=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-2602/short2
|storemode=property
|title=Application of Game-Based Learning in Cultural Heritage (short paper)
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2602/short2.pdf
|volume=Vol-2602
|authors=Marijana Cosović,Belma Ramic-Brkić
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/ircdl/CosovicR20
}}
==Application of Game-Based Learning in Cultural Heritage (short paper)==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2602/short2.pdf
Application of Game-Based Learning in Cultural
Heritage
Marijana Cosović Belma Ramic-Brkić
Faculty of Electrical Engineering Faculty of Computer Science
University of East Sarajevo University Sarajevo School of Science and Technology
marijana.cosovic@etf.ues.rs.ba belma.ramic@ssst.edu.ba
Abstract
Although the end of Moore’s law has been predicted for many years, the
capacity to store information in information and communication tech-
nology is still progressing in ways we could not imagine. Hence, the
museum environments are also benefiting from improvements in data
collection, storage and processing as well as allowing the great body
of information within cultural heritage domain to be applied through
interesting processes in the museums, one of which is game-based learn-
ing. Although, concept of employing games in the learning process is
known for a long-time research teams in game-based learning and in the
CH field in general often lack unified approach with results that are ex-
tended globally and team effort contributing to a larger systematically
organized body of knowledge. In this paper we identify advantages and
disadvantages of game-based learning application in the museums. By
doing this we attempt to tackle promotion of cultural heritage, raise
awareness of its importance and motivate users to visit cultural insti-
tutions such as museums more often.
1 Introduction
Digitization era is transforming large number of museums and their exhibitions with promotion and attracting
visitors [RCR19] in mind. Combining virtual content with a real exhibit or animating users to indeed visit the
hybrid museum are the challenges ahead. Cultural heritage applications consisting of stories, interactive virtual
environments and 3D models, are ways to engage the visitor by providing additional details of the exhibition.
Users can suffer from information overload having to choose activities “a priori” and often from a large number
of choices. On the other hand, game designers in cultural heritage domain have to take into account end user’s
perspective in interpreting digital heritage [RDA17]. Digital age learners (DAL), according to [Pre04], have
cognitive style changes manifested through several factors indicating they view technology as integral part of
their life. Authors in [PHK15] find that when designing serious games for learning the combination of cognitive,
motivational, affective and sociocultural perspective is needed for successful game design. Great diversification
exists amongst procedures used by researcher for examination of effectiveness of game-based learning systems
[HKS14, OVR15].
Copyright c 2020 for this paper by its authors. Use permitted under Creative Commons License Attribution 4.0 International (CC
BY 4.0).
In: A. Amelio, G. Borgefors, A. Hast (eds.): Proceedings of the 2nd International Workshop on Visual Pattern Extraction and
Recognition for Cultural Heritage Understanding, Bari, Italy, 29-Jan-2020, published at http://ceur-ws.org
58
The most simple and obvious yet most powerful reason to bring serious games into museums is to motivate and
engage the visitors of the museums in learning new material through amusing and informative activities. Visual
versus text presentation of the new content is well researched subject with visual education being more powerful
as well as allowing learners to accomplish learning goals in shorter time. Since globalization has adverse effect on
cultural diversity both tangible and intangible cultural heritage are subject to various safeguarding conventions,
with latter being UNESCO’s priority in recent years. European union funds research related to deployment and
maintenance of virtual museums with the aim of creating environment that can serve as digital heritage as well
as being informative and interesting venture such as MU.S.EU.M [INN08] and i-MARECULTURE.
Game-based learning and in generally, serious games, attempt to bring cultural heritage closer to a younger
user population through interesting, interactive and educational content. By exposing DALs to cultural her-
itage through familiar medium we are attempting at its preservation in terms that are acceptable to younger
generations. Hence, we contemplate that survival of cultural heritage relies on, amongst other factors, the very
same technology that affected globalization and initiated a loss of cultural individualism through group identity
creation. We do not argue that technology will replace the human interaction, although that might be the case
in extreme circumstances, but rather it can assist with transfer of knowledge to younger generations in cultural
heritage domain. Hence, authors in [MCB14] base their research of serious games for preservation of intangible
cultural heritage through employing three categories: (i) cultural awareness, (ii) historical reconstruction, and
(iii) heritage awareness as shown in Figure 1, and they assess available serious games in those domains as well
as their educational objectives.
Figure 1: Categorization of serious games’ domains.
