CFP

games4highered: Games for Higher Education

Submission link	https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=games4highered
Abstract registration deadline	January 15, 2025
Submission deadline	February 28, 2025

Topics: serious games higher education game based learning simulation games

Vision

Several meta-analyses have shown that game-based learning harbors a great potential for effective learning across all educational domains (e.g., Vogel et al., 2006; Sitzmann, 2011; Wouters et al., 2013; DeSmet et al., 2014; Mayer, 2014; Clark et al., 2016). Thousands of fantastic games have been developed for all sorts of educational purposes over the past decades, including (but not limited to) board games, card games, digital games, escape rooms, role games, simulations, and VR/AR/XR games. Despite the availability of many helpful games, many of them do not receive the attention they deserve from relevant teaching communities. In practice, it is often excessively time-consuming for teachers to identify suitable games for their courses. With our online encyclopedia “Games for Higher Education” (which we will also publish as an edited volume), we want to help university teachers to identify relevant games quickly. We want to provide enhanced visibility for games that are relevant to higher education and provide a helpful resource for serious-game designers.

Submission Guidelines

You can contribute to Games for Higher Education by writing short articles on games of distinct value for higher education, and as a member of our board of reviewers. Every article will be dedicated to a specific game and be written following shared guidelines. The articles will present the main purpose of the game, explain its gameplay features, provide key information on the target groups and available materials, and discuss the game in terms of its quality and effectiveness as an instrument for higher education (cf. Caserman et al., 2020).

Accepted contributions will have a length of approximately 3 pages and be attributed to the responsible author(s). All contributions will undergo open peer review and editing before they are published in the online encyclopedia. Accepted contributions will also be included in an edited book that we will publish in collaboration with Center for Management Simulation in Stuttgart in December 2025. As authors, you will retain the rights for your articles, which will be published open access under a CC BY license with an individual DOI.

Please use the following survey to propose entries for the encyclopedia by January 15, 2025:

https://survey.academiccloud.de/index.php/931235?lang=en

We will handle proposals on a rolling basis. The sooner we receive proposals, the sooner we will respond to them. The January 15 deadline is for the last proposals that we will accept.

Once your abstract has been accepted, you will receive the template to be used for writing the articles in a standardized fashion.

Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria

Acceptance Criteria	Inclusion	Exclusion
Game language(s)	Available in English or German	Unavailable in English or German
Primary purpose	Education: development of knowledge, skills, attitudes, and competences	Entertainment, fundraising, research (knowledge games), political persuasion, marketing, etc.
Target audience	Higher education, training for academic professions. This includes both subject-specific (e.g., pharmacy) and more generic goals of academic training (like programming or teamwork).	Primary, secondary, civic, and vocational education and training (if the game is not also suitable for academic training)
Focus	One specific educational game (possibly in different versions, e.g., analogue and digital). Entertainment games can be eligible, but only if their central focus (e.g., core mechanic) is linked to appropriate educational goals, or if they have been modified for educational purposes.	Entire classes of games (e.g., roleplay, card games), general methods/theory of game-based education (e.g., competition), facilitation or game design, entertainment games (unless their central focus is educationally valuable, and they are suitable for teaching).
Submission language	English and/or German	Only other languages

Committees

Editors

Johannes Katsarov
Saskia Sterzl

Assistant Editors

Lucian Alikhani
Hannes Hamester
Jonathan Sierks

Publication

Each accepted article for Games for Higher Education will be published by the editors on a dedicated website and in an open-access volume published ZMS Schriftenreihe (Center for Management Simulation, DHBW Stuttgart).

Contact

All questions about submissions should be emailed to saskia.sterzl@leuphana.de

To propose a contribution, please use the following form: https://survey.academiccloud.de/index.php/931235?lang=en

References

Caserman, P., Hoffmann, K., Müller, P., Schaub, M., Straßburg, K., Wiemeyer, J., Bruder, R., Göbel, S. (2020). Quality Criteria for Serious Games: Serious Part, Game Part, and Balance. JMIR Serious Games, 8(3), e19037. https://doi.org/10.2196/19037

Clark, Douglas B., Emily E. Tanner-Smith, & Stephen S. Killingsworth (2016). Digital Games, Design, and Learning: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Review of Educational Research, 86(1), 79–122. https://doi.org/10.3102/0034654315582065

DeSmet, Ann, Dimitri Van Ryckeghem, Sofie Compernolle, Tom Baranowski, Debbe Thompson, Geert Crombez, Karolien Poels, Wendy Van Lippevelde, Sara Bastiaensens, Katrien Van Cleemput, Heidi Vandebosch, & Ilse De Bourdeaudhuij (2014). A Meta-Analysis of Serious Digital Games for Healthy Lifestyle Promotion. Preventive Medicine, 69, 95–107. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ypmed.2014.08.026

Mayer, Richard E. (2014). Computer Games for Learning. An Evidence-based Approach. MIT Press.

Sitzmann, Traci (2011). A Meta-Analytic Examination of the Instructional Effectiveness of Computer-based Simulation Games. Personnel Psychology, 64(2), 489–528. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1744-6570.2011.01190.x

Vogel, J. J., Vogel, D. S., Cannon-Bowers, J., Bowers, C. A., Muse, K., & Wright, M. (2006). Computer Gaming and Interactive Simulations for Learning: A Meta-Analysis. Journal of Educational Computing Research, 34(3), 229–243. https://doi.org/10.2190/FLHV-K4WA-WPVQ-H0YM

Wouters, Pieter, Christof van Nimwegen, Herre van Oostendorp, & Erik D. van der Spek, E. (2013). A Meta-Analysis of the Cognitive and Motivational Effects of Serious Games. Journal of Educational Psychology, 105(2), 249–265. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0031311