Games and Learning Alliance Conference (GaLA conference 2013)

Games and Learning Alliance Conference (GaLA conference 2013)

At Dassault Systemes, Paris, October 23-25 2013

AIMS AND SCOPE
There is a wide consensus in the scientific community about the educational potential of Serious Games. And serious games are being used in professional and corporate contexts to teach skills and new competences, which is particularly important in a lifelong learning perspective, to engage and train workforce, to discover and develop leaders, and to support sharing of knowledge and experience. Serious games are promising also in fields such as healthcare and personal development.
Serious games are very well suited to motivate learners and, exploiting the latest simulation and visualization technologies, are able to contextualize the player’s experience in stimulating and realistic environments. Furthermore, a large and growing population is increasingly familiar with playing games, which makes them particularly suited as a powerful instructional tool.
However, so far, only few tests have clearly shown the educational effectiveness of serious games. In general, most authors agree that more extensive tests need to be performed in order to provide valid and reliable evidence for effectiveness of serious games as educational tools. Serious games should lead to improved learning in an efficient and attractive way. We believe that providing evidence of these benefits is key to promote serious games for education and training amongst the large public of families, teachers and stakeholders.
Furthermore, there is a growing concern that there is a need for scientific and engineering methods for building games as means that provide effective learning experiences. An effective application of SGs for education and training demands appropriate metrics, analytics, tools, and techniques for in-game user assessment, in order to allow meeting the educational goals, provide proper user feedback and support adaptivity. This can be achieved in particular by measuring elements such as learning outcomes and engagement, considering the twofold nature of SGs as compelling games that achieve some precise educational goals. We believe that this is necessary in order to develop a new generation of SGs that are able to meet the above mentioned expectations and the requirements for availability of more effective education-supporting tools.

CALL FOR PAPERS

We are seeking original contributions that advance the state of the art in the technologies and knowledge available to support development and deployment of serious games. Experimental studies are strongly encouraged.

Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

Pedagogical foundations track:

• Pedagogical theories and their applications in the field of serious games
• User modeling
• Methodologies and principles for serious games user assessment
• Support for educators and trainers
• Pedagogical principles of gamification
• Support higher-order thinking through serious games

Serious Game design track:

• Mapping educational outcomes and principles into serious game mechanics
• Serious game mechanics joining entertainment and pedagogical goals (at all the levels)
• Mapping pedagogical principles and serious games mechanics
• Gamification design
• Design of score and rewards
• How to balance realism (also in timing), engagement, learning and entertainment?

Technology track:

• Advanced Human-Computer Interaction for serious games (hardware, software)
• Artificial intelligence for serious games
• Neuro-scientific principles, experiments and applications
• Technological support for collaborative games
• User modeling and profiling
• Adaptivity
• Augmented and virtual reality
• Support for learner performance assessment (stealth, formative, summative) 
• Provision of feedback
• Efficient development tools
• Support for educators and trainers
• Support for gamification
• Learning analytics
• Modeling and simulation
• Interopreability and standards

Application track:

• User studies applying serious games in formal education
• User studies applying serious games in training (professional, corporate and executive training, skill development and other workforce programs)
• Case studies on developing/deploying serious games in application domains such as business, management, entrepreneurship, environment, cultural heritage, health, smart buildings, humanities, engineering, manufacturing, security, safety, ethics, etc.
• User studies of applying serious games in the above domains, studying effectiveness for learning/training
• Understanding how, when, with whom, for what to use serious games
• Gamification in various application domains
• Verification of learning transfer
• Study of the long-term impact
• Assessing personal abilities through serious games
• Usability studies

Industrial track:

• Serious games market studies
• Business models for serious games
• Pervasive gaming
• Mobile gaming
• Gamification
• Products to support serious games development and deployment

IMPORTANT DATES

Papers (10 pages) submission: May 31th2013
Call for Workshops (4 pages) submission: April 26th 2013
Call for Tutorials (4 pages) submission: May 31th 2013

Notification date for Papers: September 6th 2013

Notification date for Workshops: May 15^th 2013

Notification date for Tutorials: June 19^th 2013

Camera Ready Papers and Registration Due: ------ September 27, 2013
Conference Dates:  ------------------------------------------- October 23 - 25, 2013

More info:
http://www.galaconf.org