Vision of using technology in combination with actions contained in entertainment games has created field of
serious game industry. Considering that both entertainment and serious games are becoming more powerful and
appealing to consumers one major difference between two industries is that serious games extended entertainment
field ideas being used and applied it to non-entertainment fields. We have examples of ancient cultures explo-
ration [MCB14] and contemporary cultures exploration prior to travelling in country’s architectural or natural
environment by means of serious games.
Game-based learning and diverse applications in the museum environment are gaining visibility within research
community and their cumulative attempts are on the rise. The challenge of this paper is to systematically present
strengths and shortcomings of game-based learning in general as well as in the examples already implemented
in the museums.
2 Game based learning strengths
Safe practice, experimental learning and interaction are foundation of game-based learning. Considering positive
effects of games on learning it is only natural to implement game-based learning into the cultural heritage domain
[DM98, BNT14, PH18]. Furthermore, museums are becoming attractive again and visitors find learning amusing
as well [PS16].
The development, implementation and evaluation of cultural heritage serious games is comprehensively re-
searched within the cultural heritage community [LOS13, MCB14, Sch14, Kid15, PS16] and as such presents
a large body of knowledge that can serve for analysis purposes of pros and cons in the museum application of
59
game-based learning. We identified (i) motivation and engagement, (ii) teamwork, (iii) instant feedback, and (iv)
creativity enhancement as important positive aspects of game-based learning in the cultural heritage domain.
We explored each of these aspects through available examples in the literature.
Motivation and engagement during the learning process of desired content is given if the game is simple in
nature while more complex games need to be designed with discrete steps in mind keeping user’s motivation
in mind until the major goal is reached [Edu]. Multi-modality has been used in serious games design as an
approach that integrates more aspects or multiple points of view in exploring certain content. For example,
there are museums that offer visitors possibility of creating their own experience personalized exhibit using
cross-platform gaming technologies [KKM16]. In addition, there are such museums as Acropolis museum that
offers one virtual tour in which visitors can “navigate, teleport to points of interest, interact, learn and manipulate
the exhibit” [SKG17]. Certain interactive gamified apps use NFC (near field communication) technology in order
to motivate users through collection badges in a longer process and in such way assuring the visitor becomes
truly engaged [AKK18].
Teamwork could be enhanced using serious games. They could emphasize teamwork in various application
fields some of which are education, health, military, and management. For example, companies are often spread
out in different locations and in order to act as one company in an unified manner there has to be sense of
belonging to the same team. Hence, they resource to team building skills using serious games platform in order
to develop on problem-solving as well as communication skill amongst team members [BKN16]. In addition,
any multi-player game designed in cultural heritage content, allowing simultaneous play of few or more players
creates a good foundation for teamwork [KPS05].
Progress assessment is the important part in serious game design, and it is usually integrated. Feedback system
should be designed keeping in mind the effects it has on player’s engagement in the game. Hence, interruptions
should be well paced and overall minimized. Positive and negative feedback is used in the progress assessment
tools. For example, if the success is achieved the player receives positive feedback while in case of failure negative
feedback is provided in prompt manner. This way player can learn from the experience and use this knowledge
as a corrective measure. Hence, feedback system can provide a player leads on how to improve weaknesses.
Most feedback systems use points, badges and leader-boards for rewarding motivating players [HKS14]. The
instant feedback across cultural heritage game samples explored for the purpose of this research is visible and
appreciated as users lose interest quite quickly for a variety of reasons, which we will explore later.
Another important aspect of serious game design is creativity enhancement. Museums used blended learning
techniques employing experts from various fields, such as arts, multimedia, education and computer science, in
order to provide visitors with superb experience that will enhance their creativity. Innovative and original game
is the one that user will consider successful as well. The difficult part in game design is to produce creative
ideas in methodological manner and guide the player through the supportive structure [DMP16]. There is a
strong correlation between the number of ideas produced by employing creative enhancement techniques, such as
brainstorming or negative brainstorming, and number of ideas that develop further [KP07]. In order to guide a
player towards a success we need clear goal at all times, path that can be executed leading to the accomplishment
and guaranteed entertainment appeal in the process.
