April 2024
New collaboration and SNSF project
The Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) funds our project “A digital inquiry platform for wicked problems”.
This project is carried out in collaboration with the Visual Collaboration Lab at the University of Lausanne, headed by Professor Stéphanie Missonier.
March 2024
Pedagogical innovation at the University of Geneva
The PM-Game, our project management serious game, presented on the University of Geneva’s educational innovation website.
December 2023
Collaborative Game Design with Watted
Workshop with Watted on the design of its serious game PowerPlay. Intense exchanges related to this game about the Swiss energy transition.
August 2023
At prehospital research day
During the 2nd Prehospital Research Day over 70 prehospital professionals (medical doctors and paramedics) took part in a study on pre-triage algorithms based on our serious game.
June 2023
Invited guest at GSGS’ 23
AlbaSim is present at the 8th International Conference on Gamification and Serious Games, with a talk on “How to design effective serious games ?”
June 2023
A systematic review on the use of serious games in project management education
Our article “A systematic review on the use of serious games in project management education”, presenting a taxonomy of reasons for using PM games in higher education, is published in the International Journal of Serious Games.
May 2023
At the West Switzerland Emergency Medicine Day
Our serious game for pre-triage of victims during major events was used as part of the SIMCUP during the “Emergency medicine day”: Twelve inter-professional teams (doctors, nurses, paramedics) competed in different simulated scenarios.
November 2022
Design Principles for Serious Games Authoring Tools
Our article “Design Principles for Serious Games Authoring Tool”, presenting the design principles that led to the development of WEGAS, is published in the International Journal of Serious Games.
Novembre 2022
A simulation for “Patient Triage”
1st use of the “Patient Triage” module developed in the framework of the global project “Major Incidents Medical Simulation”. The simulation was used in the framework of a training session for doctors and paramedics of the HUG Emergency Medical Service (SMUR).
Participants’ evaluation of the simulation highlights its usability as well as its interest for training.
November 2022
Mikkel Vestergaard join AlbaSim
With a bachelor’s degree in Media Engineering and experience as a web designer & developer, Mikkel brings his skills to the development of our serious games as well as to all user experience considerations.
June 2022
AlbaSim at “Standardized Patients and Simulation” Conference
AlbaSim will be present at the international conference “Standardized Patients and Simulation” (SPSIM), Lausanne 2022, with a communication “The place of Serious Games for the Future Of Legal Education – PRITS”.
May 2022
How might serious games trigger a transformation in project management education ?
Our empirical research paper “How might serious games trigger a transformation in project management education ? Lessons learned from 10 Years of experimentations”, written in collaboration with university in Agder, is published in the special issue “Digital Education and Learning in a Project Society”, Elsevier.
April 2022
AlbaSim serious serious game highlighted as a pedagogical innovation
AlbaSim serious game for urbanism is highlighted as a pedagogical innovation at University of Geneva.
February 2022
“Patient’s Rights” game extended usage
Based on the results of the first use test, the use of the “Patients’ Rights” serious game is extended to the physiotherapy and nursing programs.
Evaluation of the quality of the game by students, as well as analysis of its impact on learning, is underway.
December 2021
Xavier Good joined the AlbaSim team
With both a master’s degree in computer science from EPFL and a master’s degree in saxophone from EJMA, Xavier brings its creativity and technical skills to the AlbaSim team. His teaching experience will also be useful for the development of educational serious games.
Novembre 2021
Contribution of the co.LAB Framework to the Collaborative Design of Serious Games
First validation of our co.LAB framework is published in the journal JMIR Serious Games.
Jaccard D, Suppan L, Bielser F. Contribution of the co.LAB Framework to the Collaborative Design of Serious Games: Mixed Methods Validation Study. JMIR Serious Games 2021;9(4). [doi: 10.2196/33144].
November 2021
First use of our “Patients’Rights Game”
The serious game “Patients’ Rights”, developed in a collaboration between AlbaSim and Haute Ecole de Santé Vaud (HESAV), in used by more than 150 students in “Année propédeutique de santé” .
July 2021
Credit Suisse Award for Best Teaching
Our serious game “Corporate Law”, developed in collaboration with the University of Geneva, wins the prize for pedagogical innovation and receives the Credit Suisse Teaching Award.
July 2021
Our Serious Games Design Framework is Published
Our framework for collaborative design of serious games, developed within the FNS co.LAB project, is published in the journal JMIR Serious Games.
