O site disponível a partir do portal das finanças onde é possível consultar as faturas que um contribuinte tem emitidas pelos bens ou serviços que adquire - o e-fatura - contém alguns pormenores interessantes do ponto de vista da aplicação do conceito que tem vindo a ser discutido aqui: gamification. A gamification, pode ser definida como a aplicação de elementos de design de jogos em contextos não lúdicos, criando um envolvimento semelhante ao dos jogos e de forma a promover comportamentos desejados (ver outras definições alternativas aqui). Entre os elementos de jogos que podem ser considerados estão coisas como pontos, tabelas de liderança (leaderboards) ou insígnias (badges) para citar os mais comuns. O que é que uma coisa como a verificação e o registo de faturas pode ter a ver com isto? Primeiro, a ideia que está por trás da gamification é conseguir que coisas aborrecidas e pouco motivantes se possam tornar mais atrativas ao serem combinadas com elementos de jogos. E de facto, registar e verificar faturas não será, para a maior parte dos contribuintes, uma tarefa muito interessante ou agradável. Há uma recompensa explícita, a dedução à coleta do IRS de 5% do IVA de cada fatura (até ao máximo de 250€). Mas esse benefício não é suficientemente significativo para que todos os contribuintes passem a exigir o seu número de contribuinte nas faturas dos bens e serviços que adquirem. No entanto, se todos o fizerem, a vantagem para o estado é óbvia. O contexto não lúdico é o mundo real onde temos de adquirir bens e serviços a comerciantes que devem pagar impostos. O comportamento desejado (pelo estado) é que cada contribuinte peça a colocação do seu número de contribuinte (NIF) nas faturas de forma a que todas as transações sejam registadas e o estado arrecade mais receitas. Será possível tornar isto parecido com um jogo? Não sabendo se terá sido intencional ou não, a verdade é que o site do e-fatura inclui alguns elementos de jogos. Cada contribuinte pode ver o benefício já obtido repartido pelos setores de atividade que estão previstos na dedução através de ícones alusivos a cada setor. Mais interessante é a apresentação do ponto de situação global em cada momento: o total de faturas inseridas no sistema e o número das que têm NIF acrescidos da indicação do benefício potencial (se todas tivessem NIF) e do benefício efetivamente concedido (só para as que têm NIF do consumidor). A apresentação é complementada com barras de progresso (outro elemento de jogos muito frequente) que indicam as percentagens para cada um dos casos: faturas com número de contribuinte e benefício concedido. Das faturas com número de contribuinte é ainda apresentada a repartição pelos setores de atividade abrangido, num formato semelhante aos que cada contribuinte pode consultar para as suas faturas: Esta visão global é interessante porque permite que cada contribuinte, para além de ver a sua situação particular, poder ver a situação a nível nacional. É especialmente interessante ver que, há data, apenas se aproveitaram uns escassos 13% do benefício potencial. Isto pode ser um incentivo a que os contribuintes estejam mais atentos mas também pode funcionar ao contrário, fazer com que se desmotivem perante os resultados. Em termos de aplicação de elementos de jogos, é pouco, mas revela que a gamification é uma tendência que não deixa indiferente a mais sisuda da nossa burocracia. O que é poderia estar melhor? Em primeiro lugar, obter um benefício em termos fiscais (que representa dinheiro no bolso) é um motivador extrínseco. Para o caso em questão, uma tarefa aborrecida e sem nenhum encanto especial, o mais indicado é de facto apelar à motivação extrínseca. E uma recompensa monetária é um forte motivador extrínseco. Mas seria possível fazer algo mais. Seria muito radical criar tabelas de liderança dos contribuintes mais participativos? Atribuir benefícios adicionais àqueles que fossem mais ativos no sistema? Criar algum espírito de competição poderia incentivar à participação. Com a informação que o estado já possui sobre cada um de nós, seria possível segmentar esses dados por distrito, concelho ou freguesia, do ponto de vista geográfico ou segmentar por áreas de atividade dos contribuintes (fácil, no caso dos trabalhadores independentes).  Teria o inconveniente de mostrar o que o estado sabe sobre todos nós ... E também por que não adicionar a atribuição de insígnias? Em vez de apresentar para cada contribuinte apenas a percentagem de benefício por setor, atribuir uma insígnia ou um troféu quando se atingisse determinada percentagem ou determinado valor. Algo tipo "contribuinte gourmet" para quem tivesse maior percentagem na restauração, por exemplo. Poderia não implicar mais nada a não ser tornar o processo mais divertido, sobretudo se a atribuição das insígnias fosse inesperada. Premiar também o contribuinte pelo número de visitas ao site, premiar no caso de registar ele próprio as faturas (no caso do comerciante não o ter feito) seriam outras possibilidades. Estes pormenores teriam o efeito de fazer com que as pessoas visitassem o site mais regularmente com a consequência de estarem mais atentas à sua situação. Outro aspeto a ter em conta seria a partilha em redes sociais. As insígnias e conquistas poderiam ser partilhadas e haver incentivos a trazer amigos para o processo de registo e consulta. Será que teria implicações em termos de privacidade e de acesso a dados fiscais pessoais? Levaria a que os contribuintes ficassem desconfiados perante esta nova relação com a máquina fiscal? Seriam questões a considerar mas a sua aplicação teria certamente efeitos positivos. Para apelar a uma motivação mais intrínseca, se o próprio estado reservasse uma parte da receita conseguida por este processo para apoio social, financiando instituições desta área, poderia ser também muito interessante. Apelaria ao altruísmo de cada um e seria um fator adicional de participação. Barras de progresso indicando a percentagem de concretização de uma iniciativa social poderiam incentivar os contribuintes a participar mais vendo que estavam a intervir em algo para além do simples benefício pessoal. Será que resultaria mais? Com apenas 7% de faturas com NIF do consumidor, a Autoridade Tributária e Aduaneira deveria pensar em formas de aumentar a participação dos contribuintes.

