games…And Then Students Learn- Kapp Notes, July 30, 2008
2. Building Better Learning Games- Learning Visions, April 9, 2009
3. Marc Prensky – Digital Game-Based Learning
4. Gadgets, games and gizmos for learning- Clive on Learning, January 29, 2008
5. How to Delight and Instruct in the 21st Century
6. What Makes a Learning Game?
7. Serious Games Blog
8. mLearn08: MiLK: students building mobile learning games in higher education by Debra Polson- Ignatia Webs, November 12, 2008
9. Marc Prensky – Twitch Speed, June 17, 2009
10. Using computer games in education- ThirdForce Blog, January 30, 2009
11. Digital games and learning gains (PDF), June 17, 2009
12. Learning in Immersive worlds: A review of game-based learning
13. Army War College – digital game resources
14. Immerse Yourself in Another Language- Kapp Notes, June 3, 2008
15. Resources: Games and Gaming in Education- Don’t Waste Your Time
16. Which name is better – Serious Games or Educational Simulations or…?- The Learning Circuits Blog, October 13, 2007
17. Interactive learning with game-based design principles
18. More Educational Games- Kapp Notes, August 7, 2008
19. Examples from TWITCHSPEED.COM Digital Game-Based Learning, June 17, 2009
20. The Art of Making Video Games- Kapp Notes, June 10, 2008
21. Linking Commercial Games with Defense
22. Colleges Play Games- Kapp Notes, May 27, 2008
23. Casual Games get Serious, June 17, 2009
24. Aspects of Game- Based Learning
25. Walk a Mile in My Shoes: Games Let You Do That- Kapp Notes, July 30, 2007
26. Educause
27. Digital Game Based Learning
28. Good Video Games and Good Learning
29. Digital Games: A Motivational Perspective
30. The use of computer and video games for learning
31. For a Better World: Digital Game and the Social Change Sector
32. Games for Change – Toolkit
33. Lego Games
34. Additional Resources for Digital Game-Based Learning
35. Why Are Video Games Good For Learning?
36. Teaching Educational Games Resources
37. using the technology of today, in the classroom today
38. Simulation Games – A Learning Tool
39. Video games and the future of learning
40. moving learning games forward
41. 36 Learning Games to Change the World
42. Game Development Research
43. BBC School Games
44. Yes You CAN Create E-learning Games- Bozarthzone , June 22, 2007
45. Apple Learning Games
46. And You Thought Mechanical Engineering was Boring- Kapp Notes, August 14, 2008
47. Adopting Digital Game-based Learning: Why and How- Upside Learning Blog, March 26, 2009
48. ZaidLearn: 75 Free EduGames to Spice Up Your Course!, December 11, 2008
49. A Theory of Fun- Clive on Learning, August 16, 2007
50. Games e-Learners Play, April 29, 2009
51. The treatment matrix- Clive on Learning, August 5, 2008
52. PDF: Serious games: online games for learning (PDF), June 17, 2009
53. Where games, sims and 3D worlds meet- Clive on Learning, June 24, 2007
54. The Top 5 Platforms for Creating Educational Video Games « Educational Games Research, June 17, 2009
55. Caspian’s ILS taxonomy- Clive on Learning, November 17, 2008
56. 24 Questions about computer games and education- The Learning Circuits Blog, August 8, 2005
57. Casual and Serious Digital Games for Learning – Some Considerations- Upside Learning Blog, April 17, 2009
58. Clark Aldrich’s Style Guide for Serious Games and Simulations: costs for simulation, December 11, 2008
59. Gadgets, Games and Gizmos: Learning Algebra in a Game- Kapp Notes, November 19, 2006
60. Latest Issue of The Escapist Focuses on War Games and Gaming, September 23, 2008
61. Games and the Gamer Generation: Keynote- Kapp Notes, August 10, 2007
62. Games and Learner Assessment- Kapp Notes, May 30, 2008
63. World Bank: Serious Games and Urban Planning, October 30, 2006
64. Top 10 Educational Games of the 1980s- Kapp Notes, September 20, 2008
65. Game Studies 0102: Cultural framing of computer/video games. By Kurt Squire, June 17, 2009
66. It’s Monday, Are You Stressed? Relax with a Unique Video Game- Kapp Notes, October 29, 2007
67. Confessions of an Aca/Fan: The Official Weblog of Henry Jenkins: From Serious Games to Serious Gaming (Part Four): Labyrinth, November 14, 2007
68. Save Planet Helios from ecological devastation!-3D Game by IBM- Kapp Notes, August 29, 2008
69. Serious Games: Slideshow of examples from an event at Harvard Business School, December 13, 2007
70. Email Games, June 17, 2009
71. Trends with Games, December 23, 2008
72. Learning Circuits – ASTD’s Online Magazine Covering E-Learning
73. Learning in Video Games
74. Hong Kong Digital Game Based Learning Association
75. Gadgets, Games and Gizmos: MMORPG in ICT Education- Kapp Notes, January 16, 2007
76. GDC’s Serious Games Summit- Upside Learning Blog, April 3, 2009
77. Rapid authoring for immersive games and sims- Clive on Learning, January 26, 2009
78. Gadgets, Games and Gizmos: ESL in SL- Kapp Notes, February 13, 2007
79. What is a Game? The Art of Computer Game Design, June 17, 2009
80. TCC09: Digital Learning Environments: Context Sensitive and Imaginative Classes in Second Life, April 14, 2009
81. Why Most Off the Shelf Commerical Games Will Not Work in Education? And What Is The Alternative?, June 17, 2009
82. Textra Games, June 17, 2009
83. Shootorials: Kongregate Teaches You How To Make Your Own Games, October 22, 2008
84. Predictions for 2009, December 30, 2008
85. Simulations – Are They Games (PDF), June 17, 2009
86. Serious Games Enhancing The Rehabilitation Environment, June 17, 2009
87. Training Games, June 12, 2007
88. Eight Myths About Video Games Debunked, June 17, 2009
89. Computer Games and the Military: Two Views, June 17, 2009
90. Serious Games, June 17, 2009
91. Social Sites, Design, Informal Learning, & Brain Games, May 4, 2009
92. Groupboard, May 7, 2008
93. Why Do People Play Games? – The Art of Computer Game Design, June 17, 2009
94. Video games are good for you!, February 13, 2009
95. Army is to Spend $50 Million in Edutainment for Troops, November 25, 2008
96. Playing with Our Heads – Why Video Games are Making our Kids Smarter-and more obedient, June 17, 2009
97. Federal Consortium on Virtual Worlds, November 19, 2007
98. Examples of Games Based Learning, June 17, 2009
99. Interesting Web Sites for Game-Based Training, e-Learning and Education:, June 17, 2009
100. Fourteen Forms of Fun, June 17, 2009

