Högskolan i Skövde

Active mobility, such as biking, faces a common challenge in Swedish municipalities due to the lack of adequate lighting during the dark winter months. Insufficient lighting infrastructure hinders individuals from choosing bicycles, despite the presence of well-maintained bikepaths and a willingness to cycle. To address this issue, a project has been undertaken in the Swedish municipality of Skara for an alternative lighting solution using drones. A series of tests have been conducted based on drone prototypes developed for the selected bike paths. Participants were invited to cycle in darkness illuminated by drone lighting and share their mobility preferences and perception. This paper summarizes the users' perception of drone lighting as an alternative to fixed lighting on bike paths, with a special focus on the impact on travel habits and the perceived sense of security and comfort. Most participants were regular cyclists who cited bad weather, time, and darkness as significant factors that deterred them from using bicycles more frequently, reducing their sense of security. With drone lighting, the participants appreciated the illumination's moonlight-like quality and its ability to enhance their sense of security by illuminating the surroundings. On the technology side, they gave feedback on reducing the drone's sound and addressing lighting stability issues. In summary, the test results showcase the potential of drone lighting as a viable alternative to traditional fixed lighting infrastructure, offering improved traffic safety, sense of security, and comfort. The results show the feasibility and effectiveness of this innovative approach, supporting transformation towards active and sustainable mobility, particularly in regions facing lighting challenges.

What Happens When We Play: A Critical Approach to Games User Experience Design & Education brings together research and reflection from both faculty and graduate students involved in University of Skövde’s Games User Experience (GUX) Master’s program, launched in 2020. The collection shares insights from the new GUX curriculum, which takes a critical-making approach, combining practical projects done in collaboration with game studios, critical cultural theory and history, and design theory and hands-on work in the practice of games user experience design and analysis.

This report outlines trends and application areas within the research field of intelligent user interfaces(IUIs) from 2010-2018. The purpose of the report is to give an overview of the IUI research area andpoint out particular subfields that have been given attention in the recent years, indicating possible trendsfor future research. Our report indicates that the field of IUIs is very broad, resulting in rather diverseresearch trends within the area. However, general trends could be identified, such as an increasing interest inbetter human-machine decision-making, where strategies for explaining the automatic reasoning are beinginvestigated together with ways of improving the trustworthiness of the systems and their possible adaptationsto individuals’ needs. The report also outlines research on multimodal interactions, adaptivity and humanrobotcollaboration, addressing challenges such as increased human workload, unobtrusiveness, privacy andmultiparty communication.

A pre-study of spectators' perspectives on eSports was conducted in collaboration with two Swedish game development companies. The main goal was to identify factors that contribute to qualitative spectator experiences and how they can influence game design. A qualitative approach was chosen to explore spectators' perspectives on eSports through observations and focus-group interviews of 28 participants in total. Results indicate that spectatorship is a complex issue that goes beyond the mere watching of a game. We identified four themes that are important for qualitative spectator experiences: the need for an overview of game events; highlighting and exposing hidden objects and events; viewer- and commentator-friendly game pacing; the importance of professional commentators and casters. Based on the results, we present design guidelines and recommendations for the development of games in eSports.

Högskoleförordningens krav på att studenter ska kunna identifiera sitt kompetensbehov och behov av ytterligare kunskap tenderar att hamna i skymundan inom högre utbildning. Vi har infört ett examinationsmoment som syftar till att förbereda studenterna inför sin yrkesverksamhet och som var relativt enkelt att implementera och som uppskattades av studenterna.