Gamification in Education and Business - to be published by Springer under the care of the Editors:     •    Dr. Torsten Reiners (Curtin University, Australia)    •    Dr. Lincoln C. Wood (Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand) Call for Chapters:     •    Proposals Submission Deadline: May 15, 2013    •    Full Chapters Due: August 31, 2013    •    Submission Date: September 31, 2013

GAMIFICATION 2013 - Gameful Design, Research, and Applications University of Waterloo Stratford Campus, Stratford, Ontario, Canada October 2-4, 2013 Twitter: #gameit2013 IMPORTANT DATES May 1, 2013 - Submission system opens June 21 - Deadline for full papers, short papers, Gamification Student Design Competition and industry/non-academic presentations August 1 - Accept/Reject decision of the committee August 8 - Poster, Demo Submission Deadline August 30 - Camera-ready submission, Decision on Posters and Demos October 2-4 - Gamification 2013 Conference in Stratford, ON Gamification 2013: Gameful Design, Research, and Applications is a new international and interdisciplinary conference with a focus on researchers and professionals in gamification. Gamification uses game design to make a system that primarily supports non-game tasks more fun, engaging, and motivating. We invite a wide variety of research and applications to be submitted for presentation and showcasing at the conference. The goal of the conference is to demonstrate current high quality research in gamification and encourage discussion of this research as a foundation of the future of gamification. To this end, the conference will feature streams that blend academic research and experimental applications with industry and non-profit examples, results and procedures. We seek to understand the research necessary for increasingly effective implementation of gamification in business, health, education and entertainment. We welcome presentations of research projects, gamification successes and failures, unanswered questions about gamification, gamification metrics and processes, methods of gamification commercialization and more. The conference looks for gamification researchers and professionals from - but not limited to - the following backgrounds: Game Design Human-Computer Interaction Psychology Computer Science and Informatics Game Studies Education User Experience and Interaction Design Social Sciences and Humanities (e.g., digital humanities, communication research, sociology

Já faltava um livro de gamification for dummies ... Este tem como co-autor Kris Dugan, até há pouco tempo o CEO de Badgeville, tendo passado o cargo recentemente (ver aqui) para se tornar num global gamification evangelist, permanecendo na administração da empresa. Ver também este post, onde Dugan apresenta algumas das suas ideias sobre gamification da educação. O livro Business Gamification for Dummies está disponível na Amazon em versão Kindle.

Lista de publicações e posters aceites para a EDULEARN13  sobre "Games" e "Gamification": Oral presentations: BIM-BASED COMPUTER GAME FOR ACTIVE LEARNING IN CONSTRUCTIONJ. Kang, K. Kuncham CAN A FAILED SIMULATION GAME BE USEFUL FOR TEACHING ABOUT REALITY THAT AIMS TO SIMULATE? LEARNING EVOLUTION AND NATURAL SELECTION THROUGH SPORE VIDEO GAME IN A BIOLOGY CLASSD. Herrero CONTEXTUALLY-DRIVEN LEARNING EXPERIENCES FOR PROFESSIONAL LANGUAGE SKILL DEVELOPMENT THROUGH SERIOUS GAMESH. Tsalapatas, O. Heidmann, R. Alimisi, E. Houstis DESIGN CHOICES IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF AN ONCOBIOLOGY SERIOUS GAME FOR MEDICAL EDUCATIONA. C.R. Martins, F. G. Freitas, P. R. Gonçalves, R. Prada, J. M.P. Desterro, L. Costa, M. I. Crisóstomo DEVELOPMENT OF A SERIOUS GAME TO IMPROVE COMPUTER ASSEMBLY SKILLSR. Bourbia, M. Hadjeris, H. Seridi DEVELOPMENT OF AN EDUCATIONAL GAMES ASSESSMENT SYSTEMM. Mey Rodríguez, A. Bueno Villaverde DEVELOPMENT OF ONLINE EDUCATIONAL GAMES WITH AUGMENTED REALITYC. Kirner, T. Kirner DIGITAL GAMES´ EDUCATIONAL PRINCIPLES UTILISED IN E-LEARNING COURSESJ. Miškov EVALUATING LOGICAL THINKING DEVELOPMENT AMONG PRIMARY EDUCATION LEARNERS THROUGH PROGRAMMING GAMESH. Tsalapatas, E. Houstis, C. Karagiannidis FANCY BEING PRIME MINISTER? 10 DOWNING STREET - AN ECONOMIC POLICY NETWORK SIMULATION BY IE BUSINESS SCHOOL THE CONCEPTUALIZATION, DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF A SERIOUS GAMEM. Constantine GAMES ON MOBILE DEVICES TO SUPPORT PROBLEM BASED LEARNING PROCESSG. Putra, A. Puspaningrum METHODOLOGY FOR IN-GAME CERTIFICATION IN SERIOUS GAMESR. Baptista, A. Coelho, C. Vaz de Carvalho NEXT GENERATION INTERACTIVE SOCIAL SCIENCE GAMES ON WEB, TABLETS, AND SMARTPHONESR. Bodsky, S. Wang, T. Palfrey, W. Yuan THE BUSINESS GAME ECOMAN AS AN ALTERNATIVE DIDACTIC APPROACH TO PROMOTE ENTREPRENEURSHIPG. Walraevens, S. Kerremans THE HIDDEN ROOM: A 3-D ONLINE-GAME TO ENHANCE STUDENTS’ FOREIGN LANGUAGE ACQUISITION AND COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE BEYOND THE CLASSROOMA. Berns THIRD-PERSON EFFECT IN VIOLENT VIDEO GAMESO. Delialioglu, I. Bulut, S. Bakay Poster presentations: "LOSS OF MASS ADVENTURE" THE VIDEO GAME FOR A HEALTHY LIFE WITHOUT OBESITYL. Rangel Méndez, M.A. Medina Nieto, A.B. Urbina Najera, L.A. Sanchez Limon ARE KIDS AWARE OF BEING BULLIED OR OF BULLYING OTHER CHILDREN WHILST PLAYING VIDEO GAMES IN INTERNET CAFES?F. Cicek IMPROVING INTRODUCTORY PROGRAMMING USING SERIOUS GAMESW. Debabi, T. Bensebaa LOOKING FOR PATTERNS OF CONVERGENT DEVELOPMENT BETWEEN STUDENTS' MEANING-GENERATION AND LEARNING-TO-LEARN-TOGETHER PROCESSES WHILE THEY COLLABORATIVELY DESIGN THEIR 'SUSTAINABLE CITY' GAME MICROWORLDM. Daskolia, C. Kynigos TESTING A SERIOUS GAME FOR COMMUNICATING FOOD RISK TO YOUNG CONSUMERS: "A MYSTERIOUS POISONING"S. Crovato, G. Mascarello, A. Pinto, L. Ravarotto THE INTERACTIVE PHYSICS GAMED. Kawuloková, J. Krejčí Virtual presentations: AUGMENTING LEARNING WITH GAMESS. Padture ENHANCING SHARED SITUATIONAL AWARENESS WITH SIMULATION GAME SCENARIOSH. Lukosch, A. Verbraeck INFORMATION AUDIT TRAINING IN COMPUTER SCIENCE AS A SERIOUS GAMER. Perez-Castillo, M. Piattini LOM APPLICATION PROFILE TO DESCRIBE SERIOUS GAMES (LOM-SG)Y. El Borji, M. Khaldi NATURE LEAP - A PEDAGOGICAL GAME FOR PHYSICAL EXERCISE IN EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATIONS. Holck, P. Marjanen SUPPLY CHAIN SIMULATION-BASED SERIOUS GAME INTEGRATING OPTIMISATIONA. Tobail, A. Arisha URJC ECONOMETRIC GAME: A STRATEGY FOR TEACHING ECONOMETRICSM. Arrazola, J. de Hevia, I. Perrote, R. Sánchez Larrión USING ATTENTIONAL CUES WITH NOVICE PLAYERS IN AN INTERACTIVE SERIOUS GAMEJ. Vieira, N. Sousa, P. Soares, J.N. Oliveira WALKABOUT IP - AN APPROACH FOR LEARNING THROUGH CONTEXTUAL MOBILE GAMESF. Almeida, J. Lourenço, H. Bollaert, P. Possemiers INTRODUCING SOME GAMIFICATION FEATURES IN AN UNDERGRADUATE ENTREPRENEURSHIP COURSEF. Galan

