Cloud Gamification 2019

A special issue of Information (ISSN 2078-2489). This special issue belongs to the section "Information Systems".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 April 2020) | Viewed by 19834

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Faculty of Economics and Management, University of Szczecin, 70-453 Szczecin, Poland
Interests: gamification in tourism; e-guide gamification; gamification system definition; gamification system architecture; cloud-based gamification; gamification as a service
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Faculty of Applied Mathematics, Silesian University of Technology, 44-100 Gliwice, Poland
Interests: disease diagnostics using artificial intelligence methods
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Gamification can be defined as the use of game-design elements in non-game contexts in order to foster user satisfaction and, consequently, engage and motivate users to progress. At the same time backend-as-a-service (BaaS) appeared as cloud computing platforms acting as a set of remote service and software development kits, allowing developers to connect their Web and mobile applications to validated services. The combination of gamification and those backend platforms has given rise to the appearance of game backend as a service platforms (GBaaS). This new type of backend platform aims to deliver powerful real-time tools and services to be used, primarily, in games and, nowadays, with the evolution of gamification, are starting to being used for other domains such as medicine, marketing and education. Despite the tremendous success of gamification, this interesting shift unveils several issues regarding the design and implementation of gamification services. This process is still being created from scratch and is based on ad hoc methodologies. In fact, neither standards, specifications or frameworks regulate this hot topic.

This Special Issue seeks to fill the gap between the evolution of BaaS in the cloud realm and the unregulated growth of game services. We invite designers, developers and users of gamification systems and services to present the results of their work, share new trends, methodologies and best practices for the design and implementation of gamification services in the cloud context.

Topics

Application of software-based gamification
Best practices for the design of gamification UI
Big data and gamification
Conceptual and technical frameworks for implementing gamification in the cloud
Gamification as a service
Models and architectures for gamified cloud-based systems
New concepts and techniques in gamification design and development
Open-source gamification tools and libraries
Player behavior modelling
Procedures for testing gamification
Development and evaluation of systems using cloud-based gamification services
Standardization of gamification-related data


This Special Issue is a follow-up of the Special Session on Cloud Gamification to be held at the 25th International Conference on Information and Software Technologies (ICIST 2019) on 10–12 October 2019 in Vilnius, Lithuania. We invite both the authors who participated in the workshop to submit extended versions of their papers presented there, as well as other authors with new contributions on this topic. Please note that the extended versions of conference papers must include a minimum of 30% new content.

Dr. Ricardo Queirós
Dr. Jakub Swacha
Prof. Robertas Damaševičius
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • Gamification as a service
  • Gamified software systems
  • Gamification models
  • Game data standards

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Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