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Jaccard D., Suppan L., Sanchez E., Huguenin A., and Laurent M., The co.LAB Generic Framework for Collaborative Design of Serious Games: Development Study, JMIR Serious Games, 2021, doi: 10/03/2021:28674.
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June 2021
IEEE Serious Games for Health, Dubai
AlbaSim participate at IEEE Serious Games for Health, Dubai, with a long paper and a presentation “A serious game for patient’ rights education”, D. Correia, F. Bielser, D. Bonnard, S. Yavavli, D. Jaccard
June 2021
Award : U d’argent soignants
The Silver U Award for our serious game “Emergency Triage”.
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Within a research carried out with our serious game “Emergency Triage”, the Silver U Award was given to the presentation ” Evaluation de l’impact des distracteurs de l’environnement de travail sur le tri: étude randomisée contrôlée à l’aide d’un serious game (SG)”. Fiorentino, A., Hugli, O., Rutschmann, O., Simon, J., Vuilleumier, S., Antonini, M., Jaccard, D., Delmas, P. French Society of Emergency Medicine (SFMU) Conference, Paris, 2021.
This honorary and financial award is given by a major emergency medicine society for the best presentations highlighting innovative issues.
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May 2021
AlbaSim at the International Conference on Gamification & Serious Games (GSGS’21)
AlbaSim will be present at GSGS’21 with a presentation “Gamification & Patients’ Rights: a Serious Game for students in Healthcare”, written in collaboration with Haute Ecole de Santé Vaud (HESAV).
April 2021
PRITS Serious Game presented at the Patient Rights Symposium
On Monday 19 April 2021, the first symposium on patients’ rights will be held on the theme “Practical challenges and teaching in the digital age”. The symposium will be organised by a multidisciplinary team from the Haute Ecole Santé Vaud (HESAV) in partnership with AlbaSim, HEIG-VD.
February 2021
Patient’s rights serious game web page
Health, law and engineering: PRITS, an interdisciplinary project aimed at learning about patients’ rights.
A partnership between AlbaSim and the Haute Ecole de Santé Vaud.
December 2020
Participation at Gala 2020
AlbaSim participate at the Game and Learning Alliance conference, with a paper and presentation «A serious game for studying decision making by triage nurses under stress», written in collaboration Haute Ecole La Source, les HUG et le CHUV.
November 2020
Our PM-Game presented as a pedagogical innovation at the University of Geneva
AlbaSim PM-Game is highlighted as a pedagogical innovation at University of Geneva.
October 2020
Audrey Huguenin joins the AlbaSim team
With a bachelor’s degree in fine arts and another bachelor’s degree in media engineering, Audrey will work on the design and implementation of user experience in our serious games.
October 2020
Major Medical Events Simulation – new project !
Beginning of new project in collaboration with the University Hospital of Geneva (HUG). The project aims at developing a global simulation for individual and team training in the management of major medical events.
The project is co-funded by the University Hospital of Geneva and InnoSuisse.
September 2020
Sandra Monnier joins the AlbaSim team
With a Master’s degree in computer science from EPFL, a solid experience in the design and development of software solutions, as well as a sensibility for user experience, Sandra will participate in the development of games and simulations as well as in the evolution of our serious games authoring platform Wegas.
September 2020
Participation at the Gamification & Serious Games Symposium
AlbaSim participate at the symposium with a paper “Creation of a serious game exploring decision making by triage nurses in a stressful environment”, written in collaboration with Haute Ecole La Source, HUG and CHUV.
July 2020
AlbaSim at Edulearn conference
AlbaSim participate at the Edulearn conference, with a presentation “Challenge with the introduction of a “Project Management Game” in higher education”, a paper written in collaboration with Agder University.
May 2020
Patient’s Rights & Innovative Teaching Strategy
Beginning of new project in collaboration with the Haute Ecole de Santé Vaud (HESAV). The Patient’s Rights & Innovative Teaching Strategy project aims at developing a Serious Game whose purpose is as much to support students in learning the legal rules applicable in the field of heath, as to broaden the pedagogical options of teaching.
This project is financed by the HES-SO digital skills centre.
December 2019
co.LAB – a new project financed by the SNF
The co.LAB project (A Digital Lab for the co-Design, co-Development and co-Evaluation of Digital Learning Games) has been elected for a four-year grant by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF) in the frame of the NRP 77 programme “Digital Transformation”.
