Luxemburg, December 2014 European Commission Information Society and Media Final Review Meeting GALA Game and Learning Alliance The European Network of

Luxemburg, December 2014European Commission

Information Society and Media

Final Review Meeting

GALAGame and Learning Alliance

The European Network of Excellence on Serious Games

GALA achievements and perspectives

Prof. Alessandro De Gloria

Elios Lab (DITEN), University of Genoa




Presentation outlook

• Goals, strategy and plan

• Main achievements

• Challenges after GALA

• Global KPIs

• Beyond GALA




Project main goals

• Shape the SG scientific community and a collaboration space

• Gather, integrate and coordinate research on SGs in EU

• Disseminate knowledge, best practices and tools

• Become a reference point at an international level

• Sustainability




Initial conditions

• Acknowledged potential of SGs for education and training

• Need to address the challenges of the main stakeholders of the SGs landscape in EU– Users, researchers, developers/industry, educators

• Overall fragmentation affecting the SG landscape




Project organization

• Three operational axes

– Research Integration• Favour a de-fragmentation of the topics and the processes

related to the SG research in EU• Coordination among SG research activities at EU level

– Joint Research Activities• Define and perform joint research activities, addressing hot

topics of SG research

– Spreading of Excellence• Support international visibility to the SG field




Strategy and workplan

• Develop structures, products and services with an impact on the three axes

• Focus on sustainability– Transfer the GaLA aims to the SG Society– SGS to be able to act independent of the GaLA funding for the next

years– SGS to inherit the GaLA achievements

• First part (two years)– Internal defragmentation– Development of studies, methodologies and tools to advance research

on SGs

• Second part (two years)– Exploit the developed long-term tools– Conclude ongoing experiments/studies– Increase the spreading of excellence and the impact on R&D through

high-level dissemination and provision of services




Strategy for the SGS

• Serious Games Society (SGS) - Link– Think tank on the future of Serious Games– Info, tools and services to support R&D on SGs

• We decided to develop a set of tools of high expected impact in order to gather interest towards the SGS by scientists, developers, teachers and students

• A complete overview of the developed instruments and methodologies follows

http://www.seriousgamessociety.org/




The SGS portfolio

• The SGS features a portfolio of products and services organized in four main clusters

– Spreading knowledge on SGs

– SG analysis and design support

– Blog and community

– Learning on and with SGs




Spreading knowledge on SGs

• International Journal of Serious Games (IJSG) - Link– Papers of significant and lasting value in all areas related to design,

development, deployment and assessment of SGs– Triple blind peer-review, international editorial board– 5 issues, 20 regular articles in 2014, indexed, ISSN: 2384-8766, DOI:

10.17083/IJSG

• Games and Learning Alliance International Conference - Link– Study and application of SGs– Genova 2012, Paris 2013, Bucharest 2014, 2015 CFP to be published– Proceedings on Elsevier Proceedia and Springer LNCS

• Roadmap on Serious Games – Link – Strategic guidance for R&D on SGs. Drivers, barriers and possible

solutions to increase quality and the deployment level of SGs

http://journal.seriousgamessociety.org/

http://www.galaconf.org/

http://www.seriousgamessociety.org/download/GALA%20Roadmap%203.pdf




SG analysis and design support

• SG Studies Database (SG Studies) - Link– Structured, searchable and machine-readable database of SG studies

• Catalogue of web services for SGs - Link– Links, descriptions and interfaces of web services according to the

Service Oriented Architecture paradigm

• Learning Mechanics-Game Mechanics (LM-GM) - Link– Model for supporting SG analysis and design

• Gleaner - Link– Framework for working with learning analytics in SGs

• Serious Games Reusability Point of Reference (SG-REF) - Link– Reusable SG assets

• SG evaluation framework (SG-EF) - Link– A model of the factors that concur to determine the learning impact of SGs

• Living Labs - Link– LLs established in Paris, Genoa, Madrid, Coventry and Bremen– Ideation, development, testing and evaluation of SGs

http://studies.seriousgamessociety.org/

http://services.seriousgamessociety.org/

http://seriousgamessociety.org/download/LMGM_framework.pdf

http://e-ucm.github.io/gleaner/

http://www.sgref.com/

http://www.seriousgamessociety.org/download/FrameworkToolkit.pdf

http://www.seriousgamessociety.org/download/Gala%20Living%20Labs%20short%20form.pdf




