Gamification Application for Awareness of Dealing with Digital Credentials in Higher Education Institutions

Thesis Typ (BA/MA)

Betreuer: Dr. Matthias Gottlieb, Daniel Köhler (HPI)

Context

Today, electronic games are more than just a pastime - they are platforms on which we experience virtual situations, try out strategies and develop or simulate new ideas. Game-based learning will grow rapidly in the near future. In this context, teaching approaches from games are particularly successful when aimed at strengthening self-directed, personalized learning. Gamification has already permeated many (teaching) fields. In some cases, entire courses and fields of study rely on gamification to support learners.

Gamification enables behavior change (Blohm et al. 2013). The notion of "persuasive design" occurs in this context (Torning et al. 2009; Oinas-Kukkonen et al. 2009; Oinas-Kukkonen 2010; Fogg 2009a; Fogg 2009b; Davis 2009). Gamification approaches have also been shown to be promising in other contexts (Deterding et al. 2011). Previous gamification approaches start in the field of education and training in the sense of better learning of skills (Blohm et al. 2013). 

As part of the BMBF-funded research project “Digitale Bildungsnachweise für Hochschulen” (DiBiHo), TUM, HPI and DAAD are researching in the field of digital credentials. Similar to OpenBadges, digital proofs of education (digital credentials) are a topic of increasing importance. Not only for student mobility, but also for subsequent processes at the processing level, for example, when verifying and displaying curricula. Based on the whitepaper "Building the digital credential infrastructure for the future" (2020) of the Digital Credentials Consortium (DCC), a proof of concept (PoC) for various use cases at German universities is being created in the project.

A central component of the ecosystem for digital education credentials and other credentials is the so-called wallet, in which the user stores his credentials - analogous to a wallet. As part of the work, your task is to combine approaches of gamification with Digital Education Credentials and to incorporate them into the Wallet. You will explore what different approaches there can be for Gamification and bring your creativity to implement them in our context. A work product may be a POC on how gamification can be incorporated into a mobile application to understand the underlying technologies. Your insights could further be brought to the wallet of the DCC and possibly provide a framework or blueprint for many other apps and applications which are not understood by users today. 

Scope of your work

As part of the work you will explore:

• Definition and domain overview of gamification and state of the art for the implementation of gamification methods in mobile applications (apps).
• Requirements analysis for user interface for gamification when using an app.
• Creation of a concept for teaching technical understanding integrated into the user interface of an app.
• Evaluation of suitable learning content and teaching methods for users.

Possible Questions

• What is the state of research on integrating gamification approaches into mobile apps, which methods can help to create more understanding for the user?
• What is a suitable prototype for testing awareness using gamification?
• What are the advantages and disadvantages of the solutions found?

Further Information

The work can be written in English or German. If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact me directly. Please send your application with a current "Notenauszug" from TUMonline, and your CV to matthias.gottlieb@tum.de. Please note that we can only consider applications with complete documents. The work is carried out within the framework of the research project DiBiHo in joint supervision with the Hasso-Plattner-Institute in Potsdam.

References

1. Digital Credential Consortium. (2020). Offical Website. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. https://digitalcredentials.mit.edu/
2. Duffy, K. H., Pongratz, H. & Schmidt, P. (2020). Building the digital credential infrastructure for the future. https://digitalcredentials.mit.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/white-paper-building-digital-credential-infrastructure-future.pdf
3. Deterding, S., et al. (2011). Gamification: Using Game Design Elements in Non-Game Contexts. Proceedings of the CHI '11 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems, ACM.
4. Blohm, I. and J. M. Leimeister (2013). "Gamification: Design of IT-based Enhancing Services for Motivational Support and Behavioral Change " Business & Information Systems Engineering 5(4): 275–278.
5. Hasle, P. (2011). "Persuasive Design: A Different Approach to Information Systems (and Iinformation)." Library Hi Tech 29(4): 569-572
6. Torning, K. and H. Oinas-Kukkonen (2009). Persuasive System Design: State of the Art and Future Directions. Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Persuasive Technology, ACM.
7. Oinas-Kukkonen, H. and M. Harjumaa (2009). "Persuasive systems design: Key issues, process model, and system features." Communications of the Association for Information Systems 24(1): 28.
8. Oinas-Kukkonen, H. (2010). Behavior Change Support Systems: A Research Model and Agenda. Persuasive Technology. T. Ploug, P. Hasle and H. Oinas-Kukkonen, Springer Berlin Heidelberg. 6137: 4-14.
9. Fogg, B. J. (2009). Creating Persuasive Technologies: An Eight-Step Design Process. Persuasive, Claremont, California, USA.
10. Davis, J. (2009). Design Methods for Ethical Persuasive Computing. Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Persuasive Technology. Claremont, California, USA, ACM: 1-8.
11. Fogg, B. J. (2009). A Behavior Model for Persuasive Design. Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Persuasive Technology, ACM