Gamification can be used to accomplish a number of goals related to learning. As with any learning intervention, gamification is not the answer to every learning situation and to gamify all content or learner experiences does not make sense. Gamification is especially effective when it is used to encourage learners to progress through content, motivate action, influence behavior and drive innovation. (Karl Kapp).  (fonte da imagem) A partir do mote dado pela afirmação acima de Karl Kapp (num post publicado a 29 de abril), ficam aqui diversos links encontrados recentemente sobre a aplicação de gamification na educação e de game-based learning (GBL) e alguns exemplos reais de utilização destas abordagens. Gamification e GBL na Educação Gamifying the Classroom: 10 Inspiring Articles Gamification in Education Gamification and Education: Value Added or Lost? 7 Tips for a Game-Based Learning Success Top 10 Education Gamification Examples that will Change our Future The Best of TED for Teachers (TED Talks sobre educação em geral e também sobre GBL) 6 TED Talks on the Pluses of Gaming (mais TED Talks) Gamification e GBL na Prática Professor Cliff Lampe Talks About Gamification in Academia (Video): um exemplo de aplicação de gamification num curso com 200 alunos da Universidade do Michigan. ‘Learning is just another word for fun, under optimal conditions’ [Case Study]: relato de uma experiência de aplicação de gamification num evento para formadores. SuperFunner Turns the Classroom into a Video Game: descrição de uma transformação de uma sala de aula num jogo - SuperFunner. WoWinSchool - slides de uma apresentação de um ambiente do tipo World of Warcraft na sala de aula. Estão disponíveis mais detalhes. World of Classcraft - outra experiência baseada no World of Warcraft (já mencionada aqui). Gamified Classroom? - mais um exemplo baseado no World of Warcraft: World of ScienceCraft. How I turned my classroom into a ‘living video game’—and saw achievement soar: uma experiência no ensino básico.  

Gammify: The World’s Largest Gamification Challenge é uma competição aberta (já se pode fazer um pré-registo) a todos os interessados no tema: Gammify is the 2013 Gamification World Championships, a fun, innovative and professional competition for students and professionals to develop their skill and understanding of the rapidly growing field of Gamification. Competitors from over 100 countries will take part with competition Finals held in San Francisco, USA.  Não é claro quem é que organiza esta competição nem que tipo de adesão pode ter. No entanto, os elementos já conhecidos do júri são nomes de referência na área. Um avento a aguardar.

Paper accepted (with revision) for Challenges 2013 Conference: "Proposta de Modelo de Referência para Aplicação de Gamification em Ambientes de Aprendizagem Social". Abstract: Gamification is the application of  typical elements from video games in non-gaming contexts aiming to increase the levels of engagement and motivation of the participants in activities in those contexts. The ways to achieve this objective have been supported by the flow theory, among others. Education is considered one of the areas with greatest potential for the application of gamification. The increasing use of information and communication technologies in educational contexts and the recognition of the pedagogical potential of Web 2.0 applications, made learning supporting platforms good candidates for the application of game elements, particularly from social games. Choosing which elements to consider and how to apply them led to the necessity of defining a framewok to assist the application of gamification. This paper presents a proposal of such a framework following previous work that has identified its general characteristics.  Keywords: Gamification, game elements, flow theory, social learning environments, framework Autores: Jorge Simões, Rebeca Redondo, Ana Vilas, Ademar Aguiar.

Motivation, clear objectives, critical thinking about consequences, and instant and abundant feedback are all elements of the best learning experiences. These are also elements of the best games. There is momentum behind games in education, including a large number of teachers who are using games like Minecraft and Civilizaton or gamifying their classroom to teach core concepts and develop 21st century skills. Visit http://bit.ly/13ZoI60 to access the recording of the May 20 webinar.Some important issues to mention:games: games are fun and include story, character, goal, obstacules, feedback, levels. game mechanics vs learning principles.multiple intelligences.flow theory. video with interventions from James Gee and Clark Aldrich, among others. types of games: simple games, simulated environments and adventure worlds (benefits, limitations of each). gamification as the concept of applying game-design thinking to non-game applications to make them more fun and engaging.An interesting quote:The worst thing kids can say about a homework is that it's too hard. The worst thing they can say about a game is that it's too easy (Dr. Henry Jenkins).In short, the presentation is interesting but adds nothing really new.

