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Human centered game design for bioinformatics and cyberinfrastructure learning

Published: 22 July 2013 Publication History

Abstract

Engaging students in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields is critical to ensure the success of the next generation of scientists and engineers. Given that 97% of American teens play video games, there is a tremendous opportunity to facilitate interest in STEM topics through the design of engaging learning games. While a growing number of serious games have been developed for biological science and computer science learning, few address the communication and technical challenges that arise in cyberinfrastructure intensive projects, where multiple domain scientists and computer scientists collaborate. This paper describes empirical data collected during a year-long human centered game design process, in which design ideas generated by high school students were bridged with cyberinfrastructure and bioinformatics learning concepts. Our research shows that "fun" and engaging game elements are well suited for addressing the sociotechnical aspects of cyberinfrastructure projects. In this research we provide a human centered game design methodology for science educators and science game designers, as well as design implications for integrating game-based experiences into the use of large-scale shared computing resources and services.

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Cited By

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  • (2020)Advancing diversity in human centered data science education through gamesProceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology10.1002/pra2.31457:1Online publication date: 22-Oct-2020
  • (2015)Designing for young people's ICT useProceedings of the 19th International Academic Mindtrek Conference10.1145/2818187.2818269(130-137)Online publication date: 22-Sep-2015
  • (2015)Crowdsourcing in biomedicine: challenges and opportunitiesBriefings in Bioinformatics10.1093/bib/bbv02117:1(23-32)Online publication date: 17-Apr-2015
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cover image ACM Other conferences
XSEDE '13: Proceedings of the Conference on Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment: Gateway to Discovery
July 2013
433 pages
ISBN:9781450321709
DOI:10.1145/2484762
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected].

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Publication History

Published: 22 July 2013

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  1. bioinformatics
  2. cyberinfrastructure
  3. game design
  4. human centered design

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Cited By

View all
  • (2020)Advancing diversity in human centered data science education through gamesProceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology10.1002/pra2.31457:1Online publication date: 22-Oct-2020
  • (2015)Designing for young people's ICT useProceedings of the 19th International Academic Mindtrek Conference10.1145/2818187.2818269(130-137)Online publication date: 22-Sep-2015
  • (2015)Crowdsourcing in biomedicine: challenges and opportunitiesBriefings in Bioinformatics10.1093/bib/bbv02117:1(23-32)Online publication date: 17-Apr-2015
  • (2014)Game design for bioinformatics and cyberinfrastructure learning: a parallel computing case studyConcurrency and Computation: Practice and Experience10.1002/cpe.326126:13(2303-2315)Online publication date: 27-Mar-2014

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