The task of integrating games into an educational setting is a demanding one, and integrating games as a harmonious part of a bigger ecosystem of learning requires teachers to orchestrate a myriad of complex organizational resources. Historically, research on digital game‑based learning has focused heavily on the coupling between game designs, previously established learning principles, student engagement, and learning outcomes much to the expense of understanding how games function in their int ended educational contexts and how they impact the working processes of teachers. Given the significant investments of time and resources teachers need to make in order to conduct game‑based learning activities, the foci of past research is problematic as it obfuscates some of the pressing realities that highly affect games viability as tools for teaching and learning. This paper aims to highlight the demands that the implementation and use of an educational game in formal educational settings puts on te achers working processes and skillsets. The paper is based on two case studies in which a researcher collaborated with K‑12 teachers to use MinecraftEdu (TeacherGaming LLC, 2012) as a classroom activity over a five‑month long period. By documenting bot h the working processes involved in implementing the game into the classroom environment, as well as the execution of the actual game‑based classroom activities, the studies identified a wide variety roles that a teacher needs to take on if they are to ma ke games a central part of a school curriculum. Ultimately, the paper highlights the importance of understanding the constraints under which teachers work, and argues that a better understanding of the contexts in which games are to be used, and the roles teachers play during game‑based learning scenarios, is a necessary foundation for improving games viability as educational tools. 

This paper examines what roles teachers need to take on when attempting to integrate and use computer games in their educational environments. The task of integrating games into an educational setting is a demanding one, and integrating games as a harmonious part of a bigger ecosystem of learning requires teachers to orchestrate a myriad of complex organizational resources. Historically, the field of digital game-based learning research has had a tendency to focus heavily on the coupling between game designs, previously established learning principles, student engagement, and learning outcomes much to the expense of understanding how games impact the working processes of teachers. Given the significant investments of time and resources teachers need to make in order to conduct game-based learning activities, this research gap is problematic. Teachers needs to have a certain amount of gaming literacy in order to actively supervise, support, and guide their students before, during, and after the play sessions. The teacher also needs to be proficient in setting up play sessions in a limited amount of preparation time and tackle eventual technical difficulties. Beyond these demands, teachers also need to serve as a conduit between the learning context and the play context, and need to know how to continuously contextualize game activities and the content that students experience in the subject matter being taught.

This paper describes the outcomes of two five month long studies where Swedish K-12 teachers were introduced to using MinecraftEdu as a classroom activity. The study identifies the different roles that a teacher takes on throughout game-based learning processes, such as technical administrator, game administrator, game tutor, subject matter expert, lecturer, debriefer, and classroom supervisor. Ultimately, the paper highlights the importance of understanding the constraints under which teachers work, and argues that a better understanding of the contexts in which games are to be used, and the roles teachers play during game-based learning scenarios, is a necessary foundation for improving games’ viability as educational tools.

While there is a wealth of studies on the subject of serious games, the same cannot be said on the issue of teaching with games, especially in game-based learning settings with adult learners. Over the years, most research in this area has been focused on the ‘active substance(s)’ of games for learning, focusing mainly on characteristics of games, but often failing to take the whole context of game-based learning into consideration, such as the role(s) of the teacher. However, the past two or three years has seen a shift in focus from merely the game as an isolated artefact, to also include more discussions on how games can successfully be integrated into an educational setting, as well as challenges as pitfalls of which instructors need to be aware. This paper aims to outline the contemporary research on instructor-led serious gaming and its implications for the design of serious gaming environments.

This thesis explores the use of serious games from an instructor perspective. More specifically, it aims to study the roles of instructors and how they can be facilitated within an instructor-led game-based training environment. Research within the field of serious games has mostly focused on the learners' perspective, but little attention has been paid to what the instructors do and what challenges that entails. In this thesis, I argue that serious games, as artefacts used for learning and training, cannot fully replace the instructors' tasks, but must rather be designed to facilitate the various activities of the instructors. Thus, instructors form an important target audience in serious game development – not just as subject matter experts, but also as users and players of the game – with a different set of needs than the learners. Moreover, serious gaming (the actualisation of a serious game) involves more than in-game activities, it also involves actions and events that occur off-game. These activities must also be considered when designing and utilising games for learning and training.