Anúncio de um colóquio sobre perspetivas críticas na aplicação de gamification no contexto de estudos empresariais (a tradução pode ser discutível).Este anúncio chegou por mail através de Sebastian Deterding da Gamification Research Network. Não são conhecidos mais pormenores sobre o evento nem parece existir ainda um website de suporte.Para além do anúncio, vale a pena ler o resumo que é feito sobre a origem e evolução do conceito de gamification como pontos de partida para as perspetivas críticas pretendidas quando ao seu futuro. Os organizadores do colóquio aparentam integrar a corrente dos investigadores sobre o tema da gamification que são oriundos da área do marketing.Eis o anúncio, tal como chegou:The theme for this colloquium is critical perspectives on gamification within a context of business studies. It is arranged by Peter Zackariasson, Mikolaj Dymek and Johan Hagberg, and is hosted by University of Gothenburg, School of Business, Economics and Law at the 22nd of November, 2013.Purportedly coined already as early as 2002 by game developer Nick Pelling, the notion of "gamification" has only gained attention during the last couple of years. Without a paradigmatic definition, a common and tentative viewpoint is that gamification involves the use of game mechanics in "non-game" contexts. Although lacking in stringency this perspective has spawned a global gamification frenzy. A Google Trends query indicates a dramatic surge in popularity at the end of 2010, and interest continues its growth to this date. In 2011 it was termed the hottest digital trend at the immensely influential SXSW festival. Exceptionally popular presentations at the prominent TED Conferences by gamificiation gurus such as Gabe Zichermann, Jane McGonigal, Tom Chatfield and others, have inspired a plethora of software applications, services, campaigns, products and communication strategies that all claim to be part of the gamification movement. These gamification applications have been implemented in an impressing range of fields ranging from weight loss, education, journalism, loyalty programmes through marketing campaigns, exercising, language learning to social networks and corporate intranets. More specifically within a business context efforts have been made within marketing, project management, education, internal communication, health care and human resource management.The gamification trend has primarily been picked up by the IT industry - often entrepreneurial Internet startups predominantly outside the sphere of the traditional video game industry. A trailblazer in this context has been the immensely successful case of Foursquare - a location-based social network for smartphone users. Using game mechanics Foursquare has during less than four years motivated over 30 million users to "check in" in millions of places around the world. This gamification implementation has generated one of the world’s most comprehensive, and most updated, local commerce directory. Unlike other local services (Yelp, Google Local, Qype, etc.) ratings and recommendations are not based on anonymous voting scores (which can easily be manipulated), but on real check ins, i.e. consumer movements verified by GPS functionality and Foursquare app. However, lately Foursquare has been heavily criticised in media for not generating revenues, floundering popularity and that its business model does not offer easy "monetisation" as advertisements and paid listings would corrupt the neutrality of Foursquare’s recommendations.As the Foursquare service is being developed into a less gamified interface, critical voices are being raised that this vindicates the end of the entire gamification trend. A trend that was more about hyperbole, gamification gurus and catchy slogans, than it was about expanding the realm of the game medium. Critics have accused gamification implementations to be superficial and excessively uniform based on points, badges and leaderboards, so-called "badgification". Not only is the gamification concept being questioned by (IT) industry professionals, but game developers and game theorists are heavily criticising the notion as well. Large parts of the (hardcore) gamer community have never really embraced the gamification trend since it indirectly posits game development outside of their domain ("non-game" contexts).Foursquare, the poster child of the gamification trend, is at a crossroads. We will use this turning point as a stepping stone for focusing a well-deserved critical perspective on the gamification trend, and particularly applications within a business studies context. Multiple issues are being raised about both practical and theoretical value of gamification in studies of consumers, markets, organizations, or other areas in business studies. We invite theoretical as well as practical papers, within a business context, on the following topics:
Can gamification be stringently defined, separated analytically from "conventional" approaches in business studies? What are the theoretical perspectives, from games studies/new media/digital literature studies, on the gamification trend - and how does this influence business studies? How do we critically analyse the claims of the gamification acolytes and their numerous easy-digestible "airport" business publications ?
 Critical and empirical analysis of successful, or unsuccessful, cases of gamification in business settings such as marketing, project management, education, internal communication, health care and human resource management
 Empirical accounts of gamification production
 How can the business use of gamification be evaluated? Can gamification be analysed using established frameworks within economics such as game theory, behavioural economics, management control systems and others that analyse economic behaviour using notions of rules, rewards and evaluations?
 How does gamification relate to management/organisation theory?
 What are the (business) ethical consequences of gamifying employee or customer activity? 
In other words: what is the future of gamification in a business setting? Submit an extended abstract (1000 words), plus a short bio to Peter Zackariasson (peter.zackariasson@handels.gu.se). Deadline for the abstract is August 31.

Some recent links about gamification of education:-  4 Ways To Bring Gamification of Education To Your Classroom (from TopHat): some ways to use gamification in the classroom."Games, in any form, increase motivation through engagement. Nowhere else is this more important than education."- Game on? The use of gamification in e-learning (from Aurion Learning)" ... gamification in learning is the use of game mechanics to ‘gamify’ content to engage and entice users by encouraging and rewarding use.""What does the successful application of gamification in e-learning look like?1. Gamification isn’t about games, but the learners.2. It isn’t about knowledge but behaviour.3. It extracts the motivational techniques out of games and uses them for life-applicable learning.4. It allows quick feedback of progress and communications of goals that need to be accomplished."... and a new definition for gamification in learning contexts, from Razvan Rughinis in Gamification for Productive Interaction, Reading and Working with the Gamification Debate in Education (see this other post) presented at CISTI 2013 (proceedings available):"Gamification in learning contexts represents simple gameplay to support productive interaction for expected types of learners and instructors."

A list of the next gamification events shared among GamFed members:Game Industry trends 2013 in Poland on September 12th and 13th Gamifiers event in London on September 18th  GSummitX in New York on September 10th Enterprise gamification Forum 2013 in New York (Sept) Gamified.in - Oct 4th  Gamified conference in Munich on October 18

Gamification and Big Data walk along together (see this other post about the Horizon Report 2013 - Higher Education Edition and also Four Approaches to Collecting Data in Gamified Systems). It is also worth to look at what Gartner predicts about the future of these two technologies. In the 2013 edition of Gartner's Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies (which I got from here, a link shared by Andrzej Marczewski) and in the 2012 edition we can see how the two technologies are evolving. They are now both at the top of the "peak of inflated expectations" (Gamification is a little ahead). They have an horizon of 5 to 10 years to reach the "plateau of productivity" (in 2012, Big Data was in the 2 to 5 years horizon).Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies 2012 Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies 2013And to end, a funny video about how gamification is already part of our lives ... The video is from Designing Digitally, a company providing solutions for E-Learning programs, 3D training simulations and virtual worlds development.