16 pages, 408 KiB  
Article
Implementation of Gamification in Polish Companies—Stages, Elements, Ethics
by Aleksandra Witoszek-Kubicka
Information 2020, 11(8), 371; https://doi.org/10.3390/info11080371 - 22 Jul 2020
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 4219
Abstract
Business gamification has been gaining in popularity in Poland in recent years and is indeed appearing in companies, especially large ones. However, the implementation of game-based solutions is still not sufficiently described. The technology allows the use of solutions such as AI or [...] Read more.
Business gamification has been gaining in popularity in Poland in recent years and is indeed appearing in companies, especially large ones. However, the implementation of game-based solutions is still not sufficiently described. The technology allows the use of solutions such as AI or Machine Learning, but gamification is not only an IT project. The aim of the article is to determine the stages of implementation of business gamification according to various models, describe the existing differences and confront the results with business practice in Poland. To this end, a scoping review on the subject was carried out in terms of the existing methodologies for the implementation of gamification solutions. In the next stage, a scenario was created to conduct individual in-depth interviews (IDI) with companies implementing gamification projects in business. As a result of the research, the practice of implementing business gamification in Poland was described against the background of the methodologies proposed in the literature. This has led to the identification of several significant differences in implementation stages both between theory and practice and among the implementations proposed by the companies participating in the interviews. An attempt was made to explain these differences by taking the type of IT solution as a criterion. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Cloud Gamification 2019)
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8 pages, 2460 KiB  
Article
Prediction Framework with Kalman Filter Algorithm
by Janis Peksa
Information 2020, 11(7), 358; https://doi.org/10.3390/info11070358 - 10 Jul 2020
Cited by 7 | Viewed by 3503
Abstract
The article describes the autonomous open data prediction framework, which is in its infancy and is designed to automate predictions with a variety of data sources that are mostly external. The framework has been implemented with the Kalman filter approach, and an experiment [...] Read more.
The article describes the autonomous open data prediction framework, which is in its infancy and is designed to automate predictions with a variety of data sources that are mostly external. The framework has been implemented with the Kalman filter approach, and an experiment with road maintenance weather station data is being performed. The framework was written in Python programming language; the frame is published on GitHub with all currently available results. The experiment is performed with 34 weather station data, which are time-series data, and the specific measurements that are predicted are dew points. The framework is published as a Web service to be able to integrate with ERP systems and be able to be reusable. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Cloud Gamification 2019)
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20 pages, 11672 KiB  
Article
Gamified Evaluation in STEAM for Higher Education: A Case Study
by Pavel Boytchev and Svetla Boytcheva
Information 2020, 11(6), 316; https://doi.org/10.3390/info11060316 - 11 Jun 2020
Cited by 14 | Viewed by 4668
Abstract
The process of converting non-game educational content and processes into game-like educational content and processes is called gamification. This article describes a gamified evaluation software for university students in Science, Technology, Engineering, the Arts and Mathematics (STEAM) courses, based on competence profiles of [...] Read more.
The process of converting non-game educational content and processes into game-like educational content and processes is called gamification. This article describes a gamified evaluation software for university students in Science, Technology, Engineering, the Arts and Mathematics (STEAM) courses, based on competence profiles of students and problems. The traditional learning management systems and learning tools cannot handle gamification to its full potential because of the unique requirements of gamified environments. We designed a novel gamification evaluation and assessment methodology implemented in a STEAM course through specially designed software. The results from end-user tests show a positive expectation of students’ performance and motivation. The preliminary results of over 100 students in the Fundamentals of Computer Graphics course are presented and the results of quantitative analysis are discussed. In addition we present an analysis of students’ surveys, where students expressed in free text form observations about the software. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Cloud Gamification 2019)
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11 pages, 616 KiB  
Article
Application Programming Interface for the Cloud-Based Management of Gamified eGuides
by Artur Kulpa and Jakub Swacha
Information 2020, 11(6), 307; https://doi.org/10.3390/info11060307 - 6 Jun 2020
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 3029
Abstract
The popularity of smartphones and widespread access to mobile internet removed earlier barriers to reliance on mobile applications run on visitors’ own devices for guidance in tourist attractions. At the same time, the tourists’ rising expectations call for solutions that can increase their [...] Read more.
The popularity of smartphones and widespread access to mobile internet removed earlier barriers to reliance on mobile applications run on visitors’ own devices for guidance in tourist attractions. At the same time, the tourists’ rising expectations call for solutions that can increase their engagement and satisfaction, such as gamification. Despite the availability of platforms for both general-purpose gamification and configurable eguides, until now, there have not been any ready-made solutions of this kind supporting the implementation of gamification for eguides. In this paper, we would like to present a solution filling this gap: the eMused.eu Application Programming Interface, which can be used by mobile applications (web or native) to access both tour content and gamification functionality provided on a cloud. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Cloud Gamification 2019)
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9 pages, 375 KiB  
Article
GEdIL—Gamified Education Interoperability Language
by Jakub Swacha, José Carlos Paiva, José Paulo Leal, Ricardo Queirós, Raffaele Montella and Sokol Kosta
Information 2020, 11(6), 287; https://doi.org/10.3390/info11060287 - 28 May 2020
Cited by 9 | Viewed by 3298
Abstract
The paper introduces Gamified Education Interoperability Language (GEdIL), designed as a means to represent the set of gamification concepts and rules applied to courses and exercises separately from their actual educational content. This way, GEdIL allows not only for an easy yet effective [...] Read more.
The paper introduces Gamified Education Interoperability Language (GEdIL), designed as a means to represent the set of gamification concepts and rules applied to courses and exercises separately from their actual educational content. This way, GEdIL allows not only for an easy yet effective specification of gamification schemes for educational purposes, but also sharing them among instructors and reusing in various courses. GEdIL is published as an open format, independent from any commercial vendor, and supported with dedicated open-source software. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Cloud Gamification 2019)
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