Paul Hollins Professor

In this paper, we explore the use of a playful dilemma activity, a survey and public data analysis to spark citizen awareness and reflection on water use within the UK. Water security ensures access to fresh water for survival and society’s needs. There is significant citizen agency in water security that impacts the freshwater reserves. However, in many countries, water security is under-discussed. Encouraging spaces for individuals to assess their water use, identify waste, and adopt sustainable practices is key to sustaining freshwater resources for the future. We present a case study conducted as part of the GREAT project to stimulate citizen discussion on water use and its subsequent impact on the broader water system. Through a series of activities, citizens can reflect on their water use, consider the future forecast of water security within the UK, and experience a playful dilemma to save a city from the effects of drought. In this dilemma, players are part of an organisation tackling a city’s water crisis. Faced with limited water resources, players analyse data on the population's usage and suggest behaviour changes to reduce consumption. The challenge lies in balancing the need for water conservation with the risk of proposing changes that are resisted by the population. The players must convince the facilitator of both the practicality and acceptability of their plans. Success restores water security, but failure reveals the consequences of inaction. Within this playful discussion space, we create an exchange for citizens to elicit attitudes and preferences on current water use and explore how individuals might be “nudged” into less wasteful behaviour. In this paper, we describe the co-design of this qualitative approach, share findings on attitudes and preferences elicited (n = 19), and reflect on this method as a tool for fostering awareness and meaningful citizen discussions.

This paper examines the potential of digital games as communication tools to reach global audiences, extending beyond established cultural and geopolitical divides. It shows the empirical data gathered in our EU and UKRI-funded Games Realising Effective and Affective Transformation (GREAT) project, where we collaborated with several organizations to investigate this potential. Namely, a significant case study called Play2Act was undertaken in collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), which forms the focus of this paper. The aims of this study were to find out how much of the world’s population could be reached via digital games and how many citizens would be willing to communicate their climate attitudes in a simple and short survey that was inserted into popular mobile games. Currently, there are 3 billion gamers in the world and the idea of reaching citizens via games to understand their opinions on critical global issues and then passing this information to policy-makers emerged. This is the main objective of our project, as to whether games can act as an effective communication channel between citizens and policy-makers, the context being the climate emergency. Governments do not typically have the opportunity to understand their citizens’ needs fully. The aim of this project is to decrease the barrier and increase representation and democracy. The findings obtained from the Play2Act study suggest that games, moreover their ability to engage, and inherent social dynamics create a unique opportunity to support meaningful dialogue with a large proportion of citizens reached, engaged and completed the surveys. The study engaged with almost 1 million players from every UN recognised country, with only two exceptions, and ca. 181,000 surveys completed, confirming the global reach of games. The next steps are for UNDP to take this information to individual countries with recommendations of appropriate climate policies based on their citizens’ voices, this having huge potential for digital games being policy transformational tools. This research contributes to knowledge on the intersection of technology, culture, and communication and offers valuable insights for policymakers, researchers, and stakeholder groups seeking to leverage digital games for social impact.

This study addresses the impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) and the whole institutional approach undertaken to develop an AI literacy framework for students in a UK HEI. Drawing upon established models of AI literacy developed for higher education, informed by Leavitt’s People, Process, and Technology model (1965), and grounded in pedagogic theories, the study synthesises principles that address the interplay between emerging technologies, institutional resources, and learner needs. An analysis of existing AI literacy frameworks revealed a gap in terms of aligning institutional readiness, AI literacy and learner needs. To bridge this gap, this study proposes a conceptual AI literacy framework that is learner centred. It integrates practical knowledge and competencies to enable students to
confidently collaborate with AI systems for academic and professional development. Using a mixed-methods study approach and a convergent parallel design, primary data was collected using a survey (n = 110) and two focus groups (combined n = 63) involving multi-ethnic students to capture their perspectives on AI usage. A thematic analysis of secondary literature on AI literacy frameworks was undertaken along with a survey of academic staff (n = 66) to understand the relevance of incorporating AI literacy within curriculum. The resulting framework takes a four-step approach to cultivating AI literacy in higher education students: (i) prepare (ii) understand (iii) apply and (iv) responsible use. This conceptual framework is anticipated to offer a scalable, robust model that will help guide any HEI to cultivate adaptive learners prepared to responsibly navigate and innovate in an AI-driven world.