Could be interesting ...Call for papers for "Rethinking Gamification"a handbook edited by 
Mathias Fuchs, Niklas Schrape, Sonia Fizek and Paolo Ruffino.The Gamification Lab at the Centre for Digital Cultures in Lüneburg, Germany,  invites scholars, artists, designers and thinkers to critically question gamification and propose alternatives to the dominant models that have been framing this concept. The project will expand the outcome of the Rethinking Gamification workshop held in May 2013 at the Gamification Lab in Lüneburg, which involved a group of 15 international scholars and artists.We expect proposals to critically analyse gamification. If interested, please send extended abstracts (1.000 words) for full length papers (8.000 words), to be completed (if accepted) by mid-December 2013. The final papers will be published in Spring 2014.It is also worth to see the videos on Gamification Lab website and the related papers. They are contributions for the workshop Rethinking Gamification that took place on May 2013. One of the papers is from Scott Nicholson: Exploring the Endgame of Gamification. He has beem working on meaningful gamification (see this other post) and he has his own RECIPE:Reflection - creating situations where users reflect to discover personal connections with the real-world setting;Exposition - using narrative and user-created stories to create deeper connections to the real-world setting;Choice - allowing the user to select paths and develop goals within the real-worldsetting that are more meaningful to him or her;Information - providing the user with information about the connections between the gamification activities and the real-world setting;Play - creating a safe space and set of boundaries where the user can choose how he or she wishes to engage with different gamification activities in the real-world setting;Engagement - using the gamification system to connect users to a community of practice that surrounds the real-world setting. 

The Gamification 2013, the First International Conference on Gameful Design, Research, and Applicationswas a three-day, dual-track conference that took place in the University of Waterloo (October, 2-4). Education and Serious Games were some of the conference topics:"This conference is the first of its kind and we will use this opportunity to unite the burgeoning area of gamification with the best approaches from professional user experience and game designers. Our program is a blend of academic research and experimental applications with industry and non-profit examples, procedures, best practices, goals and results. It gives an idea of what all is now possible in the field of gamification. Our topics range from using citizen science games for motivation to best practices of exergames and classroom gamification. Not to forget the necessary discussion of the overlap between serious games and gamification". In this conference gamification is defined as the use of "... game design in systems that primarily support non-game tasks to make them more fun, engaging, and motivating. With this motivational power of games comes great responsibility to go beyond using playful badges and point systems to truly tap into the intrinsic motivation of users".The conference proceedings are available. Here are some of the papers related to gamification of education:Full Papers: Competition as an Element of Gamification for Learning: an Exploratory Longitudinal Investigation; Improving Participation and Learning with Gamification; The Design and Evaluation of a Classroom Exergame; Driven to drive: Designing gamification for a learner logbook smartphone application; Gamification and Serious Game Approaches for Introductory Computer Science Tablet Software.Short Papers:Gamifying Behaviour that Leads to Learning; Improving Student Creativity with Gamification and Virtual Worlds.

Another gamification book, authored by Karl Kapp will be available by mid November: The Gamification of Learning and Instruction Fieldbook: Ideas into Practice. It follows the other Kapp's book on gamification, published in 2012: The Gamification of Learning and Instruction: Game-based Methods and Strategies for Training and Education (see this post).Following Karl Kapp's earlier book The Gamification of Learning and Instruction, this Fieldbook provides a step-by-step approach to implementing the concepts from the Gamification book with examples, tips, tricks, and worksheets to help a learning professional or faculty member put the ideas into practice. The Online Workbook, designed largely for students using the original book as a textbook, includes quizzes, worksheets and fill-in-the-blank areas that will help a student to better understand the ideas, concepts and elements of incorporating gamification into learning.Is is allready possible to preorder the book at Amazon (paperback). Kindle edition is available.

(received by email from gamification-research@googlegroups.com)Gamification for Information Retrieval (GamifIR’14) Workshop, held in conjunction with ECIR 2014
, Amsterdam, Netherlands
13 April 2014Gamification is the application of game mechanics, such as leader boards, badges or achievement points, in non-gaming environments with the aim to increase user engagement, data quality or cost effectiveness.  A core aspect of gamification solutions is to infuse intrinsic motivations to participate by leveraging people’s natural desires for achievement and competition. While gamification, on the one hand, is emerging as the next big thing in industry, e.g., an effective way to generate business, on the other hand, it is also becoming a major research area. However, its adoption in Information Retrieval (IR) is still in its infancy,  despite the wide ranging IR tasks that may benefit from gamification techniques. These include the manual annotation of documents for IR evaluation, the participation in user studies to study interactive IR challenges, or the shift from single-user search to social search, just to mention a few.This workshop focuses on the challenges and opportunities that gamification can present for the IR community. The workshop aims to bring together researchers and practitioners from a wide range of areas including game design, information retrieval, human-computer interaction, computer games, and natural language processing.Call for papers: deadline 5 February 2014Keynote by Prof. Richard Bartle, known for his 1996 Player Types model (see this post)Topics include but are not limited to: Gamification approaches in a variety of information-seeking contextsUser engagement and motivational factors of gamificationPlayer types, contests, cooperative gamesChallenges and opportunities of applying gamification in IRGamification design and game mechanicsGame based work and crowdsourcingApplications and prototypesEvaluation of gamification techniques

