David Griffiths

In this paper, the authors present the findings of an empirical case study examining the efficacy of the Games Realising Effective & Affective Transformation (GREAT) Case Study design process. The process is underpinned by an established Mixed Methodological Research (MMR) framework for eliciting the preferences of gamers and determining their priorities in climate change policies. Funded by the Horizon Europe programme, the GREAT Project examines the impact and affordances of games for social engagement. The project explores the innovative potential of games as new forms of dialogue between citizens and policy stakeholders. The games are used as tools for players to express their preferences and actively shape policy issues. We present the first case study on this approach, which is one of ten to be undertaken with various partners over the next two years to test and validate the methodology, investigate its potential, and present findings. In partnership with the popular PC & Console game Smite, by the Hi Rez, game development studio. The study involved stakeholders’ participation in the co-creation of research questions, designed to influence the prioritisation of future climate policies. The activity was embedded the Smite game playing community via the Playmob platform in January 2024 and engaged over four thousand active players with a completed response rate of 58 %. Quantitative analysis of the data collected during this period will be presented by the authors. In summary, the engagement in and completion rates of the activity were high, validating the initial GREAT project approach. The methodological approach and the substantive data sets produced are of interest to any organisation considering engaging diverse groups active in gaming communities in the political process, including NGOs and policymakers. The project and methodology applied is at the core of this paper.

The Learning Analytics and Policy (LAP) workshop explores and documents the ways in which policies at national and regional level are shaping the development of learning analytics. It brings together representatives from around the world who report on the circumstances in their own country. The workshop is preceded by an information gathering phase, and followed by the authoring of a report. The aspirations, achievements and constraints in the different countries are contrasted and documented, providing a valuable resource for the future development of learning analytics.

Informal learning has been always an important source of knowledge, perhaps the most important at the workplace, but its own informal nature has caused difficulties to be recognized and introduced in the "official" ways of training and certification. TEEM conference has paid special attention to the problems associated with informal learning from the first edition of this event, and now this track continues with this significant tradition with the aim of rethinking the informal learning basis.

Researching the sharing of learning designs is a well-established domain within the technology-enhanced learning research community. However, until now tools supporting educational modelling languages such as IMS Learning Design have reached a wide adoption in today's school practice. Following a design science research methodology we report on the design, implementation, and evaluation of a novel tool referred to as "Composer". The Composer supports the design of learning activities and has been developed according to design principles such as (a) interoperability between design-time and run-time systems based on the W3C Widget Standard, (b) inclusion of artefact types beyond content such as tools, people and events, (c) a user-friendly authoring environment. A first evaluation of the proof-of-concept implementation suggests that the tool is easy-to-use and provides added value for teachers when it comes to reflecting about the design of learning activities.

The evolution of new technology and its increasing use, have for some years been making the existence of informal learning more and more transparent, especially among young and older adults in both Higher Education and workplace contexts. However, the nature of formal and non-formal, course-based, approaches to learning has made it hard to accommodate these informal processes satisfactorily, and although technology bring us near to the solution, it has not yet achieved. TRAILER project aims to address this problem by developing a tool for the management of competences and skills acquired through informal learning experiences, both from the perspective of the user and the institution or company. This paper describes the research and development main lines of this project.

In order to understand whether conceptual obscurity is truly the reason for the slow uptake of IMS Learning Design (LD), we have initiated an investigation into teachers' understanding of IMS LD outside of technological environments. Using paper representations ("snippets") of IMS LD component and method elements at levels A and B, 21 higher education teachers from nine countries recreated a prescribed textual learning design. Results showed that the teachers achieved an average conformity of 78% with a prototypical expert solution after watching a 45-minute IMS LD introduction. Despite successfully using IMS LD's elements, teachers reported having difficulties understanding the concepts environment; property; role-part, and condition. We conclude that the specification per se does not present an insuperable obstacle for teachers, and that from a usability perspective the calls for a new or modified LD specification might be premature, since most obstacles can be overcome with appropriate abstractions in LD tools.

This presentation will discuss emergent issues and developments in the field of learning design. Although the presentation will have a UK bias, it will encompass developments from a wider global perspective. JISC CETIS supports the current JISC Design for Learning programme. This programme encompasses developments in learning design concerned with technical frameworks, tools, and pedagogy. Building and sustaining a community of practice is central to the support role CETIS is providing to the programme. This session will complement the overview provided by Glenaffric re ?Cultural and contextual challenges for practitioners from the JISC Design for Learning Programme? and will also discuss developments out with the JISC programme, namely European and Australian advancements in the learning design arena. Increasingly specifications such as IMS Content Packaging and Learning Design do appear to be at odds with developments in social software; how can web 2.0 collaborative technologies be integrated into the realm of learning design? There is still a need for interoperability, but perhaps now we need to move to thinking about looser couplings between content, activities and infrastructure and not aim to do everything by following one complex specification. As it currently stands, IMS LD deals primarily with formal education systems. This session will explore the potential for a learning design approach to cover informal learning. IMS LD is essentially a file format and does not dictate how the software should be structured; the technology must be informed by the pedagogy - pedagogic planners are emerging as a new and exciting area of development and the presenters will also cover recent developments in this area.

IMS Learning Designs provide a specification for the activities undertaken by learners within an environment; currently the definition of the environment is typically a set of web resources and files, with the potential to add two basic types of tool: conferencing and mail. In this paper we describe our initial findings on using a lightweight approach to the addition of small applications (‘widgets’) to the palette of options available for Learning Design environments.