3 Game based learning shortcomings
Precursors of serious games are educational games which are unfortunately not recognized widely as a tool that
can assist in learning process. Formal educational system of low- and middle- income countries are especially
unconvinced that learning by gaming could be beneficial. Conversely, authors in [PQB10] give priorities on how
to integrate technology in childhood education in a “developmentally appropriate manner” rather than solely
researching the impact of technology and its effects on education. Application of serious games in museums is
on the rise but still relatively new concept. They require game mechanics, aesthetics, educational results, and
museology features all implemented in one [PS16]. One of the android applications offered in the Wolfsoniana
Museum (www.wolfsoniana.it/en/index) allows visitors to scan NFC tags and Quick Response Code (QR Code)
markers to gain more information about the exhibit [CMV13]. Visitors are offered to play a game at the end
of the tour based on acquired knowledge during the visit. Even though there is an increased number of studies
researching positive learning outcomes of serious games applied to cultural heritage domain it is still unclear of
learning effects and evaluation mechanisms.
Virtual museum for the Stoa of Attalos in Athens has two separate parts: virtual museum of the exhibits of
the Stoa of Attalos and specialized virtual museum of the Stoa. In the latter, information on wine production
60
is presented as well as the trade routes in the eastern part of Mediterranean basin of that time [SKG17]. No
user evaluation or follow up research is presented in the study although there is intensive use of virtual content.
Further shortcomings identified in the literature are: (i) decrease in attention span, (ii) cost of game design and
virtual content development, and (iii) progress evaluation.
Subject of attention, a mechanism that, for example, determines what part of the scene we focus on and
what we ignore, is well researched area [Ram12]. In addition, according to [?] attention can either narrow of
expand our view area. Most research studies deal with the concept of attention span decrease. Limitations in
regard to memory and attention overload are viable limitations in addition to already mentioned physical ones.
For example, according to [IA96, LV97], we can only store up to 5 different “chunks” of information in visual
short-term memory.
The aim of serious game “Admotum” was to present the Roman Empire with a combination of museum
collections in four cities and their digital content [PAD15]. The users participated in a treasure hunt involving
objects from all participating museums. Since all objects were described by storytelling of virtual characters
complete immersion of users could have not been achieved due to users being preoccupied with the not-so-
simple gesture-based navigation. Hence, the game failed to uninterruptedly communicate information about the
historical context of the heritage object or site.
Cost involved into implementing a storytelling approach of information presentation is twofold: (i) time
investment and (ii) advanced equipment of strong processing power. These resources are wasted in case users
cannot perceive full potential of the interactive storytelling as the case was in “White Bastian” [ROP16]. For
this reason, authors in [RDA17] proposed new interactive digital storytelling method that will include motivation
factors that will result in users viewing the whole panel of offered content. In addition, serious games although
stem from entertainment games do not hold the same appeal to wider audience hence financial and human
resource infrastructure necessary for cultural heritage serious games development is absent.
Each game, according to Paliokas et al. has predefined message for the audience that can be grouped as:
(i) educative, (ii) informative, (iii) persuasive and (iv) subjective [PS16] with educative being the most and
the subjective being the least common message. The question remains whether the user and the creator of the
game see “eye-to-eye” on the content and the message of it. Salen and Zimmerman [STZ04] believe that user’s
perception of the game cannot be controlled. Having access to this information could gain museums insight into
how visitors view their attempts in improving the museum experience.
4 Conclusion
Game based learning is rapidly gaining interest from the research community of cultural heritage domain for the
purpose of promoting it, raising awareness of its importance and motivating users to visit cultural institutions
such as museums more often. Since the migration of traditional museums to virtual world is inevitable, they
often provide easy access to the exhibit collections but often fail to engage audience in presenting content of
those collections. Game-based learning could be one of the solutions to alleviate this inevitable transition and
offer active learning in the process. This paper attempts to address pros and cons of game-based learning in
general and reflect on the choices of using serious games in the museum environment.
Serious games based on or containing heritage content are abundant. Since globalization trends are allowing
for increased mobility and individual exposure to different cultures, and at the same time they jeopardize preser-
vation of its uniqueness. Safeguarding bodies, research community and to a lesser extent entertainment industry
are combining their efforts on preserving cultural versatility. Web technologies are allowing cultural heritage
organizations such as museums to have their content available to anyone on-line. In the future each museum
could become a possible point belonging to an interconnected cultural heritage Web for future generations of
humankind initiative supported by EU projects. When considering cultural heritage representation in museums
we observed that tangible cultural heritage is in advantage in the virtual worlds and mainly based on applications
of 3D technology. Recently, intangible cultural heritage is gaining more visibility within cultural heritage scope
as a domain in which game-based learning could assist in its preservation.
Nevertheless, in this study we presented examples of serious games that have been implemented and tested.