Historical Maps, GIS, and Second Life

I’ve just come across a presentation (in three parts) given by David Rumsey, over a year ago. Worth a view!

“A talk given by David Rumsey at the March 6, 2008 launch of his historical map library and exhibition in the virtual world of Second Life. The talk was delivered at the Rumsey Map Islands in Second Life. All of the maps in the talk can also be seen and downloaded from Rumsey’s free online map library at www.davidrumsey.com“

Part I

Part II

Part III

Labour kills Educational Innovation

Turns out the union didn’t like PeerScholar, a system for facilitating peer-reviewing in large classes.

From the National Post:

Congratulations to the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), which has achieved another milestone in its ongoing quest to propagate the belief that public-sector unions are inherent, dedicated enemies of growth and innovation. In Friday’s Post, Emily Senger and Kathryn Blaze Carlson described CUPE’s successful grievance against the developers of PeerScholar, a new online application created at the University of Toronto that allows students to file short papers which are then graded and annotated, in an environment of mutual anonymity, by fellow class members who have completed the same assignment.

CUPE, which represents teaching assistants at U of T, took the view that, in the words of spokesman Mikael Swayze, “If students are doing marking, then they’re in our bargaining unit and must be paid.” In

short, the union — in blocking the use of PeerScholar within an enormous first-year psychology class — was merely defending its own interests against a low-cost alternative to having TAs grade written material.

