Dear Serious / Simulation Games Community,
We would like to invite you to contribute to a novel online encyclopedia and edited volume on
Games for Higher Education.
*Vision*
Several meta-analyses have shown that game-based learning harbors a great potential for
effective learning across all educational domains (e.g., Vogel et al., 2006; Sitzmann, 2011;
Wouters et al., 2013; DeSmet et al., 2014; Mayer, 2014; Clark et al., 2016). Thousands of fantastic
games have been developed for all sorts of educational purposes over the past decades, including
(but not limited to) board games, card games, digital games, escape rooms, role games,
simulations, and VR/AR/XR games. Despite the availability of many helpful games, many of them
do not receive the attention they deserve from relevant teaching communities. In practice, it is
often excessively time-consuming for teachers to identify suitable games for their courses. With
our online encyclopedia "Games for Higher Education" (which we will also publish as an edited
volume), we want to help university teachers to identify relevant games quickly. We want to
provide enhanced visibility for games that are relevant to higher education and provide a helpful
resource for serious-game designers.
*Contributions*
You can contribute to Games for Higher Education by writing short articles on games of distinct
value for higher education, and as a member of our board of reviewers. Every article will be
dedicated to a specific game and be written following shared guidelines. The articles will present
the main purpose of the game, explain its gameplay features, provide key information on the
target groups and available materials, and discuss the game in terms of its quality and
effectiveness as an instrument for higher education (cf. Caserman et al., 2020).
Accepted contributions will have a length of approximately 3 pages and be attributed to the
responsible author(s). All contributions will undergo open peer review and editing before they
are published in the online encyclopedia. Accepted contributions will also be included in an edited
book that we will publish in collaboration with Center for Management Simulation in Stuttgart in
December 2025. As authors, you will retain the rights for your articles, which will be published
open access under a CC BY license with an individual DOI.
Attached, you will find the call and 4 sample articles, which you can examine to see what kinds of
contributions we want to collect. [If you cannot download or open the attachment, please feel free to contact me or
saskia...@leuphana.de directly]
*Call for Proposals*
Please use the following survey to propose entries for the encyclopedia by December 31, 2024:
https://survey.academiccloud.de/index.php/931235?lang=en
We will handle proposals on a rolling basis. The sooner we receive proposals, the sooner we will
respond to them. The December 31 deadline is for the last proposals that we will accept.
Please check the full call for contributions (attached) for our detailed inclusion and exclusion criteria. The initial survey also clarifies some of the most important inclusion criteria.
*Timeline*
Dec. 31, 2024 Deadline for proposals
Jan. 15, 2025 Final notices to submit articles
Feb. 28, 2025 Submission of articles using the standardized form and leading questions
(approximately 3 pages)
April 30, 2025 Receipt of peer reviews and acceptance notifications
May 31, 2025 Submission of finalized articles
Dec. 31, 2025 Final date for online publication of articles
Feb. 28, 2026 Publication of edited book
*Editors*
Dr. Johannes Katsarov, Saskia Sterzl, Lucian Alikhani, Hannes Hamester, Jonathan Sierks
(Leuphana University in Lueneburg)
*Contact*
Please use the following survey to propose entries for the encyclopedia by December 31, 2024:
https://survey.academiccloud.de/index.php/931235?lang=en
For additional queries, please contact:
saskia...@leuphana.de
*References*
Caserman, P., Hoffmann, K., Müller, P., Schaub, M., Straßburg, K., Wiemeyer, J., Bruder, R., Göbel,
S. (2020). Quality Criteria for Serious Games: Serious Part, Game Part, and Balance. JMIR Serious
Games, 8(3), e19037.
https://doi.org/10.2196/19037
Clark, Douglas B., Emily E. Tanner-Smith, & Stephen S. Killingsworth (2016). Digital Games, Design,
and Learning: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Review of Educational Research, 86(1),
79-122.
https://doi.org/10.3102/0034654315582065
DeSmet, Ann, Dimitri Van Ryckeghem, Sofie Compernolle, Tom Baranowski, Debbe Thompson,
Geert Crombez, Karolien Poels, Wendy Van Lippevelde, Sara Bastiaensens, Katrien Van Cleemput,
Heidi Vandebosch, & Ilse De Bourdeaudhuij (2014). A Meta-Analysis of Serious Digital Games for
Healthy Lifestyle Promotion. Preventive Medicine, 69, 95-107.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ypmed.2014.08.026
Mayer, Richard E. (2014). Computer Games for Learning. An Evidence-based Approach. MIT Press.
Sitzmann, Traci (2011). A Meta-Analytic Examination of the Instructional Effectiveness of
Computer-based Simulation Games. Personnel Psychology, 64(2), 489-528.
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1744-6570.2011.01190.x
Vogel, J. J., Vogel, D. S., Cannon-Bowers, J., Bowers, C. A., Muse, K., & Wright, M. (2006).
Computer Gaming and Interactive Simulations for Learning: A Meta-Analysis. Journal of
Educational Computing Research, 34(3), 229-243.
https://doi.org/10.2190/FLHV-K4WA-WPVQH0YM
Wouters, Pieter, Christof van Nimwegen, Herre van Oostendorp, & Erik D. van der Spek, E. (2013).
A Meta-Analysis of the Cognitive and Motivational Effects of Serious Games. Journal of
Educational Psychology, 105(2), 249-265.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0031311
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