Special Issue of Cognitive Technology Journal on Designing Educational Games

CALL FOR PAPERS

Special Issue of Cognitive Technology Journal on Designing Educational Games

BACKGROUND

The use of computer games as common vehicles for impacting cognition, as opposed to pure entertainment, has recently gained immense popularity. Games may be developed to educate children about their health condition or improve their understanding of math or history, examine economic policies, encourage the discussion of public health policy for individuals, or to promote awareness of nutrition and/or encourage change in user’s lifestyle. Modern video games are played on platforms ranging from Playstation and Xbox to social networking systems and mobile devices. The proliferation of games has profound implications not only for the entertainment industry, but also for the research community who is interested in studying the impact of using such games on cognitive abilities of the users.

In this Special Issue, Cognitive Technology will bring together researchers from across the world to consider new research that illustrates the potential of computer games as a cognitive technology for teaching and learning. Guest editors, Dr. Nilufar Baghaei and Dr. Aaron Chen, are seeking original research papers that illustrate the capacity or potential of games for enhancing the users’ learning experience and increasing their knowledge of any domain ranging from health-related issues to math and languages.

TOPICS OF INTEREST

The international journal of Cognitive Technology is planning a special issue on designing educational games (expected publication Spring 2013). Authors are invited to submit papers describing original research (applied or theoretical), that deal with innovative approaches of using game technologies as cognitive tools for increasing the learning outcome of the users and/or enhancing their learning experience.

We invite papers that address one of the following topics, or a closely related one:

• Educational games as a cognitive technology for learning 
• Designing educational games for people with disabilities and/or health conditions 
• Integrating games with health care applications 
• Intelligent Tutoring Systems and adaptive educational games 
• Designing , developing and evaluating educational games on mobile devices 
• Understanding the problems and limitations of using games as cognitive technologies 
• Best practices for designing educational games based on cognitive science 
• Empirical or case studies of increasing users’ motivation for learning using educational games
• Empirical studies of educational games and their effectiveness in increasing users’ domain knowledge 
• Empirical or case studies of perceptual and cognitive advantages and disadvantages of educational games 
• Future directions of designing, developing and deploying educational games in instructional settings 

SUBMISSION AND FORMAT

Research papers submitted for this journal should be original and must not exceed 15 double-spaced manuscript pages inclusive of title page, abstract page, references, figures, tables, and appendices. The papers should be submitted to Dr. Baghaei or Dr. Chen via email. They should be prepared in line with the formatting guidelines of Cognitive Technology Journal, available at: http://www.cognitivetechnologyjournal.com/inst.aspx . Additional details about final manuscript format requirements will be sent upon notification of acceptance.

For queries regarding the special issue, the special issue guest editors can be contacted at: nbaghaei@unitec.ac.nz or achen2@unitec.ac.nz

IMPORTANT DATES

• -  August 24, 2012: Paper submission deadline
  
• -  September 28, 2012: Peer reviews completed
  
• -  October 26, 2012: Resubmission of revised papers
  
• -  November 23, 2012: Submission of camera ready versions
  

-  Spring 2013: Journal publication

GUEST EDITORS

• -  Dr. Nilufar Baghaei, Dept of Computing, UNITEC, New Zealand
  
• -  Dr. Aaron Chen, Dept of Computing, UNITEC, New Zealand
  
• -  Dr. Paul Pivec, CranberryBlue R&D (UK/NZ) Ltd, New Zealand