IWSG 2014 - ACM International Workshop on Serious Games

Multimedia Technologies to Author, Control and Evaluate Games for Education, Sports and Health
November 7, 2014, Orlando, Florida
This workshop brings together researchers, developers and users of serious games. The worldwide interest in games has grown tremendously over the last years. Popular games have millions of users. With the growing data rate available to end users and the increasing CPU power of mobile devices, online and collaborative games are getting especially attractive. Games are also a relevant economic factor, a prospering market. They tackle a diversity of computer science research aspects, e.g., computer graphics, artificial intelligence, user interfaces and sensors, authoring and software production, human computer interaction, usability and user experience.
On the other side, game research is still in its beginning. This especially becomes true to the field of Serious Games: Here, game aspects are combined with additional technologies/concepts and ‘applied’ to fulfill an additional purpose ‘beyond pure entertainment’ (e.g. a learning, training or health effect, a behavior change in the daily lifestyle and nutrition or awareness about societal relevant topics such as politics, religion, security or energy). This nature of Serious Games results in a highly-complex and interdisciplinary environment requiring research and development methodologies ‘beyond technology’. For instance, in the field of games for health, domain experts such as doctors, sport scientists, therapists etc. are involved apart from game developers and suppliers (e.g. psychologists and technicians in the field of sensor technologies relevant for the measurement of psychophysiological effects) and the end users (players, patients).
Topics
We are looking for contributions ? either as paper submission or impulse statement for a practical hands-on session ? in the following areas:
Game Theory and Game Technology
Game design and development
Cost-effective production (authoring tools, user-generated content)
Game technology: game engines, game middleware, browser games, MMOGs, game apps for mobile phones
Game personalization and adaptation
Communication (among players and stakeholders, over networks)
Innovative game interfaces (e.g., sensor technologies, game controllers such as the Kinect)
Emotion in games.
Best Practice and Applications
Games for education and training
Games for sports
Games for health (e.g., exergames, rehabilitation games)
Field reports
Evaluation studies.
Each workshop contribution should be accompanied by a short video or by a live demonstration.
The workshop will begin with an invited keynote speech.
Submissions
The workshop welcomes submissions of research papers as well as impulse statements. Research papers must be no longer than 6 pages (inclusive of all figures, references and appendices). Impulse papers are 2 pages.
Paper submission page: https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=mmsg20...
All submissions must be written in English and must be formatted according to the ACM Proceedings style. They must contain no information identifying the author(s) or their organization(s). Reviews will be double-blind. Papers and impulse statements will be judged on their relevance, technical content and correctness, and the clarity of presentation.
Review criteria and review process
Each paper will be reviewed by three experts from the program committee. Submissions are reviewed based on
originality of the content
quality of the content
relevance to the theme
clarity of the written presentation
Publications
Accepted research papers and impulse statements will appear in the ACM Multimedia 2014 Workshop Proceedings and in the ACM Digital Library. Outstanding workshop papers will qualify for submission in extended form for a fast-track review at ACM Transactions on Edutainment or ACM Transactions on Multimedia Computing, Communications and Applications.
Organizers
Thomas Baranowski, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, United States
Mark Claypool, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, United States
Wolfgang Effelsberg, University of Mannheim, Germany
Stefan Göbel, Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany
Florian ‘Floyd’ Mueller, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia
Important Dates
March 8, 2014: Publication of the Call for Papers
June 1, 2014: Paper Submission Deadline
July 15, 2014: Notification of Acceptance
August 10, 2014: Camera-Ready Papers due