«Applying learning analytics to a serious geometric puzzle game»
José A. RuipérezJuan de la Cierva researcher at Universidad de Murcia
Abstract
Today’s educational systems still focus heavily on content assessment despite the fact that we live in the information age. Also in traditional methods such as standardized assessments that stress students. Serious games represent high-impact educational opportunities as they represent more realistic environments that capture a lot of data about the process that students follow, and are more enjoyable and relaxing than tests. These data, combined with learning analytics techniques, have great potential to build models that allow the assessment of competencies, provide support to teachers or students, or evaluate interventions among many other possibilities. Within this presentation, we will illustrate the potential of learning analytics in serious games with various case studies with different objectives. We will exemplify these studies based on the geometric puzzle game Shadowspect (https://shadowspect.org/) developed by the MIT Playful Journey Lab.
Bio
José A. Ruipérez has a Phd in Telematics Engineering in the area of Learning Analytics and Educational Data Mining from UC3M. Later, he worked for a year as a Data Scientist in a company and rejoined the academic world as a Postdoctoral Researcher at MIT. He is currently a Juan de la Cierva Researcher at UMU and remains affiliated with his laboratories at MIT. His research lies in the intersection of data and human-machine interaction, where he applies technology, data analysis and AI to understand human behavior and improve its application contexts. His work has received more than 20 awards or honors, such as being recognized as a Young Computer Researcher by the BBVA Foundation for “his contributions to AI and data analysis in online learning environments.” He has co-authorized more than 60 publications, some in important magazines such as Science or Computers in Human Behavior, and participated in 15 projects / contracts (as IP in two of them) related to these topics. José has also given seminars, workshops, and regulated teaching in data analysis and AI. He is also very active in the community, being a frequent reviewer (+20 journals), part of the scientific committee (+15 congresses), lecturer (+15 invited talks) and as a disseminator in the press and media (+10 interviews) about these research areas.