Perhaps no one could hold that against CUPE if the only harm done was to make higher education more expensive. As a society, we claim to care a great deal about keeping university accessible to the poor and affordable for the middle class; sometimes do-gooders will even say that our future competitiveness and prosperity depend on it. But these people can be ignored. If we did care we would never, under any circumstances, give a labour cartel a veto over a professor’s conduct of his class.

We also claim to care a great deal about the quality of education — another premise that CUPE has pretty well refuted. In the case of Professor Steve Joordens’ psych class, the alternative to having written assignments peer-marked was not to have written assignments marked by unionized TAs, but to have no written assignments at all. He will now have to return to the same traditional practice followed in most introductory psych classes: basing grades entirely on machine-readable multiple-choice exams. This has always been a feature of psych classes that lazy, sly undergraduates liked, because it favours guessing ability over grasp of the course content and skill at writing and argumentation.

The very possibility of bringing about change to the factory-like environment of undergraduate survey courses was a major breakthrough for Joordens, who developed Peer-Scholar with his grad student Dwayne Pare. Peer grading may sound like a loopy idea, but early research by Joordens and Pare showed that for a simple assignment involving a written reaction to a set text, peer grading is statistically indistinguishable from “expert” grading by trained graduate students — if you have enough peers.

The magic number for maximum validity appears to be about six, so the PeerScholar interface makes each student grade six colleagues’ papers after they hand in their own. The peer grading is formally made part of the assignment, and students get the benefit of comparing other work to their own. Students who felt their grade was unfair were permitted to appeal to a teaching assistant, on condition that they had to live with the new grade whether it was higher or lower.

PeerScholar was a research project worth pursuing for its own sake, but the Ontario Superior Court’s support for CUPE’s grievance means that the Joordens/Pare research will be very difficult to reproduce scientifically, under real-world conditions, inside Ontario. It also means that PeerScholar, as a made-in-Ontario software application, will be hard to sell to colleges and universities where teaching assistants are unionized. And the potential for Peer-Scholar to improve the quality of large first-year survey classes may never be realized. How often does a labour union, with one single action, harm science, education and business all at once? What an astonishing hat trick of ignorance and greed; doff your lids, readers.

Canadian Historical Review – article on game for history

I’m happy to say I had a hand in this article.

History computer games have become an economic and cultural phenomenon, and historians should seize the opportunity to participate in their development. Players of history games are interested in the past and in the big questions that drive historical scholarship. In this way, games have the potential to draw players into the discipline if we can discover the best way to express history though simulation. But what research do we draw on as we study how to accomplish this transformation? This essay is the product of a meeting of historians, educators, and gamers who joined previously separate lines of inquiry to identify literature and models that we believe form the foundation for developing a theory of good history through gaming.

Résumé:

Les jeux vidéo à thème historique sont devenus un phénomène économique et culturel, et les historiens devraient saisir cette occasion de participer à leur développement. Les personnes qui jouent à des jeux historiques s’intéressent au passé et aux grandes questions qui mobilisent la recherche historique. Par les jeux, il est peut-être possible d’attirer les joueurs dans la discipline, si nous parvenons à découvrir la meilleure façon d’exprimer l’histoire par la simulation. Mais à quelle recherche faisons-nous appel quand nous étudions les moyens de réaliser cette transformation? Cet essai est le produit d’une réunion d’historiens, d’éducateurs et de spécialistes du jeu qui ont relié des pistes de recherche jusque-là indépendantes afin de repérer les études et les modèles qui, croyons-nous, serviront de base à l’élaboration d’une théorie de bonne pratique de l’histoire par le jeu

box, Slideshare, and Angel

At a number of places I teach, we use ANGEL as our LMS.  One can of course upload content into Angel, and have students look at it – powerpoints, recordings, images, whatever. So far, so ho-hum. One thing that I am concerned about though is ownership of any materials that I have created that I upload into Angel. Depending on where you work, this could get dicey.

So I’ve recently starting using ‘box‘ to upload and host my audio lectures, and deliver them to the students in Angel. I could of course just upload into my space here on wordpress, or onto any number of servers I have access to. But that’s fiddly – and box is free. No messing with ftp. AND, the link to the files is a secure one, so I don’t have to worry that somebody will stumble across my lecture via Google.

