Applied Games,Learning Analytics and StandardsÁngel Serrano Laguna

The Ideal Learning Analytics System

Well, it depends...

Who?

First year law student

Teacher of “Applied Maths”

Vice Dean of the School of Medicine

Minister of Education

Where?

Khan Academy

Udacity

Complutense University

UNED

Why?

Suggest educational pathways after completing a law degree

Assess students performance in “Applied Maths”

Identify teachers whose students perform best in the School of Medicine

Evaluate child's reading level in Spain

Some ideas

Rich reporting is awesome for research and data analysts...

… but not necessarily for most final users.

Largest amount of information in the most concise representation.

Interventions and actions required by users of the system's users in the center.

Videogames and Learning Analytics

Goals

1) Reliable framewok to assess students performance through educational videogames.

2) All data and information collected by the framework could be shared with others.

Main challenges

1) The great variability in videogamesMechanics, genre, aesthetics...

2) Lack of public research in Game Analytics.Far less in Game Learning Analytics

Public research mostly focused in monetization.

1) Capturing data

2) Analysis

3) Visualizations

4) Sharing

Steps

Modeling and capturing data from videogames

Game model● Quests: the current goal of the player, the next

thing he needs to accomplish to advance in the game

● Zones, areas, levels...: a virtual area in which the player can enter or exit

● Variables: a variable with a meaningful weight inside the game

● Choices: a set of options offered to the player, usually with different consequences

Traces

{"event": "var","target": "score","value": 100

}

Piece of data representing an event in the game.

Player action Event Target Value

Gameplay started start Empty Empty

Gameplay ended end Empty Empty

Entered in a zone. Implicitily, exits any previous zone

zone Empty Zone identifier

Variable value updated var Variable name New variable value

Quest started quest_started Quest id Empty

Quest finished quest_finished Quest id Quest result

Selected an option in a choice

choice Choice id Option id

Traces

Game model

Traces

Analyzing traces

Gameplay State

Gameplay State

{"zone": "menu""vars": {

"score": 100, }, "quests_finished": ["quest1", "quest2"], "quests_started": ["quest3", "quest4"],"choices": {

"players": { "player1": 1

} },

"..."}

Built in real time... (with Apache Storm)

Server holds gameplay state for each indivdual player

Assessment Model

● Score– Overall performance of the player

● Progress – General progress in the game. How long until the player is done

with the simulation● Alerts

– Gameplay state in an undesired condition– Might need instructor intervention

Gameplays are the base for assessment. In our assessment model:

Gameplay State

Assessment Model

Visualizing the results

Gameplay State: Classroom (I)

Gameplay State: Classroom (II)

Gameplay State: Student

Sharing through standards: xAPI

xAPI standard

xAPI for tracking gameplays

{"event": "var","target": "score","value": 100

}

John Doe updated variable score to 100

xAPI transmiting results

{"score": 10,

"progress": 1.0"alerts": []

}

John Doe completed Lost in Space Game with 10

Conclusions

● General Game Model to define games in a common vocabulary

● Analysis over game states represented as an aggregation of traces

● Simple visualizations, focused on actions● xAPI as communication standard

Thanks!