Blog and community

• Serious Games Blog - Link– Technology, applications, business, dissemination of events. – included in the OnlineColleges.net ranking of the 20 Top Blogs on Game-

based learning

• Serious Games Academy - Link– Social network for SG people: teachers, academicians and students

• Serious Games Marketplace - Link– Online meeting point for developers and companies – To advertise and promote SGs, offering job opportunities and internships

• Coverage of main social networks– Facebook (Link), Twitter (Link), Linkedin (Link)

http://www.seriousgamessociety.org/download/Gala%20Living%20Labs%20short%20form.pdf

http://academy.seriousgamessociety.org/

http://marketplace.seriousgamessociety.org/

https://www.facebook.com/SeriousGamesSociety

https://twitter.com/gameandlearning

http://www.linkedin.com/groups/Serious-Games-Society-4802940




Learning on and with SGs

• Summer Schools - Link– One week course dedicated to theory, design, development and

deployment– Two editions: Graz, Austria, 2013; Pori, Finland, 2014 – New edition possible in 2015

• Framework for Masters in SGs Curriculum - Link– Curriculum framework for high level training and education provision

• Serious Games Design tutorial - Link– Introduction to the design of educational games

• Gamification in higher education - Link– Experience and lessons learned of a short course on promotion of

entrepreneurship in ICT engineering

http://academy.seriousgamessociety.org/groups/profile/148916/gala-summer-school-2014

http://www.seriousgamessociety.org/download/SGMastersFwk.pdf

http://www.seriousgamessociety.org/download/SG_design_tutorial.pdf

http://www.esg-project.eu/




Global KPIs (1)

• Associate partners – number of partners that have joined the GALA associate

partnership programme– target: 30; achieved: 36

• PhD projects– number of students that have made a PhD based on GALA

research– target: 60; achieved: 96

• SGS associated people– number of individuals that have subscribed the SGS for year

2014– target: 75; achieved: 90




Global KPIs (2)

• SGS associated countries– number of countries that have representatives in the SGS– target: 20; achieved: 24

• Related EU projects by GALA partners– number of projects participated by GALA partners that are in

relationship with GALA– target: 30; achieved: 59

• Publications– number of GALA publications Scopus-indexed– target: 320; achieved: 406

• Citations– number of Scopus-indexed citations to GALA publications– target: 800; achieved: 1250




Global KPIs (3)

• H-index– The highest number such that h GALA Scopus-indexed

publications have been cited by at least h Scopus-indexed publications

– target: 8; achieved: 16

• IJSG downloads– Number of downloads per published article– target: 500; achieved: 611 (9.172 total for the first 3 issues)

• SG Studies Database– Number of complete studies available on the online environment– target: 60; achieved: 70




Main challenges after GALA

• Transfer interest and research to market– Few and small companies difficult to engage

• Contingency by the crisis period

– New proposed business models need to be tested– Improve synergies with videogame industries

• R&D– A roadmap has been defined– Further increase educational effectiveness and lower production

costs– Further improve quality of research papers, empirical works, with

control groups

• Establish foundational knowledge– Too early for an educational book series




Beyond GALA

• Some projects won by GALA partners in H2020

• The SG Society– Bring together the cutting edge companies, institutions and

individuals researching on and developing Serious Games– Help members in connecting and benefiting from teh resources

available in the Serious Games space

• Agreement with several GALA partners for continuing the activities– E.g., journal, conference, blog, etc.

• Collaborations with other organizations• Operation manager contracted by Uni. Genoa




SGS structure

• Elective structure– President, vice-president, secretary, council

• Operation structure– Operation manager– Matrix

• Regional areas (France, Spain, Germany, USA, UK, etc.)• S&T fields (HCI, SG design, health, etc.)

• General assembly on December 18th




SGS KPIs

• Membership– Members,

organizations, countries, etc.

• Web statistics– Section accesses,

downloads, etc.

• Tools and frameworks– Hits, downloads,

citations, etc.

• Social media statistics– Like, friends, followers,

posts, etc.

• IJSG– Hits, downloads,

indexing, citations, etc.

• GALA Conf– Participation, papers,

indexing, etc.

• Living labs– Number, participation,

products, etc.




?!Questions?Thank you!

Documents

Luxemburg, December 2014 European Commission Information Society and Media Final Review Meeting GALA Game and Learning Alliance The European Network of