Elsevier Journal Entertainment Computing

Special Issue & Workshop on: “Serious Games Development and Applications”

Call for Papers

Aims and Scope

The recent emergence of serious games as a branch of the video games has introduced the concept of games designed for a serious purpose other than pure entertainment. To date the major applications of serious games include engineering, education, health care, military applications, city planning, production, crisis response, and training. Serious games have primarily been used as a tool that gives players a novel way to interact with games in order to promote physical activities, to learn skills and knowledge, to support social-emotional development, to treat different types of psychological and physical disorders, etc. Many recent studies have identified the benefits of using video games in a variety of serious purposes. Since games technology is inexpensive, widely available, fun and entertaining people of all ages, if combine with conventional methodologies in many application domains, it could provide a powerful means of encouraging people more effectively in designated activities.

This workshop and special issue on “Serious Games Development and Applications” aim at collecting and disseminating information on video games technologies, design and development of serious games; to provide game designers and interdisciplinary communities with a peer-reviewed forum to discuss the state-of-the-art in computer games research, their ideas and theories, and innovative applications of video games; to explain cultural, social and scientific phenomena by means of computer games; to concentrate on the interaction between theory and application; to develop new methodologies in various application domains using games technologies; and to explore perspectives of future developments and innovative applications relevant to serious games and related areas.

The workshop is sponsored by the University of Derby. Accepted papers are expected to present high quality material that illustrates the broad range of exciting work in serious games. Authors of accepted papers will be invited to submit an extended paper to a special issue of Entertainment Computing. This special issue will serve as a landmark source in these areas, and as a reference to educators, developers, researchers and graduate students interested in updating their knowledge about video games technologies and serious applications.

Subject Coverage

Areas of interest include, but are not limited to:

• Game design, game study, game theories
• Simulation, modelling
• Gaming; post-experience analysis; role-play; gameplay
• Virtual Reality, 3D Visualisation
• Active learning, experiential learning, social learning
• Medical applications of games technology
• Industrial and scientific applications of games in engineering, healthcare, education and learning theories, training, military, production, human interfaces, crisis response, public policy, cognition, psychology, communication, decision making, environmental issues, sociology, international studies, peace and conflict studies, organization studies, etc.
• Emerging technologies, e.g. peer-to-peer network and cloud computing, and games; game engines and frameworks
• Use of games in economics, marketing, business, management, and entrepreneurship, e.g. to enhance productivity in business processes
• Use of games for enhancing users’ quality of experience in mobile computing applications and social networks

The Workshop

The International Workshop on Serious Games Development and Applications is open to people from all academic institutions or industry who wanted to present or receive new information in the field of serious games.

Date:  8 July 2010
Venue: University of Derby, Kedleston Road, Derby, UK
Fee:     No registration fee.
The workshop is funded by the University of Derby.

Instructions for Prospective Authors

There is a two-stage publication process:

1st stage: Short paper submission to the workshop
The papers are of approximately 3-4 pages in length. All papers will be peer-reviewed (in three weeks). The short paper submission to the workshop must be sent directly to the guest editor Dr. Minhua Eunice Ma <[email protected]> in the form of a pdf file attached to an email.

2nd stage: Full paper submission to the journal

Authors of accepted papers will be invited to submit a full paper to Entertainment Computing via Elsevier online submission system (EES). Details will follow shortly after the workshop.

All papers must be original, of high quality and of approximately 8–12 pages in length at the publication stage. Submitted papers should not have been previously published nor be currently under consideration for publication elsewhere. All papers will be refereed through a standard Elsevier peer review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submitting papers are available on the Elsevier Author Guidelines webpage.

Publication Schedule

Manuscript due: 11 June 2010

Notification of review results:  30 June 2010
Workshop: 8 July 2010
Extended paper due: 6 September 2010
Notification of review results: 15 October 2010
Manuscript delivery to the publisher: 25 October 2010
Target Publication date: January 2011

Guest Editors:

Dr. Minhua Ma, Reader, School of Computing, University of Derby, UK.
Prof. Nikolaos Antonopoulos, Head of School of Computing, University of Derby, UK.
Dr. Manuel Fradinho Oliveira, R&D Director, Cyntelix, Netherlands 

For further details, please visit http://www.derby.ac.uk/computing/serious-games-development

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