Pablo Moreno Ger

International University of La Rioja | UNIR · School of Engineering

El interés creciente por la aplicación de diseños gamificados en la educación superior se ve cuestionado por un nivel de aceptación desigual de los alumnos. Cada jugador siente atracción por el juego por distintos motivos y por elementos de diseño diferentes. Por ello, comprender mejor la conexión de cada alumno con las distintas mecánicas del jueg...

Researchers in the field of ubiquitous learning assert that emotional presence management leads to promising results in the teaching-learning process. However, are there predominant emotions in virtual classes How can emotional clusters be created Is it possible to obtain action tendencies in virtual classes In response to these questions, we propo...

In the healthcare network, the Internet of Things (IoT) devices are connected to the network for enabling remote monitoring of patients’ health. IoT device security, however, is a serious concern because typical security measures might not be appropriate for IoT devices, making them naturally vulnerable to physical and copying attacks. Therefore, d...

The lung is a vital organ in human physiology and disease in lung causes various health issues. The acute disease in lung is a medical emergency and hence several methods are developed and implemented to detect the lung abnormality. Tuberculosis (TB) is one of the common lung disease and premature diagnosis and treatment is necessary to cure the di...

This article describes the Compete! educational game, developed within the European Erasmus + framework, which aims to teach soft skills to higher education students to increase their employability. A participatory learning methodology based on a gamification tool has been used for this purpose. The game presents a series of scenarios that describe...

Educational data mining (EDM) is an emerging topic in recent years steered by data mining and machine learning techniques to enhance students’ overall learning experience and academic progress. In recent years EDM techniques are frequently used to improve assessment systems but the evaluation procedure is majorly marks driven. Developing an evaluat...

Educational Data Science has meant an important advancement in the understanding and improvemen of learning models in recent years. One of the most relevant research topics is student performance prediction through click-stream activity in virtual learning environments, which provide abundant information about their behaviour during the course. Thi...

In the past few years, interest in applying intelligent data-mining techniques to educational datasets has increased rapidly, with goals ranging from identifying students who need further support to being able to infer or predict a student’s final grade based on their behaviour during the learning process. Even more amongst students enrolled from a...

Digital transformation is enabling institutions to enhance their processes by using data and technology. In education, digital transformation allows improving the learning experience as well as the institution processes. Within education 4.0, artificial intelligence applied to learning analytics is playing a key role for universities, particularly...

Teacher and student emotions are a fundamental basis in the development of the teaching-learning process. In this paper, we aim to verify whether it is possible for the emotions that are registered on a teacher’s face to constitute emotional vectors and therefore be grouped hierarchically in order to obtain the teacher’s emotional behavior during a...

Learning analytics have become a solidly established line of research, leveraging the large amounts of data that students generate while interacting with online materials such as those stored in a learning management system (LMS). On the other hand, serious games are also experiencing a growing acceptance as a powerful medium for learning. But at t...

This paper presents a neural network-based classifier to predict whether a person is at risk of developing chronic kidney disease (CKD). The model is trained with the demographic data and medical care information of two population groups: on the one hand, people diagnosed with CKD in Colombia during 2018, and on the other, a sample of people withou...

Educational video games are becoming an increasingly popular alternative in the academic field. However, video game development is a very complex task that requires programming skills and knowledge of multiple technologies, as well as lengthy and costly processes. This has hindered the adoption of educational video games in real settings, and there...

The creation of computer and videogames is a challenging and multidisciplinary endeavor, requiring different approaches to integrate different disciplines while keeping relatively low development costs. In this context, Domain Specific Languages (DSLs) are increasingly becoming a valid tool, allowing non-programmers to participate in the developmen...

Learning Analytics is becoming a key tool for the analysis and improvement of digital education processes, and its potential benefit grows with the size of the student cohorts generating data. In the context of Open Education, the potentially massive student cohorts and the global audience represent a great opportunity for significant analyses and...