My paper (see this post) A Social Gamification Framework for a K-6 Learning Platform published at Computers in Human Behavior, in March 2013, (co-authored with Rebeca Díaz Redondo e Ana Fernández Vilas), has been cited in other publications. The paper presents the "main features of a social gamification framework to be applied in an existent K-6 social learning environment". This social learning environment is schoooools.com (see also this post on schoooools' blog - in portuguese).Last year, it was referenced in Gamifying Learning Experiences: Pratical Implications and Outcomes, published at Computers & Education (vol. 63, April 2013): "Recently Simões, Díaz & Fernández (2013) presented a social gamification framework for http://schoooools.com, a social learning environment, which "aims to assist educators and schools with a set of powerful and engaging educational tools to improve students’ motivation and learning outcomes". Another reference in 2013 was in Reimagining Leaderboards: Towards Gamifying Competency Models through Social Game Mechanics, publicado nos proceedings da Gamification 2013 - First International Conference on Gameful Design, Research, and Applications: "Simões, Redondo and Vilas developed a social gamification framework for educational systems that was implemented for a series of elementary schools in Portugal [15]. Game elements were drawn directly from social games; for example, peer appraisal, including the use of a "like" button, giving and sharing rewards, and teamwork-based goals." Today, in Zac Fitz-Walter's Gamification Weekly (Issue 33 - 31st January, 2014), I found two other references. One was in Gamification - supported Exploration and Practicing for Automotive User Interfaces and Vehicle Functions: "When analyzing current examples of gamified learning environ-ments(Muntean 2011; Simões et al. 2013), the use of game elements does not directly optimize the learning efficacy, but has mainly an impact on the learners’ motivation (Domínguez et al. 2013)". The other was in Memoirs of a Teacher-Gamer: Educational Games (in Reading Matters, Volume 14, Spring 2014, pp 8 - 13): "Unlike the game based learning I have focused on so far, gamification is a recent term introduced to the educational gaming community. Recent studies suggest educators begin looking at the experience of school as a game by integrating general features of popular games to enhance motivation (Apostol, Zaharescu, & Alexe, 2013; Simões, Redondo, & Vilas, 2013)".Well, someone is reading the paper which is gratifying ...

My fourth contribution to Gamifeye: Recap: Gamification in Education in 2013. This post highlights some of the most important things around the research on gamification of education that happened in 2013.Again, many thanks to Sam Geuter, the man behind Gamifeye.See the other contributions:Post em Gamifeye: "Education and Training: From Game-Based Learning to Gamification (October, 2012); Post em Gamifeye: "How Gamification Can Drive Behavioural Change" (November, 2012);  Post em Gamifeye: Four Approaches to Collecting Data in Gamified Systems (February, 2013).

Call for submissions to Computers in Human Behavior - Special Issue on Gamification: Gameful Design, Research, and Applications.Following the conference on Gamification 2013: Gameful Design, Research, and Applications (see the conference videos here), the conference organizers and editors of this special issue invite researchers to submit contributions on all aspects of gamification to this special issue of Computers in Human Behavior. See this other post, with a link to the Proceedings of Gamification 2013.Gamification uses game design to make a system that primarily supports non-game tasks more fun, engaging, and motivating. We invite a wide variety of high-quality research papers into our special issue. We seek to understand the research necessary for increasingly effective implementation of,gamification in business, health, education andmentertainment. We welcome substantial research studies of gamification successes and failures, unanswered questions about gamification, gamification metrics and processes, methods of gamification commercialization and more.This special issue aims gamification researchers interested in - but not limited to - the following fields:Game DesignHuman-Computer InteractionPsychologyComputer Science and InformaticsGame StudiesEducationUser Experience and Interaction DesignSocial Sciences and Humanities (e.g., digital humanities,communication research, sociology)Special Issue Editors:Lennart Nacke, University of Ontario Institute of TechnologySebastian Deterding, Rochester Institute of TechnologyKevin Harrigan, University of WaterlooNeil Randall, University of WaterlooImportant dates:May 30, 2014: Submission deadlineAugust 30, 2014: Notification back to authorsApril, 2015: Planned date of publication

This is the first post regarding the origin and evolution of gamification, the concept broadly defined as "the use of game elements in non-game contexts". I invite others to contribute (with comments to the post) if something is missing and to correct what may be wrong or incomplete.The OriginThe concept behind what become known as gamification in recent years was already known almost one hundred years ago. Nelson (2012) argue that the origins of gamification are in the early to mid 20th century in Soviet Union, like "a way to motivate workers without relying on capitalist-style monetary incentives". Workers and factories could compete with each other to increase production, using points and other game-like elements. Later, in american management, on the transition from the 20th to the 21st century, the strategy of turning the workplace into a more playful setting reappeared. In 1984, Coonradt (2007) published the first edition of his book The Game of Work. Coonradt, known as the "grandfather of gamification", applied game principles in business contexts, dealing with employee motivation. His principles to motivate people include frequent feedback, clear goals and personal choice, features that can be found in games. These American and Soviet approaches, as precursors of gamification, gave rise to o sub-genre of the concept, the "gamification of work" (or playbour). Even before Coonradt's work, loyalty programs, like frequent flyer programs in airline companies (Kumar and Herger, 2013), where travelers gain miles (i.e. points) that can be exchanged for some benefit, and other marketing campaigns already incorporate some game features.In other contexts, similarities with game elements can be found in the use of icons or symbols to express achievements, as insignias on military uniforms or insignias used on youth organizations like the Scouts (Silvers, 2011; Werbach and Hunter, 2012). These icons and symbols have their digital counterpart in video games’ badges (Rosewell, 2012). As the Scout can collect badges and display them on their uniform, digital badges can be used to display individual skills, abilities and accomplishments since a software system provides the adequate infrastructure.In the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) context, Deterding et al. (2011) note that, in the 1980s, in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), the design of user interfaces already benefited from the knowledge of different design practices, namely game design. Playfulness, as a desirable user experience or mode of interaction, gained the attention of multiple HCI researchers. As Deterding et al. refer, game elements were long used in HCI, as game controllers used as input devices or graphic engines and authoring tools of video games used in non-ludic contexts.Game-Based Learning (GBL) and the Serious Games movement contribute to the spread of the concept, revealing that games could be useful in non-ludic contexts instead of just being used for fun and amusement. Gamification, connects to concepts related to HCI and to game studies, as serious games, pervasive games, alternate reality games, or playful design ( Deterding et al.). References:Nelson, M. (2012). Soviet and american precursors to the gamification of work. In Lugmayr, A., editor, MindTrek, pages 23-26. ACM.Coonradt, C. (2007). The Game of Work: How to Enjoy Work as Much as Play. Gibbs Smith.Kumar, J. and Herger, M. (2013). Gamification at Work: Designing Engaging Business Software. Aarhus, Denmark,. The Interaction Design Foundation.Silvers, A. (2011). On education, badges and scouting [web log message].Werbach, K. and Hunter, D. (2012). For the Win: How Game Thinking Can Revolutionize Your Business. Wharton Digital Press.Rosewell, J. (2012). A speculation on the possible use of badges for learning at the uk open university. In EADTU Annual Conference: The Role Of Open And Flexible Education In European Higher Education Systems For 2020: New Models, New Markets, New Media. Deterding, S., Dixon, D., Khaled, R., and Nacke, L. (2011). From game design elements to gamefulness: Defining "gamification". In Proceedings of the 15th International Academic MindTrek Conference: Envisioning Future Media Environments, MindTrek ’11, pages 9-15, New York, NY, USA. ACM.

