Gaming has long been a means for humans to share knowledge, learn new concepts, and escape the constraints of reality. Interdisciplinary Advancements in Gaming, Simulations and Virtual Environments: Emerging Trends investigates the role of games and computer-mediated simulations in a variety of environments, including education, government, and business. Exploring psychological, social, and cultural implications of games and simulations, as well as policies related to their design and development, this reference aims to support the work of researchers in this growing field, as well as bridge the gap between theory and practice in the application of electronic games to everyday situations.

In the digital age, online courses have progressed as popular modes of learning that provide interactive and collaborative learning in educational settings. The open education movement is enabled by the internet and combines the sharing of ideas, resources, and practices among all people in order to advance ideas and knowledge to a new generation of students. Massive open online courses (MOOC) provide a new way of learning for all levels of education. Emerging Trends, Techniques, and Tools for Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) Management is a critical scholarly resource that addresses the difficulties and challenges in MOOC design, implementation, management, and deployment. This comprehensive and timely publication aims to be an essential reference source, building on the available literature in the field of e-learning and online course management while providing for further research opportunities in this dynamic field. Featuring coverage on a wide variety of topics such as gamification in e-learning, plagiarism detection programs, and language online courses, this book is a valuable resource for instructional designers, IT professionals, software developers, academicians, and education professionals seeking current research on the impact of new methodologies and frameworks used in the lifecycle of open online courses.

"This book addresses the major challenges associated with adopting digital games into a standard curriculum, providing fresh perspectives from current practitioners in the education field"--Provided by publisher.

"This book investigates the connection between multimedia technologies and game-based learning for an improved understanding of the impact and effectiveness of serious games in modern societies, offering examples from the fields of education, business, healthcare, and more"--Provided by publisher.

An argument that production tools shape the aesthetics and political economy of games as an expressive medium. In Making Games, Stefan Werning considers the role of tools (primarily but not exclusively software), their design affordances, and the role they play as sociotechnical actors. Drawing on a wide variety of case studies, Werning argues that production tools shape the aesthetics and political economy of games as an expressive medium. He frames game-making as a (meta)game in itself and shows that tools, like games, have their own "procedural rhetoric" and should not always be conceived simply in terms of optimization and best practices.

Currently, society is becoming increasingly involved in self-directed learning for both intellectual and professional development. As such, it is imperative that both researchers and educational professionals update themselves on the current research on self-directed learning and how it has created a new culture of independence. Emerging Self-Directed Learning Strategies in the Digital Age is a key resource for the latest research on the role of self-directed learning and how it is impacting society, educational professionals, and researchers in their day-to-day work. Featuring broad coverage among a variety of relevant views and themes, such as project based learning (PBL), student goal setting, and self-efficacy theory, this book is ideally designed for educational professionals working in the fields of teacher pedagogy, theory, instructional technology, and adult education, as well as academics and upper-level students looking for innovative research on one-to-one programs and learning analytics.

This book combines work from curators, digital artists, human computer interaction researchers and computer scientists to examine the mutual benefits and challenges posed when working together to support digital art works in their many forms. In Curating the Digital we explore how we can work together to make space for art and interaction. We look at the various challenges such as the dynamic nature of our media, the problems posed in preserving digital art works and the thorny problems of how we assess and measure audience’s reactions to interactive digital work. Curating the Digital is an outcome of a multi-disciplinary workshop that took place at SICHI2014 in Toronto. The participants from the workshop reflected on the theme of Curating the Digital via a series of presentations and rapid prototyping exercises to develop a catalogue for the future digital art gallery. The results produce a variety of insights both around the theory and philosophy of curating digital works, and also around the practical and technical possibilities and challenges. We present these complimentary chapters so that other researchers and practitioners in related fields will find motivation and imagination for their own work.