Chapter 4

Gamification in Education
and Libraries

I
n the previous chapter, we saw that even simple- • The Bottle Bank Arcade machine was used by
looking games have a complicated structure of game nearly one hundred people over one night. During
mechanics and dynamics that are designed to gener- the same period, the nearby conventional bottle
ate the desired game aesthetics. Those game aesthetics bank was used only twice.2
constitute what we refer to as the “fun” part of game- • During the three-day trial period, 24,857 cars
play whether it is the sensation of excitement and joy, passed the Speed Camera Lottery machine. The
the emotions of wonder and curiosity from the discov- average driving speed went down from 32 kilo-
ery of a new world that the game presents, the immer- meters per hour to 25 kilometers per hour, a 22
sive narrative, the challenge that tests our abilities and percent reduction.3
boosts our confidence, or the chance to release stress • When the Piano Stairs were installed in Odenplan,
and clear the mind from everyday worries. Stockholm, 66 percent more people chose the
If we can experience these game aesthetics in real stairs over the escalator.4
February/March 2015

life as well as in front of a video console or a computer • The winner of the Biggest Energy Saver Contest by
screen, why wouldn’t we? If everyday drudgery, dull San Diego Gas and Electric achieved as much as
learning experience, and stressful tasks can be ame- 46.5 percent energy savings, equal to 1,356 kilo-
liorated with the application of game dynamics and watt hours for her family of three, and those who
mechanics, wouldn’t that be a great thing? Talking about used the same energy-saving gaming app achieved
Chore Wars and other apps that gamify reality, a game 20 percent savings on average, compared to 9 per-
researcher, Jane McGonigal writes that alternate real- cent by those who used only the device without
alatechsource.org

ity games (ARGs), or in this case gamified applications, the app.5

are games that you play to get more out of your real • Approximately 18 million people worldwide play
life as opposed to games that you play to escape it. She Nike+.6
believes that gamification enables people to participate
in their real lives as fully as they do in their game lives.1 These figures and the impact of various gamifica-
tion projects well illustrate the real power of gamifi-
Library Technology Reports

cation in motivating people and even enabling them

Why Gamify? The Power to change their behavior for a goal that they decide
of Gamification to achieve. Gamification can function as a win-win
strategy that results in fun, self-improvement for indi-
Gamification is a powerful tool due to its ability to viduals, and even a social good all at the same time
capture people’s attention, to engage them in a target when it is carefully designed to create fun and joy
activity, and even to influence their behavior. We have with a goal closely aligned with players’ own desires
already had a glimpse of the power of gamification in and values.
the examples introduced in chapter 2:

20
Understanding Gamification Bohyun Kim
Game-Based Learning Leadership Academy. Gamifying this training program
and Serious Games resulted in a 37 percent increase in the number of users
returning to the site each week while also increasing
If gamification can help people to save electricity and the amount of time people spent on the program and
exercise more, could it help them learn better as well? the number of programs completed.10 Cisco developed
Game-based learning and serious games had been a an arcade game called the Binary Game. It teaches the
topic of much discussion and many studies in educa- concept of binary numbers and how to think in binary
tion even before gamification became popular.7 Game- by walking players through from forty to fifty prob-
based learning and serious games focus on using com- lems in five minutes.11 Cisco offers several other games
mercial video games or creating full-fledged video related to computer networking as well. IBM created
games for education. Since gamification uses game a first-person 3D interactive simulation game called
mechanics and dynamics for educational purposes, INNOV8, which allows players to practice business
serious games and gamification are often discussed decisions by running a fictitious company, After Inc.
together, and their boundaries tend to blur. This game is used in many schools in business and IT
We have previously differentiated gamification programs including University of Southern California,
from a game in that gamification is not a full-fledged Marshall School of Business. INNOV8 teaches the com-
game following the distinction made by Deterding et plex idea of business process management and skills
al. and Marczewski.8 But we also saw that some gami- such as business problem solving, prioritization, and
fication researchers, such as Kapp, use a broad defini- consensus building by helping players make decisions
tion of gamification, including both full-fledged games that impact a fictitious company.12
and playful design under gamification.9 Serious games Gamification is also used at workplaces for recruit-
tend to give a much stronger role to certain gaming ment and training as in America’s Army, lead genera-
elements, such as avatar, fantasy, story and narrative, tion in marketing, public relations (e.g., intelligence
and fully virtual environment for play. The discussion agencies), selection (e.g., problem-based interview-
on serious games also tends to focus more on the con- ing), training, continuous professional development
tent of learning, while gamification is more broadly and up-skilling of the workforce (e.g., health profes-
applied for motivating and engaging learners. How- sions), planning, performance and review processes
ever, in reality it can be tricky to identify the point (e.g., public sector), skill-based promotion (e.g., engi-
where gamification ends and a full-fledged serious neering), and development of personal health skills as
game begins, as shown in the examples such as New shown in Keas.13
York Public Library’s “Find the Future” and the Metro-
politan Museum of Art’s “Murder at the Met.” This is
even more so in serious games because just like gami- America’s Army
fication, a serious game has a purpose that is always http://www.americasarmy.com/
more than entertainment. For this reason, some of the