Using a qualitative approach, instructor-led serious gaming has been explored from a range of contexts, from rehabilitation to incident commander training and military training. Several different instructor roles have been identified and characterised, including in-game facilitator, puckster, debriefer, technical support and subject matter expert. Based on empirical and theoretical material, a framework for instructor-led serious gaming has been developed. It involves best practices in different phases of game-based training, such as scenario authoring, coaching-by-gaming, assessing in-game and off-game performance, giving feedback, and conducting a debriefing or after-action review. Furthermore, specific needs and challenges for instructors have been identified and reformulated into guidelines for instructor-led serious gaming. The guidelines highlight the importance of usability and visualisation, as well as the need for carefully designed support tools for instructors' situation awareness, assessment and debriefing. Lastly, a number of success factors pertaining to both the development and actualisation of serious games are presented. Since serious games aim to be both productive and engaging, it is advantageous to work with interdisciplinary teams when developing serious games. This includes subject matter experts well versed in serious gaming practices. Furthermore, a successful serious game should adhere to sound pedagogical theories, be easy to use and maintain, and include system support for instructors' tasks. Successful serious gaming practices also involve having an organisational culture that fosters knowledge sharing among practitioners.

Denna avhandling undersöker användningen av serious games från ett instruktörsperspektiv. Mer specifikt är syftet att studera instruktörernas roller och hur de kan underlättas inom en lärarledd spelbaserad träningsmiljö. Forskning inom området serious games har mestadels fokuserat på elevernas perspektiv, medan ringa uppmärksamhet har ägnats åt vad instruktörerna gör och vilka utmaningar det innebär. I avhandlingen argumenterar jag att serious games, i egenskap av artefakter som används för lärande och utbildning, inte helt kan ersätta instruktörernas uppgifter, utan måste i stället utformas för att underlätta instruktörernas olika sysslor. Således utgör instruktörer en viktig målgrupp i utveckling av serious games – inte bara som ämnesexperter, utan även som användare och spelare – med en annan uppsättning av behov än eleverna. Dessutom innebär serious gaming (dvs. användandet av ett serious game) förutom de aktiviter som utförs i spelet, även handlingar och händelser som förekommer utanför spelet. Dessa aktiviteter måste också beaktas när man utformar och använder spel för lärande och träning.

Serious gaming har, utifrån en kvalitativ ansats, undersökts i en rad olika sammanhang, från rehabilitering till utbildning av räddningsledare och militär utbildning. Flera olika lärarroller har identifierats och karakteriserats, bland annat facilitator i spelet, puckster (skötare av AI-enheter), utvärderare, teknisk support och ämnesexpert. Ett ramverk för lärarledd serious gaming har utvecklats baserat på empiriskt och teoretiskt material. Det omfattar en beskrivning av bästa praxis i olika faser av spelbaserad träning, såsom scenarioskapande, coachning genom spelande, bedömning av prestation i och utanför spelet, återkoppling, samt sammanfattande utvärdering. Vidare har särskilda behov och utmaningar för instruktörer identifierats och omformulerats som riktlinjer för lärarledd serious gaming. Riktlinjerna belyser vikten av användbarhet och visualisering, liksom behovet av omsorgsfullt utformade stödverktyg för instruktörernas situationsmedvetenhet, utvärdering och avrapportering. Slutligen presenteras ett antal framgångsfaktorer avseende både utveckling och utförande av serious games. Eftersom serious games syftar till att vara både produktiva och engagerande, är det fördelaktigt att utveckling av dessa utförs av tvärdisciplinära team. Detta inkluderar ämnesexperter väl bevandrade i serious gaming. Vidare bör ett framgångsrikt serious game hålla sig till välgrundade pedagogiska teorier, vara lätt att använda och underhålla, samt innehålla systemstöd för instruktörernas uppgifter. Framgångsrik serious gaming-praxis innebär också att ha en organisationskultur som främjar kunskapsutbyte mellan instruktörer.

This paper reports the feasibility of Elinor, a game-based system for stroke rehabilitation in the home. The Elinor prototype has been positively evaluated with respect to its usability, user acceptance and motivational factors as well as its rehabilitation effect. This paper reports the findings from the whole project. To summarize the results, we find that game factors can be used to enhance motivation for rehabilitation. We had positive results with respect to many of the rehabilitation measurements employed. For example, the assessment of motor and process skills was positive as were also the self-reported improvements in daily activities. Furthermore, it seems that an increased self-efficacy with respect to the belief that the treatment can have an effect is positive and expected to increase motivation to undergo necessary rehabilitation. The usability and perceived usefulness of the system were also positively evaluated and the subjects expressed a positive attitude towards the system as well as a belief in its usefulness. © 2013 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.