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.

There has been a significant revolution seen by AI getting incorporated into the management and customer relations of companies. The research of the present Artificial Intelligence (AI) Revolution that influences a variety of fields i.e. video games are the topic of the article. AI systems such as machine learning and data analytics can help brands understand consumer behaviour in much greater detail; hence, companies can better reach and interest potential consumers through personalized marketing plans and campaigns. What is more, this is another case of citizen science projects that can host a large number of artisanal anglers who can together provide data that can make the research wider-reaching. This is when the conclusion is reached, which means, for gaming neither marketing nor game-play is the energy source. The proposed scheme improves the level of customer accuracy and tackles trends timely as well as creates slight space for real-time communication by applying neighbour-based recommendation techniques, neural networks, and sentiment analysis. Its supremacy over the conventional methods of statistical significance is highlighted through the advent of predictive analytics and dynamic pricing approaches. The advantage of deploying natural language processing (NLP) is that it helps to understand what the customers mean with how they write. Measuring the key performance indicators at the end of this approach can be called the method of adaptation and flexibility which makes digital marketing not just refer only the success but also turn to the happiness of customers.

This paper presents the RAGE marketplace portal (gamecomponents.eu), which is intended as a hot spot and neutral single point of access for serious game technologies. The portal aims at fostering collaborations and the exchange of technical artefacts and associated knowledge and resources between different stakeholders in the field of serious gaming (e.g. educators, developers, researchers, publishers, policy makers and end-users). After a brief introduction to the H2020 RAGE project, the flexible design of the marketplace portal and its underlying software repository are presented. A concise overview is given of the initial set of advanced game technology components created by RAGE, that are currently exposed in the portal. For empirical validation of these components, we have developed 7 serious games based on subsets of these components, which were then tested in educational practice with several hundreds of end-users. This game components portal want to be a neutral hub not dependent on any technology or provider and therefore it is open for new game technologies submissions. We envision this marketplace as a knowledge and game technologies hub to support and amplify serious game development.

Despite the impressive growth of the video game industry in Europe and a growing interest emerging in that industrial sector (e.g. from the European Commission), there is still a knowledge deficiency in respect of its characteristics and regional impact. By mapping the most relevant active agents participating in this economic activity in Portugal, this paper explores the characteristics the industry communities, types of games developed, tools used, marketing and sales channels and economic impact. This research is based on data collected in Portugal through a survey of 70 economic agents, under the auspices of the First Atlas of video games Industry in Portugal research project. The paper concludes with an elaboration of the opportunities and challenges associated with the industry and the potential role of public and institutional policies in supporting its development and sustainability.

Digital games constitute a major emerging technology that is expected to enter mainstream educational use within a few years. The highly engaging and motivating character of such games bears great potential to support immersive, meaningful, and situated learning experiences. To seize this potential, meaningful quality and impact measurements are indispensible. Although there is a growing body of evidence on the efficacy of games for learning, evaluation is often poorly designed, incomplete, biased, if not entirely absent. Well-designed evaluations demonstrating the educational effect as well as the return on investment of serious games may foster broader adoption by educational institutions and training providers, and support the development of the serious game industry. The European project RAGE introduces a comprehensive and multi-perspective framework for serious game evaluation, which is presented in this paper.

The standard setting process within the Learning, Education and Training domain needs to be improved to strengthen the legitimacy of these standards. When new work items are proposed in the domain alternative methods to technical solutions are seldom discussed. This is shown in a small case study presented in this paper. To guide a methods discussion the authors propose a new framework for LET standardisation with constructs from four ontologies and a four-step process. The model is meant as a toolbox to be used to ensure that issues related to both the process and product legitimacy of standards setting are addressed.

European eGovernment initiatives give standards boards a prominent role in the governance of standards and specifications for Learning, Education and Training. One of the instruments of governance is a standards catalogue, which is intended to guide users towards appropriate standards to implement. However these initiatives coincide with a debate of the value of formal standards versus community specifications. The authors analyse the standards catalogue approach against a horizon scan report of current standardisation projects in the sector. They suggest that eGovernment standards boards should focus on semantic, organisational, cultural, political and legal interoperability, in preference to attempting to stabilise practice around a limited number of technical interoperability standards.