Context

The emergence of serious or non-leisure uses of games technologies and virtual world applications has been swift and dramatic over the last five years. As a result, there has been little time to develop the theoretical and academic rigour in the emerging field. This problem has been exacerbated by the largely technological drive of the technologies, with often little time to consider more user-centred approaches to design and use of serious applications of games and virtual world technologies. Another factor affecting the field has been the general aspects of convergence between new technologies, for example AI applications, augmented reality, mobile technologies, GPS technologies, sensor technologies and social software.

Together this has presented potential for developing new technologies based upon immersive and interactive interfaces and has in parallel produced many unanswered questions in terms of the usage of the formats. As a result there is a clear need to consider new frameworks, theories, methods and design strategies for making serious applications of games and virtual world technologies more effective and useful as part of education, health and training.

Scope

The first IEEE International Conference in Games and Virtual Worlds for Serious Applications 2009 aims to meet the significant challenges of the cross-disciplinary community that work around these serious application areas by bringing the community together to share case studies of practice, to present new frameworks, methodologies and theories and to begin the process of developing shared cross-disciplinary outputs. In order to achieve this main aim the conference will pioneer new methods for bringing together and supporting communities of practice emerging in themed areas beyond the duration of the conference. Using the conference as an ignition to support a wider aspiration to form and sustain a community of practice around the field. To achieve this, the team at the SGI will use innovative software called Intronetworks, which allows conference participants to create their own profile allowing them to identify like-minded and complementary skilled colleagues.

The term 'Serious Games' covers a broad range of applications from flash-based animations to totally immersive and code driven 3D environments where users interface with large volumes of data through sophisticated and interactive digital interfaces. This shift towards immersive world applications being used to support education, health and training activities marks the beginning of new challenges that offer real scope for collaborative and multi-disciplinary research solutions, and real opportunities for innovative development. We invite researchers, developers, practitioners and decision-makers working with or applying serious games in their communities to present papers in the following two main streams of the conference: games and virtual world applications for serious applications. The conference will explore games and virtual worlds in relation to:

• Applications (e.g. case studies, exemplars, practice examples)
• Methodologies, theories and frameworks (e.g. participatory design methods, mixed methodologies for data collection and analysis, cross-disciplinary methods)
• Evaluation approaches and studies

Aims

The conference aims to ask:

• In what ways are games and virtual world applications effective tools?
• What cross-disciplinary approaches are emerging to support design, development and implementation of the technologies?
• What role does convergence with related technologies mean for the field?
• What founding theories and approaches are emerging to support the field?
• How and in what ways is the participant becoming the producer of content?
• What are the technologies (e.g. applications, platforms, engines) that are most effective in which areas of practice?

Topics of Interest

We are seeking contributions that advance the state of the art in the technologies available to support sustainability of serious games. The following topics in the areas of environment, cultural heritage, health, smart buildings, v-commerce and education are particularly encouraged:

• Game design
• AI applications for serious games
• Serious games methodologies
• User-modelling in serious games
• Pervasive gaming
• Interactivity issues
• Game modelling
• Alternate reality games
• Virtual environments
• Augmented reality
• Visualisation techniques
• Human-computer interaction
• Mobile games
• Education and learning
• Case studies in serious games and virtual worlds

Key Note Speakers

Steve Benford , UK
Adrian David Cheok, Japan
Alan Chalmer, UK

Programme Chairs

Sara de Freitas (Serious Games Institute)
Kurt Squire (University of Wisconsin-Madison)
Edward Castronova (Indiana University)

Programme Committee

Akira Baba, Japan
Eike Anderson, UK
Per Backlund, Sweden
Rafael Bidarra, Netherlands
Paul Brna, UK
Diane Carr, UK
Marcello Carrozzino, Italy
Yiorgos Chrysanthou, Cyprus
Sung Hyun Cho, Korea
Thomas Conolly, UK
Hugh Davis, UK
Anastasios Doulamis, Greece
Stine Ejsing-Duun, Denmark
Toru Fujimoto, US
Francisco José Gallego Durán, Spain
Alma Rosa Garcia-Gaona, Mexico
Angelica Garcia-Vega, Mexico
Brian Goldiez, US
Judith Good, UK
Lizbeth Goodman, UK
John Halloran, UK
Lewis Johnson, US
KyungSik Kim, Korea
James Kinross, UK
Vishnu Kotrajaras, Thailand
James Lester, US
Fotis Liarokapis, UK
Katerina Mania, Greece
Paul Maharg, UK
Mark McMahon, Australia
Michael McNeill, UK
Qasim Mehdi, UK
Keiji Mitsubuchi, Japan
Marius Preda, France
Alberto Proenca, Portugal
Genaro Rebolledo-Mendez, UK
Ute Ritterfeld, Holland
Holly Rushmeien, US
Laksmi Sastry, UK
Peter Samuels, UK
Leonid Smalov
Silke Steinbach-Nordman, Germany
Rosa Maria Viccari, Brasil
R. Wiza Wojciech, Poland
Hyungsup Yoon, Korea

Publication Chairs

Genaro Rebolledo-Mendez (Serious Games Institute)
Fotis Liarokapis (Coventry University)

For any enquiries, please forward to the Programme Committee:
vs-games09@cad.coventry.ac.uk

Guidelines:

The participants of the conference will be invited to submit papers into the Proceedings using the EasyChair. Authors must follow IEEE standards to format the papers accordingly in 3 categories: Full papers 8 pages, short papers 4 pages and posters 2 pages. With the camera ready paper submission for publication, you agree to pay registration fee (or reduced registration fee if your registration form is received on or before the early registration date) and published papers must be presented by at least one of the authors. All accepted paper will appear in the IEEE digital library. The best technical papers will be published in a special issue of Visual Computer. The best papers in the educational category will be published in a special issue of the British Journal of Educational Technology.

Paper submission:

Authors should register to the Easy Chair system before submitting their papers (http://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=cgvwsa09).

Important Dates

	Paper submission for full papers 1st November 2008
	Paper submission for short papers and posters 15th November 2008
	Paper submission for full papers 1st November 2008
	Notification for refereeing feedback 1st December 2008
	Camera-ready full papers and tutorials to printer 20th January 2008
	Early registration January 2009

Download call for papers