The Game Design Campus is an e-learning system for Game-Based Learning (GBL) in a social networking environment. The Campus includes the traditional facilities of e-learning, such as forums and multiuser whiteboards, and also provides avatar chat in a 2.5 dimensional world, hosting multiplayer and single player scenario-based role-play games. The Campus provides online tools to create role-play scenarios, survey creation and analysis tools, and audio/video conferencing rooms.
There are various platforms available that offer an environment where teachers and trainers can define there own on-line role playing scenarios or simulations, and provide the opportunity for learners to apply factual knowledge and to gain experience through the digital world. Teachers can define new games or adopt and modify sample games without any programming skills. Products such as “The Training Room” provide a variety of communication means within the scenarios; players can communicate with the use of discussion forums, text and voice chat modules as well as through multi-user video conferencing. An important feature of these products is the collaborative learning design, which allows participants to exchange information as well as to produce ideas, simplify problems, and resolve the tasks. The Game Design Campus incorporates all the features of “The Training Room” as well as access to the product itself. The proven template has also been used to create single player role-play scenarios, also available in the Campus from the “The Games Room”. Administration tools allow Premium and Corporate account holders to create scenarios based on their own training needs and share them with the wider community if they wish to do so. Administrators can select specific participants to be included in the role-play or allow the game to be open to all. A server based scheduler provides for timing and length of the game, and configurable feedback screens allow for results and opinions to be analyzed.
Most academics and their students create either paper based surveys or web surveys usually based on a php template. These can often appear boring and time consuming to the participant resulting in smaller sample sizes and inaccurate answers. The Game Design Campus contains configurable survey tools based on a Flash interface. Multiple choice, sliding scale, and text based answers can all be selected. The campus can also be used to conduct text chat or video interviews as a follow up, and interviews can be recorded and stored. Online analysis tools allow for results to be collated and distributed.
In-depth discussions over the Internet can often be difficult and lead to misunderstandings. Even in virtual worlds such as Second Life, research has shown that avatars should not be used when getting the correct meaning across is imperative – for example in a learning situation. Hence the Game Design Campus provides all forms of communication including audio/video conferencing, supplemented with multiuser whiteboards and multiuser mind-mapping tools. As found in beta testing of “The Training Room”, students could not reach consensus without thorough in-depth discussions. As we all have different learning styles, we also have different communication needs and the Campus provides these alternatives.
Full online documentation and downloadable PDF files provide for user “how to” and troubleshooting needs of the Campus, including tips on how to create single user and multiuser role-play scenarios from leading European GBL experts. The Game Design Campus is hosted on two dedicated Linux Network servers, both behind secure hardware firewalls and both connected on Backbone One to the Internet – providing up to 10 Megabytes per second data transfer. The Campus is available 24 hours per day and can be accessed globally.
Contact us for access to the campus and for use of the online facilities.