Main applicant: Prof. D. Jaccard, Albasim, MEI, HES-SO
Co-applicant: Prof. E. Sanchez, LIP, UniFr
November 2019
M-Benefit: workshop in Berlin
The serious game M-Benefit is presented and tested at a public workshop in Berlin.
Training of energy managers with the serious game “M-Benefits” starts in Germany, England, Spain, Greece, Italy, Poland, Portugal and Switzerland.
October 2019
AlbaSim at Politecnico do Porto
Dominique Jaccard spends a week as a visiting professor at Politecnico do Porto, including leading a workshop “Serious Games in Higher Education”, a master’s course in project management based on the PM-Game, a visit to the business management simulation laboratory and discussions on possible future collaborations.
September 2019
First test of the Emergency Triage game
The Emergency Triage game is used for the first time by a panel of triage experts in order to evaluate its usability and realism. The development of this serious game is carried out in close collaboration with the “La Source” school of nursing sciences in Lausanne.
July 2019
AlbaSim at the 4th Gamification & Serious Game Symposium
AlbaSim is represented at the GSGS’19 conference by Jarle Hulaas with two presentations:
- Jaccard D. , Maksay G. and Hulaas J., Media Serious Game – a serious game as an introduction to HES studies
- Plumettaz-Sieber M. , Hulaas J, Sanchez E., Jaccard D., Co-design of a serious game for computing education
June 2019
AlbaSim in Paris for the EIAH conference
AlbaSim was present at the conference Environnement Informatique pour l’Apprentissage Humain, at the Sorbonne, Paris. Maud Plumettaz-Sieber (Unifr) and Dominique Jaccard (AlbaSim) made a presentation at the workshop “Learning computer thinking”, on the theme “Assessment of the acceptability, usefulness and usability of the Programming Game dashboard”.
May 2019
New project with University in Agder, Norway
After having tested the PM-Game in its bachelor and master programs, the University of Agder launch a large research project with the objective of exploring, testing and disseminating the potential for pedagogical innovation brought by serious games in university education.
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This project is funded by the DIKU (Norwegian Agency for International Cooperation and Quality Improvement in Higher Education). The DIKU promotes promote development and innovation in education, encourage international cooperation and digital learning methods.
AlbaSim is the main project partner.
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April 2019
AlbaSim at Ludovia#CH
AlbaSim is well represented at the Ludovia#CH conference, as a speaker at the round table “Game as a miracle cure for education?” (J. Hulaas), by the co-presidency of the scientific committee (D. Jaccard), as co-author of two presentations “Conception collaborative du jeu Péroll’ard ” and “Co-conception d’un jeu d’apprentissage de la programmation” (D. Jaccard, J. Hulaas) and by the animation of an ExplorCamp “A serious game for the introduction to HES studies” (D. Jaccard, G. Maksay).
April 2019
Frankfurt – Train The Trainer
As part of the H2020 MBenefits project, AlbaSim was in Frankfurt to co-moderate the Train The Trainer on the use of the MBenefits serious game.
The trainers, representing Germany, Italy, Greece, Portugal, Portugal, Poland, Belgium and Switzerland, were able to test and evaluate the english version of the serious game.
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On the basis of the trainers’ positive evaluations, the process of content translation into French, German, Italian, Spanish, Polish, Greek and Dutch will begin.
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February 2019
First in-class use of the PACT programming game
This first session brought together 22 students from the Gymnase intercantonal de la Broye (Switzerland) and made it possible to verify the adequacy of the PACT programming game with the expectations and capacities of students of this age.
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The teacher in charge of the programming course had added a few exercises of his own to the game. Feedback from the students confirmed that the game was fun to use and motivating. Some areas of improvement were identified and quickly corrected.
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January 2019
First training trial of serious game M-Benefits
This trial session brought together 20 participants representing professional, political and academic communities in the field of energy management.
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The session was held over one day, condensing what the future two-day training sessions will be like, i.e. a combination of theoretical inputs and their application in the serious game. Observations and answers of participants to a short survey confirmed the utility, usability and pleasantness nature of a training based on the serious game. Overall observations made it possible to detect areas of improvement both in interfaces and game contents, as well as in the overall organization of the training day.