There is a consensus that Serious Games (SGs) have a potential as a tool for education, and the conversation is no longer about whether it makes sense to use SGs in education, but how to exploit their potential to become a revolution is to become effective in the evaluation of the learning progress of the player. The aim of this special issue is to...

This paper presents the architecture of the RAGE repository, which is a unique and dedicated infrastructure that provides access to a wide variety of advanced technology components for applied game development. The RAGE project, which is the principal Horizon2020 research and innovation project on applied gaming, develops up to three dozens of soft...

This paper describes the structural architecture of the RAGE repository, which is a unique and dedicated infrastructure that provides access to a wide variety of advanced technologies (RAGE software assets) for applied game development. These software assets are reusable across a wide diversity of game engines, game platforms and programming langua...

Software assets are key output of the RAGE project and they can be used by applied game developers to enhance the pedagogical and educational value of their games. These software assets cover a broad spectrum of functionalities – from player analytics including emotion detection to intelligent adaptation and social gamification. In order to facilit...

In this work we aim to gain a better understanding of the nature of plagiarism in Higher Education. We analyse a set of different activities in an online university-level course, aiming to understand which tasks lead more naturally to plagiarism. This analysis concludes that the activities that have a lower rate of plagiarism are activities that en...

This deliverable (D1.4) is an intermediate document, expressly included to inform the first project review about RAGE’s methodology of software asset creation and management. The final version of the methodology description (D1.1) will be delivered in Month 29. The document explains how the RAGE project defines, develops, distributes and maintains...

Although many scholars recognise the great potential of games for teaching and learning, the EU-based industry for such “serious games” is highly fragmented and its growth figures remain well behind those of the leisure game market. Serious gaming has been designated as a priority area by the European Commission in its Horizon 2020 Framework Progra...

Video games have become one of the largest entertainment industries, and their power to capture the attention of players worldwide soon prompted the idea of using games to improve education. However, these educational games, commonly referred to as serious games, face different challenges when brought into the classroom, ranging from pragmatic issu...

Although many scholars recognise the great potential of games for teaching and learning, the EU-based industry for such “serious” games” is highly fragmented and its growth figures remain well behind those of the leisure game market. Serious gaming has been designated as a priority area by the European Commission in its Horizon 2020 Framework Progr...

Although educational games have revealed to be a very effective focus in diverse situations, their use in education is still very limited. In this paper we analyse the main challenges concerning educational games that, from our perspective, have to be approached so that the use of this kind of games can be widespread. These challenges are classifie...

The challenge of delivering personalized learning experiences is amplified by the size of classrooms and of online learning communities. In turn, serious games are increasingly recognized for their potential to improve education, but a typical requirement from instructors is to gain insight into how the students are playing. When we bring games int...

The efficacy of a learning process is influenced by the quality of teaching, learning support and environment. This requires effort in tracking how students learn. This paper explores the use serious games in order to help understand the learning process, where interaction data during a play-learn session can be captured. The focus is on the use of...

The increasing body of evidence supporting the use of videogames in educational settings (usually referred to as serious games) is pushing their deployment across different areas of the educational system. However, this increased adoption also raises serious ethical issues: videogames are one of the least accessible forms of multimedia, and if educ...

MOOCs are disrupting educational technology by democratizing access to high quality courses offered by some of the most prestigious universities. However, due to low entry cost and multiple other factors, MOOCs suffer from low retention rates: making MOOCs more interactive and engaging is therefore an important goal. Educational games provide envir...

The challenge of delivering personalized learning experiences is often increased by the size of classrooms and online learning communities. Serious Games (SGs) are increasingly recognized for their potential to improve education. However, the issues related to their development and their level of effectiveness can be seriously affected when brought...

It is our great pleasure to serve as guest editors for this special issue of the IEEE RITA journal, which holds a fine selection of the most relevant papers presented at symposium on information and communication technologies in education 2013, the fifteenth international symposium in educational technology held in Madrid in September 2013. The two...