This is the second post regarding the origin and evolution of gamification, following A Brief History of Gamification: Part I - The Origin. I invite others to contribute (with comments to the post) if something is missing and to correct what may be wrong or incomplete.The NameAbout the concept’s name, several authors claim that the term gamification, a neologism, was created in 2002 (Marczewski, 2012; Penenberg, 2013), or 2003 (Werbach and Hunter, 2012), or 2004 (Rughinis 2013) by Nick Pelling, a British programmer and video game designer. In fact, according to this alleged author, the word was created in 2002 (Pelling, 2011) and became public in 2003 in Pelling’s company website. By then, he intended to apply his gamification ideas to electronic devices. Others claim the term’s authorship for themselves at even earlier dates: "a trend I call gameification, which I first identified in the early eighties" (Burrus and Mann, 2012). Other sources indicate that the term was invented by Tim Chang from Norwest Venture Partners at an undefined date.In digital media and according to Huotari and Hamari (2012), the term, written as gameification, was mentioned for the first time in 2008 in a blog post (Terrill, 2008). Werbach and Hunter (2012) note also that it was only in 2010 that the term was widely adopted. In fact, the term only started to be searched in Google on August, 2010 (Duggan and Shoup, 2013; Zichermann and Linder, 2013).Before the term gamification came into widespread use on digital media, the underlying concept was also known as funware, a term proposed by Gabe Zichermann. Similar terms were associated with the concept like fun at work, serious games or games with a purpose (Rughinis, 2013), although these last two terms are in fact related with different concepts. Landers and Callan (2011) also use the term gameification, applying it in learning contexts. Besides all of these alternative terms, the word gamification prevailed even not being consensual.The concept is seen by many as misleading and difficult to define (Anderson and Rainie, 2012; Raczkowski, 2013) and as Robertson (2010) claims "is the wrong word for the right idea". Although game design is central to the concept of gamification, some game designers do not agree neither with the word nor with the concept (e.g. Bogost, 2011a). As long as the word became popular, criticism of gamification also made presence in digital media. Some game designers point that gamification is just a meaningless buzzword. Depreciative terms like exploitationware (Bogost, 2011b) or pointsification as proposed by Robertson, shows that both the word and the concept are not consensual.See also:A Brief History of Gamification: Part I - The OriginA brief history of gamification, by Zac Fitz-WalterWho coined the term gamification? References:Anderson, A. and Rainie, L. (2012). The future of gamification. Technical report, Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project. Duggan, C. and Shoup, K. (2013). Business Gamification for Dummies. John Wiley and Sons, Inc.   Burrus, D. and Mann, J. (2012). Gameification: Accelerating learning with technolog Bogost, I. (2011a). Gamification is bullshit Bogost, I. (2011b). Persuasive games: Exploitationware Huotari, K. and Hamari, J. (2012). Defining gamification: A service marketing per- spective. In Proceeding of the 16th International Academic MindTrek Conference, MindTrek ’12, pages 17-22, New York, NY, USA. ACM.   Landers, R. and Callan, R. (2011). Casual social games as serious games: The psychology of gamification in undergraduate education and employee training. Serious Games and Edutainment Applications.  Marczewski, A. (2012). Gamification: A Simple Introduction. Marczewski, A.  Pelling, N. (2011). The (short) prehistory of "gamification"Penenberg, A. (2013). Play at Work: How Games Inspire Breakthrough Thinking. Piatkus. Robertson, M. (2010). Can’t play, won’t play Raczkowski, F. (2013). It’s all fun and games... a history of ideas concerning gamification. In Proceedings of DiGRA 2013: DeFragging Game Studies. Rughinis, R. (2013). Gamification for productive interaction reading and working with the gamification debate in education. In Proceedings of the Information Systems and Technologies (CISTI), 8th Iberian Conference on Information Systems and Technologies. Terrill, B. (2008). My coverage of lobby of the social gaming summit Werbach, K. and Hunter, D. (2012). For the Win: How Game Thinking Can Revolutionize Your Business. Wharton Digital Press. Zichermann, G. and Linder, J. (2013). The Gamification Revolution. McGraw-Hill Education.