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December 2018
A serious game to evaluate the impact of environmental distractors on the performance of emergency triage
Beginning of a new projet in partnership with “Institut et Haute Ecole de santé La Source” and “Hôpitaux Universitaires de Genève (HUG)”.
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In the emergency department, triage decisions have a direct impact on patients’ survival rates. However, studies have found significant differences in nurses’ attribution of the emergency degree, either by over- or under-evaluation, with major consequences for patient management.
Among the factors that could explain the cause of these discrepancies, distractors in the work environment such as noise or task interruptions were highlighted but did not benefit from specific investigations, particularly due to the difficulty of evaluating them in real healthcare environments.
Therefore, in this project, we will develop and use a serious game in order to reproduces a work environment with distractors and provide a unique opportunity to explore their impacts on the quality of triage in emergency departments.
This study will provide a better understanding of the contribution of the work environment to safe care.
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November 2018
Learning Analytics Workshop
The “learning analytics” workshop is co-organized by AlbaSim and the Laboratoire d’Innovation Pédagogique (University of Fribourg), partners in several research projects. Read more ▼ Thème du séminaire La collecte automatique et l’analyse de données numériques dans le but de comprendre et d’optimiser l’apprentissage ainsi que les dispositifs mis en place est aujourd’hui une méthodologie en plein essor. Ces approches s’inscrivent dans des paradigmes méthodologiques qui relèvent de l’analytique de l’apprentissage (learning analytics) ou de la fouille de données éducatives (educational data mining). Par ailleurs, le développement de méthodes statistiques et plus particulièrement de celles qui relèvent de l’intelligence artificielle ouvre de nouvelles perspectives à la science des données pour l’éducation et la formation. Ces nouvelles perspectives offertes au/à la chercheur/euse concernent par exemple la modélisation comportementale et épistémique de l’apprenant·e à des fins de diagnostic et de compréhension du processus d’apprentissage. Ce séminaire vise à travailler ces méthodologies émergentes et plus particulièrement à aborder la question de l’analytique de l’apprentissage. Il s’agira d’échanger sur la manière dont les données peuvent être collectées et exploitées pour modéliser l’apprenant·e et favoriser sa prise en compte dans les environnements numériques dédiés à l’éducation et à la formation. Il s’agira également d’identifier les difficultés méthodologiques et questions épistémologiques auxquelles sont confrontés les chercheurs/euses qui emploient de telles approches. Le séminaire comprendra trois interventions (détails au format PDF) : Read less ▲HEIG-VD, salle S107, le 30 novembre 2018 de 9h30 à 12h15
François Bouchet, Lip6, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, France
Laurent Bolli, HEIG-VD, Suisse
Guillaume Bonvin, Eric Sanchez, Unifr, Suisse
Celso Gonçalves, Uni. Fatra, Brésil
October 2018
Athens – 1st test of the serious game m-benefits
At the National Technical University of Athens (Greece) for the second meeting of the H2020 European project M-Benefits, Dominique Jaccard presents the first version of the m-benefits serious game. Very positive feedback from all participants !
Octobre 2018
AlbaSim involved at EIAH 2019
With Dominique Jaccard’s participation as a member of the programme committee, AlbaSim is involved in the “Environnements Informatiques pour l’Apprentissage Humain” conference (EIAH’2019), to be held in Paris (France) on 4-7 June 2019.
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The chosen conference topic is “Digital data and learner inclusion in Computer Environments for Human Learning”.
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October 2018
Ludovia#CH – Digital resources to revitalize practice
AlbaSim is involved in the program committee for Ludovia#CH 2019, which will take place in Yverdon (Switzerland) from 16 to 18 April. This year’s theme is digital resources for education and training.
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Une ressource est tout ce qui peut ressourcer la pratique du professeur écrit Adler (2000). Ainsi, avec le numérique, la manière dont les enseignants recherchent, sélectionnent et adaptent les ressources pour leur enseignement sont des processus qui subissent de profonds changements qui doivent être pris en compte dans leur formation et leur activité (Gueudet et Trouche, 2010). Le développement de l’accès aux ressources numériques a profondément bouleversé le rapport de l’enseignant aux ressources éducatives. On assiste à une modification de l’ensemble du processus allant de la création des ressources, de leur diffusion, de l’évaluation de leur qualité, de leur adaptation et finalement de l’utilisation de ces ressources en situation d’enseignement ou de formation.