The objective of this chapter is to provide an overview of the different methods that can be used to evaluate the learning outcomes of serious games. These include Randomised Control Trials (RCT), quasi-experimental designs, and surveys. Case studies of a selection of serious games developed for use in higher education are then presented along with...

Aunque los juegos educativos se han mostrado como un enfoque muy efectivo en diversas situaciones su uso en educación continúa siendo limitado. En este artículo analizamos cuales consideramos que son los principales retos que se deben abordar en los juegos educativos para que se produzca una generalización de su uso. Estos retos se clasifican en tr...

Assessment of learning contents, learning progress and learning gain is essential in all learning experiences. New technologies promote the use of new types of contents like educational videogames. They are highly interactive compared to more traditional activities and they can be a powerful source of data for all forms of assessment. In this paper...

The idea of using serious games in education has been around for a few years. However, regardless of their wide acceptance by the academic community, their actual adoption in real settings remains scarce and often in the form of isolated experiments. During this workshop we discussed the challenges that are preventing the growth of serious games an...

The Web is rapidly shifting towards more dynamic and interactive content. One clear example is the increasing use of web-based digital games. However, the more interactive a piece of content is, the more difficult it is to make it universally accessible. Besides, users are increasingly demanding ubiquitous access to the content and applications the...

This paper presents our perspective on serious games, covering relevant aspects of the current situation and what we consider are the key elements to be developed over the next few years. Serious games have undergone a long journey from niche research to application in real settings, coming closer to the generalization of games in mainstream educat...

This paper presents our perspective on serious games, covering relevant aspects of the current situation and what we consider are the key elements to be developed over the next few years. Serious games have undergone a long journey from niche research to application in real settings, coming closer to the generalization of games in mainstream educat...

Narratives are used to construct and deconstruct the time and space of events. In games, as in real life, narratives add layers of meaning and they engage players by enhancing or clarifying content. From an educational perspective, narratives are a semiotic conduit for evoking critical thinking skills and promoting knowledge discovery/acquisition....

We present EGDA, an educational game development approach focused on the teaching of procedural knowledge using a cost-effective approach. EGDA proposes four tasks: analysis, design, implementation, and quality assurance that are subdivided in a total of 12 subtasks. One of the benefits of EGDA is that anyone can apply it to develop a game since it...

In this paper we analyze how to increase the level of accessibility in videogames by adding support for it in game authoring software. This approach can reduce the effort required to make a game accessible for people with disabilities, resulting in significant savings. A case study is presented to support the approach based on the eAdventure educat...

With the advent of social media, it is widely accepted that teachers and learners are not only consumers but also may have an active role in contributing and co-creating lesson materials and content. Paradoxically, one strand of technology-enhanced learning (i.e. game-based learning) aligns only slightly to this development. Games, while there to e...

As result of the discussions maintained at the panel session on Software Development for e-Learning of the third workshop on software engineering for e-Learning (ISELEAR'12), several points of view emerged regarding the conception, development, and maintenance of e-Learning solutions. This paper summarizes and confronts these points of view: 1) aut...

As result of the discussions maintained at the Panel Session on “Software Development for E-Learning” of the 3rd Workshop on Software Engineering for E-Learning (ISELEAR’12), several points of view emerged regarding the conception, development and maintenance of E-Learning solutions. This paper summarizes and confronts these points of view: automat...

This paper describes TrivialCV, a toolkit created to facilitate the management of team-based competitive activities within the classroom. TrivialCV was designed as an instructor-oriented tool, in order to foster the organization of these types of innovative activities by facilitating the instructor's task. This goal is achieved by providing easy-to...

Digital technologies have increased the pace of knowledge creation, sharing, and the way in which learning is being undertaken. This chapter considers how Serious Games (SGs) as a digital technology endeavours to support effective lifelong learning. Three fundamental characteristics of the SG ecosystem, namely, game mechanics, interoperability, and...

Over the years, there have been numerous definitions of curriculum integration, where the curriculum is interwoven, connected, thematic, interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary, correlated, linked, and holistic (Fogarty and Pete 2007). Curriculum integration is based on both philosophy and practicality, drawing together knowledge, skills, attitudes, a...