The third part of The Brief History of Gamification is here, following A Brief History of Gamification: Part I - The Origin and A Brief History of Gamification: Part II - The Name. I invite others to contribute (with comments to the post) if something is missing and to correct what may be wrong or incomplete.This third post is about the definition of the concept that became known as gamification. There are probably as many definitions for gamification as people writing about it. Gamification definitions have been proposed since the word appeared in 2010. Some of them were listed previously in this blog in a post where 23 definitions were listed. Those definitions were found in web logs, technical reports and academic papers. Some of them are redundant or very similar to each other. Here are some of those definitions and a few more recent ones:"The notion that gaming mechanics can be applied to routine activities" (Johnson et al., 2014);  "The use of game mechanics and rewards in non-game setting to increase user engagement and drive desired user behaviors" (Duggan and Shoup, 2013); "Implementing design concepts from games, loyalty programs, and behavior economics to drive user engagement" (Zichermann and Linder, 2013); "The use of game elements and game-design techniques in non-game contexts" (Werbach and Hunter, 2012);  "The application of game metaphors to real life tasks to influence behaviour, improve motivation and enhance engagement" (Marczewski, 2012); "Using game techniques to make activities more engaging and fun" (Kim, 2011);  "The use of game attributes to drive game-like player behavior in a non-game 
context" (Wu, 2011);  "Taking game mechanics and applying to other web properties to increase engagement" (Terrill, 2008);
 Other definitions from the academia are:  "Incorporating game elements into a non-gaming software application to increase user experience and engagement" (Domínguez et al., 2013); "A form of service packaging where a core service is enhanced by a rules-based service system that provides feedback and interaction mechanisms to the user with an aim to facilitate and support the users’ overall value creation" (Huotari and Hamari, 2011); "The use of game mechanics, dynamics, and frameworks to promote desired behaviors" (Lee and Hammer, 2011);"The use of game design elements in non-game contexts" (Deterding et al., 2011). This shows that there is no consensus for a single and widely accepted definition for gamification (Werbach and Hunter, 2012). The first known definition in an academic paper is the one from Huotari and Hamari. In spite of all these different proposals, the definition that is more often found in academic papers is the one from Deterding et al. (2011). This definition is now widely used as the academic definition for the concept of gamification.The definition from Domínguez et al. refers to non-gaming educative contexts. To conclude, some more definitions regardind education and training contexts: "The adition of elements commonly associated with games (e.g. game mechanics) to an educational or training program in order to make the learning process more engaging" (Landers and Callan, 2011);  "Using game-based mechanics, aesthetics and game thinking to engage people, motivate action, promote learning, and solve problems" (Kapp, 2012);  "Simple gameplay to support productive interaction for expected types of learners and instructors" (Rughinis, 2013); See also:A Brief History of Gamification: Part I - The OriginA Brief History of Gamification: Part II - The Name References: Deterding, S., Dixon, D., Khaled, R., and Nacke, L. (2011). From game design elements to gamefulness: Defining "gamification". In Proceedings of the 15th International Academic MindTrek Conference: Envisioning Future Media Environments, MindTrek ’11, pages 9-15, New York, NY, USA. ACM. Domínguez, A., Saenz-de Navarrete, J., de Marcos, L., Fernández-Sanz, L., Pagés, C., and Martínez-Herráiz, J. (2013). Gamifying learning experiences: Practical implications and outcomes. Computers and Education, 63(0):380-392. Duggan, C. and Shoup, K. (2013). Business Gamification for Dummies. John Wiley and Sons, Inc.  Johnson, L., Adams Becker, S., Estrada, V., and Freeman, A. (2014). NMC Horizon Report: 2014 Higher Education Edition. Technical report, Austin, Texas: The New Media Consortium. Kapp, K. (2012). The Gamification of Learning and Instruction: Game-based Methods and Strategies for Training and Education. Pfeiffer. Kim, A. (2011). Smart gamification: Designing the player journey [video].Huotari, K. and Hamari, J. (2011). Gamification: from the perspective of service marketing. In Proc. CHI 2011 Workshop Gamification. Landers, R. and Callan, R. (2011). Casual social games as serious games: The psychology of gamification in undergraduate education and employee training. Serious Games and Edutainment Applications.Lee, J. and Hammer, J. (2011). Gamification in education: What, how, why bother? Academic Exchange Quarterly, 15(2):2.Marczewski, A. (2012). Gamification: A Simple Introduction. Marczewski, A.Rughinis, R. (2013). Gamification for productive interaction reading and working with the gamification debate in education. In Proceedings of the Information Systems and Technologies (CISTI), 8th Iberian Conference on Information Systems and Technologies.Terrill, B. (2008). My coverage of lobby of the social gaming summit   Werbach, K. and Hunter, D. (2012). For the Win: How Game Thinking Can Revolutionize Your Business. Wharton Digital Press. Wu, M. (2011). What is gamification, really? [web log message] Zichermann, G. and Linder, J. (2013). The Gamification Revolution. McGraw-Hill Education. 

This is the fourth post on The Brief History of Gamification, following Part I - The Origin, Part II - The Name and Part III - The Definitions. I invite others to contribute (with comments to the post) if something is missing and to correct what may be wrong or incomplete.Since the first uses of the word gamification in late 2010, the concept quickly spread. That is due, in great part, to some popular video presentations, even if some of them do not use the word gamification. These video presentations, some at the TED Conferences, highlighted the importance of game thinking, with perspectives from game designers like Tom Chatfield, Jane McGonigal and Jessie Schell (all in 2010) or perspectives from digital marketing professionals, like Gabe Zichermann (in 2011).In 2011, the word gamification was part of the Oxford University Press short list for the word of the year. In the same year, Jane McGonigal published Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World, a book about how features from video games could be used in different contexts making a contribution to a better citizenship and to a better world. Although McGonigal, a game designer, never mentioned the word gamification, the concept was present and inspired several other gamification’s developers and researchers. Many software applications, digital services, campaigns, products and communication strategies released in 2011 and after were inspired by this gamification movement.Gartner added gamification to its "hype cycle for emergent technologies" in 2011, pointing for a period of 5 to 10 years for mainstream adoption. Gartner uses hype cycles to track technology adoption: after the "peak of inflated expectations" period, technologies will fall into the "trough of disillusionment". Then, they will start evolving to the "slope of enlightenment" and some of them will reach the "plateau of productivity". By 2013, gamification was at the "peak of inflated expectations". Gamification became a buzzword in the business world and a popular term in digital media.Also with an increasing number of scholars and professionals becoming interested in the concept, along with the general public, the online learning platform Coursera launched in August 2012, a MOOC on gamification, lectured by Kevin Werbach, an Associate Professor from the University of Pennsylvania. The course had more than 80.000 registered students with further editions in 2013 (with 66.000 students) and January 2014 (with 70.000 registrations). After the first edition of the course, Werbach co-authored the book For the Win: How Game Thinking Can Revolutionize Your Business.Since 2011, a large number of web log posts were released covering gamification related themes. These first references to gamification were very informal and debated the advantages or drawbacks of the concept and look for examples within web applications. Books on gamification were also published (e.g. Gamification by Design, Gamification at Work: Designing Engaging Business Software,  Loyalty 3.0: How to Revolutionize Customer and Employee Engagement with Big Data and Gamification). Most of them approach the concept with a business or enterprise view and others cover specific areas of application, like education and training (The Gamification of Learning and Instruction: Game-based Methods and Strategies for Training and Education; The Gamification of Learning and Instruction Fieldbook: Ideas into Pratice). Gamified applications, gamification platforms and a large number of academic papers on gamification also became part of the gamification movement, but that is for future posts.The concept behind gamification long precedes the emergence of the term although its spread was only possible when the digital games industry has matured and after a generation of gamers was fully active in their working lives. The proliferation of digital media, social networks and other popular Web 2.0 applications have also created the environment that helped the dissemination of a movement that, despite all the criticism, became known as gamification.This nice infographic (first published here) shows some of the important milestones on the short but rich history of gamification:See also:A Brief History of Gamification: Part I - The OriginA Brief History of Gamification: Part II - The NameA Brief History of Gamification: Part III - The Definitions