Each of those examples failed to identify a unified framework that could be used for design and development
of serious games applied to the cultural heritage domain. In addition, further research is required to explore
the real effects of serious games on cultural heritage learning, as to our knowledge although the virtual content
in the museums exists, we lack evaluation data and consistency. Therefore, research community must change
its focus, attempt to classify existing methods, offer unification of guidelines for the publication and evaluation
61
of museum content. Furthermore, analysis following evaluation of museum content will lead cultural heritage
domain to new insights of cultural presentation and preservation and open new research directions.
References
[RCR19] Ramic-Brkic, B.; Cosovic, M.; Rizvic, S. Cultural Heritage Digitalization in BiH: State-of-the-Art
Review and Future Trends. In Proceedings of the 1st International Workshop on Visual Pattern Ex-
traction and Recognition for Cultural Heritage Understanding Co-Located with 15th Italian Research
Conference on Digital Libraries (IRCDL 2019), Pisa, Italy, 30 January 2019; pp. 39–49.
[RDA17] Rizvic, S.; Djapo, N.; Alispahic, F.; Hadzihalilovic, B.; Cengic, F.F.; Imamovic, A.; Okanovic, V.;
Boskovic, D. Guidelines for interactive digital storytelling presentations of cultural heritage. In Pro-
ceedings of the 2017 9th International Conference on Virtual Worlds and Games for Serious Applications
(VS-Games), Athens, Greece, 6–8 September 2017; pp. 253–259.
[Pre04] Prensky, M. Digital Game-Based Learning; McGraw-Hill Pub. Co.: 2004.
[PHK15] Plass, J.; Homer, B.; Kinzer, C. Foundations of Game-Based Learning. Educ. Psychol. 2015, 50, 258–
283. doi:10.1080/00461520.2015.1122533.
[HKS14] Hamari, J.; Koivisto, J.; Sarsa, H. Does Gamification Work?—A Literature Review of Empirical Studies
on Gamification. In Proceedings of the 2014 47th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences,
Waikoloa, HI, USA, 6–9 January 2014; pp. 3025–3034. doi:10.1109/HICSS.2014.377.
[OVR15] Oprins, E.; Visschedijk, G.; Roozeboom, M.B.; Dankbaar, M.; Trooster, W.; Schuit, S.C.E. The Game-
based Learning Evaluation Model GEM: Measuring the Effectiveness of Serious Games Using a Stan-
dardised Method. Int. J. Technol. Enhanc. Learn. 2015, 7, 326–345. doi:10.1504/IJTEL.2015.074189.
[INN08] Euro Innovanet. Beyond the Traditional Museum. In Character, Profile and Extent of European Virtual
Museums; FMU. S. EU. M. Project, Italy, Rome, 151p, 2008.
[MCB14] Mortara, M.; Catalano, C.E.; Bellotti, F.; Fiucci, G.; Houry-Panchetti, M.; Petridis, P. Learning
cultural heritage by serious games. J. Cult. Herit. 2014, 15, 318–325. doi:10.1016/j.culher.2013.04.004.
[DM98] Ding, W.; Marchionini, G. A Study on Video Browsing Strategies. Technical Report. 1998. Available
online:https://drum.lib.umd.edu/handle/1903/897 (accessed on November 15).
[BNT14] Boucenna, S.; Narzisi, A.; Tilmont, E.; Muratori, F.; Pioggia, G.; Cohen, D.; Chetouani, M. Interactive
technologies for autistic children: A review. Cogn. Comput. 2014, 6, 722–740.
[PH18] Pistoljevic, N.; Hulusic, V. Educational e-book for children with and without developmental disorders.
J. Comput. Educ. 2018, 6, 117–141.
[LOS13] Lercari, N.; Onsurez, L.; Schultz, J. Multimodal reconstruction of landscape in serious games for
heritage: An insight on the creation of Fort Ross Virtual Warehouse serious game. In Proceedings
of the 2013 Digital Heritage International Congress (DigitalHeritage), Marseille, France, 28 October–1
November 2013; Volume 2, pp. 231–238.
[Sch14] Schaller, D. Game mechanics and the museum: Designing simple gameplay around complex content.
In Proceedings of the MW2014: Museums and the Web 2014, Baltimore, MD, USA, 2–5 April 2014.
[Kid15] Kidd, J. Gaming for affect: Museum online games and the embrace of empathy. J. Curator. Stud.
2015, 4, 414–432.
[Edu] EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI). 7 Things You Should Know about Game Based Learning.
Available online: https://library.educause.edu/-/media/files/library/2014/3/eli7106-pdf.
pdf (accessed on 31 October 2019).