There is a consensus that serious games have a significant potential as a tool for instruction. However, their effectiveness in terms of learning outcomes is still understudied mainly due to the complexity involved in assessing intangible measures. A systematic approach—based on established principles and guidelines—is necessary to enhance the desi...

There is a consensus that serious games have a significant potential as a tool for instruction. However, their effectiveness in terms of learning outcomes is still understudied mainly due to the complexity involved in assessing intangible measures. A systematic approach—based on established principles and guidelines—is necessary to enhance the desi...

The objective of this chapter is to provide an overview of the different methods that can be used to evaluate the learning outcomes of serious games. These include Randomised Control Trials (RCT), quasi-experimental designs, and surveys. Case studies of a selection of serious games developed for use in higher education are then presented along with...

The rising acceptance of Virtual Learning Environments (VLE) in the e-Learning field poses new challenges such as producing student-centered courses which can be automatically tailored to each student's needs. For this purpose digital games can be used, taking advantage of their flexibility (good video games always try to adapt to different players...

Assessment is essential to establish the failure or success of any educational activity. To measure the acquisition of the knowledge covered by the activity and also to determine the effectiveness of the activity itself. The increasing adoption of new technologies is promoting the use of new types of activities in schools, like educational video ga...

Usability testing is a key step in the successful design of new technologies and tools, ensuring that heterogeneous populations will be able to interact easily with innovative applications. While usability testing methods of productivity tools (e.g., text editors, spreadsheets, or management tools) are varied, widely available, and valuable, analyz...

Digital games have a great potential to improve education of people with cognitive disabilities. However, this target audience has attracted little attention from industry and academia, compared to other segments of the population. As a consequence, there is little knowledge available about how to design games that are usable and enjoyable by peopl...

This paper presents a preliminary evaluation of the perceived entertainment value and ease of use of three eyes-free interfaces for point-and-click games. Interface 1 (I1) uses a web-like cyclical navigation system to change the focused interactive element. Interface 2 (I2) uses a sonar to help the user locate interactive elements with the mouse. I...

Serious games are increasingly being used in education to support the development of skills that future professionals and citizens require. However, the inclusion of games in the curricula can threaten the universal right to education for students with disabilities if they are not designed to be accessible. In this paper we discuss the need for too...

Over the years, there have been numerous definitions of curriculum integration,where the curriculum is interwoven, connected, thematic, interdisciplinary multidisciplinary, correlated, linked and holistic.(Robin Fogarty, 2007) Curriculum integration is based on both philosophy and practicality, drawing together knowledge, skills, attitudes and valu...

Over the years, there have been numerous definitions of curriculum integration,where the curriculum is interwoven, connected, thematic, interdisciplinary multidisciplinary, correlated, linked and holistic.(Robin Fogarty, 2007) Curriculum integration is based on both philosophy and practicality, drawing together knowledge, skills, attitudes and valu...

In this paper we present WEEV (Writing Environment for Educational Video games), a methodology for educational point-and-click adventure game authoring. Our approach aims to allow educators to actively collaborate in the educational game development process, using a narrative-based representation. WEEV is based on a pragmatic reinterpretation of pr...

This paper summarizes and integrates the different points of view of the panelists who participated in the Panel Session on ‘Software Development for eLearning’ of the 3rd Workshop on Software Engineering for eLearning (ISELEAR'12), hold in Andorra in November 30, 2012. The paper also summarizes some of the conclusions reached as consequence of thi...

Any new technology introduced in the classroom has a potential risk of increasing the divide for students with disabilities. This impact becomes greater as the new complexity of new technologies increases. In this sense, one of the most complex technologies currently being considered are educational video games. And while the potential benefits of...

The integration of educational video games in educational settings in general, and e-learning systems in particular, can be challenging for educators. We propose a framework that aims to facilitate educators' participation in the creation and modification of courses that use educational games. Our approach addresses problems identified by previous...