De Freitas, Dr. Sara (University of Coventry, Serious Games Institute)

"Serious Games and Virtual Worlds for Health - An Overview and Case Studies from Practice"

Dr. Sara de Freitas has recently taken up a new role as Director of Research at the Serious Games Institute at the University of Coventry where she leads an applied research team working closely with industry. The Institute is the first of its kind in the UK and it is envisaged that it will play a leading role in future developments of game-based learning.

Formerly Sara worked as Lab Manager, Project Manager on development programmes and Senior Research Fellow at the London Knowledge Lab. The Lab is a collaborative venture between Birkbeck College and the Institute of Education, University of London focusing upon technology assisted learning. Sara continues to hold a visiting senior research fellowship at the Lab.

Sara also works with the UK Joint Information Systems Committee e-Learning Development Programme in the Innovation strand, exploring the applications and developments of innovative technologies upon post-16 learning. Sara’s recent report Learning in Immersive Worlds reviews the uses of game-based learning and presents a set of case studies of practice. Sara is also working with TruSim (Blitz Games), the Vega Group PLC and the Universities of Birmingham and Sheffield on a £2 million UK Department of Trade and Industry co-funded Serious Games research and development project which will develop highly immersive learning games to solve business training needs.

In 2003 Sara founded the UK Lab Group, which brings the research and development community together to create stronger links between industrial and academic research through supporting collaborative programmes and for showcasing innovative R&D solutions for the knowledge economy. Sara publishes in the areas of: pedagogy and e-learning; change management and strategy development for implementing e-learning systems and educational games and electronic simulations for supporting post-16 training and learning. Sara also works as a consultant through her recently established partnership company: Innovatech llp.

Relevant links:

The JISC Innovation Strand: www.jisc.ac.uk

The Lab Group: www.labgroup.org.uk

The London Knowledge Lab: www.lkl.ac.uk

The MyPlan project: www.lkl.ac.uk/research/myplan

The Serious Games project: http://www.lkl.ac.uk/graphics/projectsheets/sg.pdf

Learning in Immersive worlds report

The Serious Games Institute: www.seriousgames.org.uk

Presentation:

The presentation will include an introduction to the Serious Games Institute, outlining its primary focus and presenting an overview of the projects that are being undertaken as part of the applied research group and by the SGI partners. The presentation will also include an overview of the area of serious games and virtual worlds for supporting health training, communication and policy planning.

The presentation will focus upon three case studies:

1) Second Health a project using the virtual world application Second Life to create a vision for medical supoprt in the future.

2) The use of Forterra Olive platform for supporting emergency medical surgery.

3) The use of Triage Trainer (a first person perspective game) developed by TruSim for supporting medical emergency training. The presentation will also include an overview of a demonstrator being developed to support MRSA training with clinical staff (using a Sims like game).

The presentation will include clips from these case studies and include an overview of other areas of medicine including independent living and public health policy support.

Dr Sara de Freitas

Director of Research

The Serious Games Institute

Coventry Innovation Village

Coventry University Technology Park

Cheetah Road

Coventry CV1 2TL

United Kingdom

www.seriousgames.org.uk