SEGA 2014 - Serious Games Analytics: Methodologies for Performance Measurement, Assessment, and Improvement

SERIOUS GAMES ANALYTICS:
Methodologies for Performance Measurement, Assessment, and Improvement
This edited book is scheduled to be published by Springer Science+Business Media in 2015. Editors of the book are Dr. Christian Sebastian Loh and Dr. Yanyan Sheng from the Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, IL, and Dr. Dirk Ifenthaler from Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia. This is the first edited volume in the Advances in Game-Based Learning series to be edited by Scott Warren and Dirk Ifenthaler.
Motivation
There has been much interest in gathering data for analytics in the area of digital games for monetization and e-learning through MOOC to optimize learning and the environment in which it occurs. On the surface, it appears that either game analytics, or game + learning analytics, would be directly applicable to serious games. However, this is yet to be proven because the analytics from one industry may not easily transfer to another. Serious games analytics need to focus upon the performance of play-learners ? a new word to mean players who are also learners (or vice versa), and not only in monetization or the optimization of learning environment. It is by observing the actions of play-learners within a serious game environment and understanding their decision-making processes that one can identify appropriate metrics for performance measurement, assessment, and improvement with game-based learning.
At this moment, researchers in Serious Games research and development are concerned about improving the design and utility of serious games to increase their success in training, learning, and instruction. But how could stakeholders ascertain what play-learners have achieved through serious game-play and whether the actions performed have actually improved performances?
Related Work
Researchers from the fields of Human-Computer Interactions, Computer Science, and Education have become interested in tracking and visualizing the play-learners’ actions and behaviors in the virtual gaming environments as a direct evidence of learning through change in behaviors. Innovative works in this area include: collecting data via telemetry, tracing play-learners’ actions and behaviors for analysis, profiling and modeling, visualizing and mining user-generated gameplay data for performance measurement, assessment, and improvement. Related works in the education and training communities include Learning Progress Maps, Action Maps, Information Trails, and the use of expert-novice similarity index as a performance metric for serious games analytics.
Purpose
The purpose of this edited volume is to collect in one place how gameplay data in serious games may be captured and converted into analytics (or, actionable insights) for performance measurement, assessment, and improvement. The editors would like this book to become the ‘go-to’ reference for empirical research methodologies for serious games analytics with methodologies from various fields of expertise, including: computer science, software engineering, learning science, human-computer interactions, educational data mining, statistics, information visualization, learning system design and technology, and others.
This edited volume will include (but not limited to) the following areas:
Introduction to Serious Games Analytics
Methods for learners’ gameplay data collection
Methods for learners’ gameplay data analysis
Methods for visualizing learners’ play-paths
Methods to convert raw information into actionable insights (i.e., analytics)
Possible application of Serious Games Analytics into other ‘virtual environments,’ such as virtual worlds, simulations, augmented reality, etc.
Important Dates
Feb 1, 2014 ? 1st call letter requesting contributions
Mar 1, 2014 ? Detailed information for 1st call authors
Mar 1, 2014 ? 2nd call letter requesting contributions (if needed)
Apr 1, 2014 ? Detailed information for 2nd call authors
Aug 1, 2014 ? Draft chapter due (1st and 2nd call)
Aug15, 2014 ? Draft chapters send to reviewers
Oct 1, 2014 ? Draft chapters returned to authors with editorial comments
Dec 15, 2014 ? Final chapters due
Proposal Submission
Interested scholars should submit a 1-page proposal to Dr. C. Sebastian Loh by February 15, 2014, including author’s name (co-authors are welcome), institution, tentative title, chapter outline, and five keywords. Early submissions are encouraged. All submissions will undergo a rigorous double-blind peer review by two reviewers who will recommend full submissions from among the proposals.
Questions regarding the special issue should be directed to:
Dr. Christian Sebastian Loh (sgame.analytics-AT-gmail.com)
Director, Virtual Environment Lab
Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, IL, USA