[KKM16] Kiourt, C.; Koutsoudis, A.; Markantonatou, S.; Pavlidis, G. THE ’SYNTHESIS’ VIRTUAL MU-
SEUM. Mediterr. Archaeol. Archaeom. 2016, 16, doi:10.5281/zenodo.204961.
62
[SKG17] Skamantzari, M.; Kontogianni, G.; Georgopoulos, A.; Kazanis, S. Developing a virtual museum for the
Stoa of Attalos. In Proceedings of the 2017 9th International Conference on Virtual Worlds and Games
for Serious Applications (VS-Games), Athens, Greece, 6–8 September 2017; pp. 260–263.
[AKK18] Andritsou, G.; Katifori, A.; Kourtis, V.; Ioannidis, Y. Momap-An Interactive Gamified App for the
Museum of Mineralogy. In Proceedings of the 2018 10th International Conference on Virtual Worlds
and Games for Serious Applications (VS-Games), Wurzburg, Germany, 5–7 September 2018; pp. 1–4.
[BKN16] Bozanta, A.; Kutlu, B.; Nowlan, N.; Shirmohammadi, S. Effects of serious games on perceived team
cohesiveness in a multi-user virtual environment. Comput. Hum. Behav. 2016, 59, 380–388.
[KPS05] Klopfer, E.; Perry, J.; Squire, K.; Jan, M.F.; Steinkuehler, C. Mystery at the museum: A collaborative
game for museum education. In Proceedings of the 2005 Conference on Computer Support for Collab-
orative Learning: Learning 2005: The Next 10 Years! International Society of the Learning Sciences,
Taipei, Taiwan, 30 May–4 June 2005; pp. 316–320.
[DMP16] Dell’Aquila, E.; Marocco, D.; Ponticorvo, M.; Di Ferdinando, A.; Schembri, M.; Miglino, O. Edu-
cational Games for Soft-Skills Training in Digital Environments: New Perspectives; Springer: Berlin,
Germany, 2016.
[KP07] Kultima, A.; Paavilainen, J. Creativity techniques in game design. In Proceedings of the 2007 conference
on Future Play, Toronto, ON, Canada, 14–17 November 2007, pp. 243–244.
[PQB10] Parette, H.P.; Quesenberry, A.C.; Blum, C. Missing the boat with technology usage in early childhood
settings: A 21st century view of developmentally appropriate practice. Early Child. Educ. J. 2010,
37, 335–343.
[PS16] Paliokas, I.; Sylaiou, S. The use of serious games in museum visits and exhibitions: A systematic
mapping study. In Proceedings of the 2016 8th International Conference on Games and Virtual Worlds
For Serious Applications (VS-GAMES), Barcelona, Spain, 7–9 September 2016; pp. 1–8.
[CMV13] Ceipidor, U.B.; Medaglia, C.; Volpi, V.; Moroni, A.; Sposato, S.; Carboni, M.; Caridi, A. NFC
technology applied to touristic-cultural field: A case study on an Italian museum. In Proceedings
of the 2013 5th international workshop on near field communication (NFC), Zurich, Switzerland, 5
February 2013; pp. 1–6.
[Ram12] Ramić-Brkić, B. The Influence of Olfaction on the Perception of High-Fidelity Computer Graphics.
PhD Thesis, University of Warwick, Coventry, UK, 2012.
[IA96] Irwin, D.E.; Andrews, R.V. Integration and accumulation of information across saccadic eye movements.
In Attention and performance XVI: Information Integration in Perception and Communication; MIT
Press: Cambridge, MA, USA, 1996, Volume 16, pp. 125–155.
[LV97] Luck, S.J.; Vogel, E.K. The capacity of visual working memory for features and conjunctions. Nature
1997, 390, 279.
[PAD15] Pagano, A.; Armone, G.; De Sanctis, E. Virtual Museums and audience studies: The case of Keys
to Rome exhibition. In Proceedings of the 2015 Digital Heritage, Granada, Spain, 28 September–2
October 2015; Volume 1, pp. 373–376.
[ROP16] Rizvić, S.; Okanović, V.; Prazina, I.; Sadžak, A. 4D virtual reconstruction of white bastion fortress.
In Proceedings of the 14th Eurographics Workshop on Graphics and Cultural Heritage. Eurographics
Association, Genova, Italy, 5–7 October 2016; pp. 79–82.
[STZ04] Salen, K.; Tekinbaş, K.S.; Zimmerman, E. Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals; MIT Press:
Cambridge, MA, USA, 2004.
63