Similarly, slideshare does a great job of delivering slides (and it will sync audio to them). When I first started playing with slideshare, anything you put on there was public, but I see now that I can control the privacy to a degree. After you upload your slides, you can set a contact list of people who are allowed to see them. This is a bit more fiddly than box, but if you’ve got the course roster handy, maybe not so much of a problem. And of course you can embed the slides a la youtube, so integration into Angel should be straight forward.

Of course, I haven’t tried that yet; there’s usually some kind of kink needing straightening.

Journal of Virtual Worlds Research: Education and Pedegogy Issue

There’s a new issue of the JVWR out, well worth a look-see:

Summary:

This edition of the Journal of Virtual Worlds Research is dedicated to exploring the breadth of designs, pedagogies and curricular innovations that are actually already being applied to teaching and learning in virtual worlds. We encourage participation from a broad range of academics, researchers, educators, and educational practitioners from across the disciplinary spectrum – including, but not limited to: curriculum development, educational administration, distance education, information and knowledge management, instructional technology, e-learning, communication and education, sociology, art education, and visual culture. We strongly encourage submissions that illustrate key findings with examples and case studies; experimental research; pedagogical innovations; and best practices for the integration of virtual worlds technologies into the learning experience.

Interacting with Immersive Worlds Conference II – registration open

The second edition of Brock’s Interacting with Immersive Worlds Conference is taking place this summer. Registration is now open. I was able to attend last year, and it was the highlight of my conference season. Unfortunately I won’t be able to attend this year, so I’m going to miss out on some brilliant sessions.

Interacting with Immersive Worlds
An International Conference presented at
Brock University, St. Catharines, Ontario
JUNE 15-16, 2009

Register to attend at: www.brocku.ca/iasc/immersiveworlds

Focusing on the growing cultural significance of interactive media, IWIW will feature academic papers organized along four streams:
-Challenges at the Boundaries of Immersive Worlds features creative exploration and innovation in immersive media including ubiquitous computing, telepresence, interactive art and fiction, and alternate reality.
-Critical Approaches to Immersion looks at analyses of the cultural and/or psychological impact of immersive worlds, as well as theories of interactivity.
-Immersive Worlds in Education examines educational applications of immersive technologies.
-Immersive Worlds in Entertainment examines entertainment applications of immersive technologies, such as computer games.

The IWIW conference also features 4 keynote speakers:
-Janet Murray, Director of Graduate Studies, School of Literature, Communication and Culture, Georgia Institute of Technology
-Espen Aarseth, Associate Professor, Department of Media and Communication, IT University of Denmark
-Geoffrey Rockwell, Professor, Department of Philosophy and Humanities Computing, University of Alberta
-Deborah Todd, Game Designer, Writer and Producer, and Author of Game Design: From Blue Sky to Green Light

Visit the conference Web site at www.brocku.ca/iasc/immersiveworlds

Organizing Committee:
Jean Bridge, Centre for Digital Humanities, Brock University, jbridge@brocku.ca
Martin Danahay, Department of English Language and Literature, Brock University,
mdanahay@brocku.ca
Denis Dyack, Silicon Knights, Catharines, Ontario, denis@siliconknights.ca
Barry Grant, Department of Communication, Popular Culture and Film, bgrant@brocku.ca
David Hutchison, Faculty of Education, Brock University, davidh@brocku.ca
Kevin Kee, Department of History, Brock University, kkee@brocku.ca
John Mitterer, Department of Psychology, Brock University, jmitterer@brocku.ca
Michael Winter, Department of Computer Science, Brock University, mwinter@brocku.ca
Philip Wright, Information Technology Services, Brock University, philip.wright@brocku.ca

SLOODLE v 0.4 available: educational tools in SL

Get your Moodle and Second Life mashup tools, make your LMS immersive!

From Serious Games Source

Founders of the SLOODLE project have announced the release of SLOODLE version 0.4, a toolset that will assist educational presentations in Linden Lab’s virtual world application Second Life. The project integrates Second Life’s classroom areas with Moodle, an open-source e-learning environment.