Du point de vue de la création des ressources, on observe que les enseignants passent de consommateurs à co-créateurs des ressources numériques qu’ils utilisent (Bueno-Ravel, Gueudet, 2014) et ce travail de co-création a des répercussions sur la manière dont ils envisagent leur enseignement.
Les moyens de diffusion et recherche de ressources numériques conduisent à un foisonnement de ressources disponibles pour les enseignants, et ce foisonnement conduit à se poser la question de la manière d’évaluer la qualité d’une ressource, tant par les enseignants que par les institutions.
Finalement, l’accessibilité permanente aux ressources, par les enseignants et les étudiants, invite à repenser tant l’activité de l’enseignant que la façon dont les élèves apprennent.
Ainsi, s’intéresser à la question des ressources numériques éducatives, c’est poser des questions qui dépassent largement le cadre de la classe et qui concernent de nombreuses thématiques :
- Recherche, sélection et adaptation des ressources
- Conception des ressources (modèles théoriques, conception collaborative…)
- Qualité des ressources numériques
- Diffusion, partage des ressources numériques
- Orchestration des ressources dans la classe
- Ressources numériques et environnement personnel d’apprentissage
- Ressources numériques et modalités d’apprentissage (classe inversée, jeu…)
- Ressources numériques et développement professionnel des enseignants
- Ressource éducatives libres (communs)
- Ressources institutionnelles, ressources commerciales, ressources informelles
[lire la suite sur le site du colloque]
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September 2018
A new research paper about AlbaSim’s Project Management Game
Published following a research conducted at the University of Aix-Marseille, this article analyses students’ perception of the use of our serious project management game (PM-Game) as part of their university curriculum.
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Results show that students perceive the work done during the game as “more intense”, “more active”, “more motivating and more practical” than in traditional lectures.
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September 2018
Talk at European Association for International Education
The 30th edition of the EAIE conference takes place in Switzerland. The main site of the conference is in Geneva, with visits to different university campuses. During the visit to the HES-SO, Dominique Jaccard gives a talk on the theme “Serious games and simulations for academic education”.
September 2018
A serious game for a playful discovery of University of Fribourg
Developed in partnership between AlbaSim and the LIP of the University of Fribourg, the serious game Péroll’ard allowed visitors to the “Open house day” of the University of Fribourg to discover the different activities organized within the University.
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The game consists of collecting points and clues by visiting the various exhibitions in order to solve an enigma, and thus allows the playful discovery of the University.
The data collected during this experiment are being processed. The objective is to assess the usability of the current version of the game and understand its effects on how the visit has been perceived by visitors to “Open house day”.
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August 2018
AlbaSim in Norway
Dominique Jaccard spends a week in Norway, as a visiting professor at the University of Agder (UiA).
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During this week, Dominique introduces our serious game for project management (PM-Game) in 3 different programs (bachelor in art, bachelor in engineering and master courses for advanced project management). UiA professors will then use the PM-Game for the rest of the semester.
During the week, several possibilities for research collaborations on serious games are established.
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July 2018
New project: Playing & Computational Thinking
Beginning of PACT (Playing and Computational Thinking), a joint project with University of Fribourg (Switzerland) and gymnasium teachers, which is funded by the Hasler Foundation. PACT aims at offering innovative game-based learning resources to secondary school teachers in computer programming.
June 2018
Aix-Marseille University – Pedagogical innovation seminar
AlbaSim is invited as a “special guest” at the *Café de l’innovation pédagogique” (pedagogical innovation seminar) at the University of Aix-Marseille. Dominique Jaccard will give a talk on the topic “Serious games for higher education”. Two seminars are organized: on June 4 at the Aix site, on June 5 at the Marseille site.
March 2018
AlbaSim at Ludovia#CH
Dominique Jaccard and Jarle Hulaas participate at the scientific conference with a presentation “Analyse comparative des comportements dans les serious games”.
Dominique is one of the guests of the round table “Créateurs de jeux vidéos indépendants et enseignement : quels points de rencontre ? “
March 2018
Bruxelles – Kick off meeting for an H2020 project
Dominique Jaccard represents the AlbaSim team in Brussels for the launch of the H2020 m-benefits project, a three year EU-funded project.
In this project, AlbaSim is the task leader for the development of the serious game that will be used for training of energy-efficiency experts and for results dissemination.