1. Standards
in Simulations and Serious Games
Presentation by
Viplav Baxi
CEO, Atelier Learning,
India
Confidential - Atelier - All Rights Reserved

2. Agenda
• The Case
• The Context
– Efforts so far
– Industry Case Studies
– Global Developments
• Standards
– Challenges
– Impacts
• What will we need to do?
• Thoughts?
Confidential - Atelier - All Rights Reserved

3. The Case
• Huge and growing market with high individual spends
per project
• Technologically and pedagogically fragmented and
differentiated industry
• No current global standards (some attempts do exist)
• Establishment of RoI a big priority for customers
• SG&S Industry is ripe for the creation of standards that
establish
– A shared vocabulary for design, development and inter-operable
use
– Some shared understanding of quality
– Tracking, Capture & Reporting of Learning Analytics
Confidential - Atelier - All Rights Reserved

4. Efforts so far
Computer Managed 2004 4th Edition / HLA
Instruction systems Moving to the next
standards (latest v4, generation of standards
June, 2004)
The LETSI Foundation 2012 Release
Runtime Web Services Activity Stream Model
Orchestration Learning Record Store
Content as a Service
Learning Activity Description
Namesets and Working Memory
http://learnos.wordpress.com/2011/01/18/lak11-from-tin-can-and-letsi/
Learning Analytics and International specification
for the procurement and
Knowledge
production of technical
publications
Confidential - Atelier - All Rights Reserved

5. Industry Case Studies
Netcentric Simulation Training System (NSTS)
Collaborative, Collective, Networked, Simulation-Based
Training
Joint ADL CoLab in Orlando, FL, in conjunction with Intelligent Automation, Inc. in Rockville, MD
SITA (Simulation-based Intelligent Training and Assessment)
HealthStream Performance Center
SimCenter
…other proprietary mechanisms
Confidential - Atelier - All Rights Reserved

6. The Global Context
• Needs
– Global Employability challenge
– Demographics Trends
– Device adoption trends
• Technologies
– Learning Analytics and BIG data
– Adaptive gaming
– Semantic web
– Location awareness
– Social networks
– Cloud
– Gesture computing
Confidential - Atelier - All Rights Reserved

7. Standards are a much more complex problem in SG&S
• Single user / Multi-user
• Synchronous / Asynchronous
• Self-paced / Blended classroom
• Adaptive, Intelligent / Fixed
• Simple / Complex variables, algorithms
• Social, Networked / Web 1.0
• Hardware Augmented / Software
• Location / No location
• Tablet / Phone / PC / Web / Cloud
• Type (Simulation / Serious Game / ARG / Mobile Game)
• Design Strategies (Evidence Centered Design, Epistemic Games)
• Competency / Action-Outcome based
Confidential - Atelier - All Rights Reserved

8. Impact of the absence of Standards
• In absence of a standard, there is no way to re-use,
inter-operate, access and make durable simulation/SG
offerings
• No simple way to integrate outcomes to traditional
learning management systems
• Tensions between creativity and standardization
• These act as barriers:
– To open-ness
– To change
– To adoption
– To time to market
– To sharing of best practices
Confidential - Atelier - All Rights Reserved

9. What will standards imply?
• A concerted open community effort
• Shared vocabulary, ontology
– Peda and Andragogical aspects
– Technology
– Behaviors & Data interfaces
– Analytics and reporting
– Metrics and effectiveness
• Guidance
– Design and Authoring kits
– Reference implementations and documentation
– Open Integration interfaces
• Certification/Assessment & Training
Confidential - Atelier - All Rights Reserved

10. Learning. The sixth element of Life.
Viplav Baxi
Blog: learnos.wordpress.com
Twitter: @viplavbaxi
Confidential - Atelier - All Rights Reserved