Library Technology Reports

examples in this section may appear closer to a seri- Keas
ous game than gamification depending on how you see http://keas.com/
it. With this in mind, now let’s take a look at some
examples of gamification used in businesses and work- Cisco Binary Game
places, education, and libraries. http://http://forums.cisco.com/CertCom/game/binary_
game_page.htm

New York Public Library: Find the Future Cisco: Games and Mobile Apps
http://exhibitions.nypl.org/100/digital_fun/play_the_game https://learningnetwork.cisco.com/community/ alatechsource.org
learning_center/games
The Metropolitan Museum of Arts:
Murder at the Met IBM INNOV8
http://metmystery.toursphere.com/pages/ http://http://www-01.ibm.com/software/solutions/soa/
innov8/index.html
February/March 2015

Examples of Gamification Stack Overflow, a popular question-and-answer

of Learning in Businesses forum for programmers, uses gaming elements such
as points, badges, and privileges. Stack Overflow users
and Workplaces
earn points and badges by participating in the forum,
A large consulting company, Deloitte, developed answering questions, and gaining votes from other
a gamified online training program called Deloitte users. The privileges are directly tied to the reputation

21
Understanding Gamification Bohyun Kim
 points, so that users have to earn their privileges such country in a particular news source.18 Fantasy Geopoli-
as voting down an answer, creating a tag, or creating tics motivates students to learn more about their coun-
a chat room.14 Two software companies, Adobe and tries by gamifying news reading, so that it no longer
Microsoft, used gamification to help users learn how to appears to students as a difficult task. Fantasy Geopoli-
use their software. Adobe created LevelUp, which gami- tics has been used as a six-month civics course foreign
fied the process of learning the image-editing software policy primer, a scaffolding tool used while studying
Photoshop by giving players missions to complete and the world wars in US and world history, and a creative
rewarding them with badges and awards.15 The support way to engage students outside class in a middle school
and development of LevelUp, however, was discontin- humanities seminar.19 In February 2014, it successfully
ued in June 2014. Microsoft developed Ribbon Hero, a raised $12,706 for improvement through Kickstarter,
game that teaches people how to use Microsoft Office a crowdsourcing fundraising website.
software. It takes users through different scenarios that
require them to use Microsoft Office skills to solve prob-
lems and awards points and levels that are displayed in Fantasy Geopolitics
the corner of their Office application.16 www.fantasygeopolitics.com

Stack Overflow Cliff Lampe, a professor at the University of Mich-

http://stackoverflow.com igan School of Informatics, gamified his undergrad-
uate class. Lampe provided his students with the
Ribbon Hero freedom to choose their options to accomplish the
http://ribbonhero.com learning goals of the class, encouraged them to par-
ticipate in “guilds,” and gave them rapid feedback
on their performance via a monitoring system man-
Codecademy, an online learning website that aged by his teaching assistants to further empower
offers free computer programming classes in several the students. The central theme of this gamification
different programming languages, drew a lot of atten- experiment is providing autonomy to students to
tion by rolling out its CodeYear program in 2012. become more invested in what they learn and how
CodeYear was designed to encourage people to learn to approach it.20
how to code throughout the year. People who signed Dartmouth College and Webster University used
up for the CodeYear program earned points, badges, gamification in order to make their student orienta-
and trophies as they progressed and successfully fin- tions more informative and interactive. They provided
ished courses on the track of their choice. Codecad- their new students at the orientation with SCVNGR, a
emy released new courses every week to keep learn- location-based mobile gamification app with custom-
ers motivated and encourage them to continue their izable treks and challenges, instead of a paper hand-
February/March 2015

learning. According to the article about Codecademy out, so that each student could discover more about
in Wikipedia, over 450,000 people took courses dur- the school and the campus in the form of a scavenger
ing the year of 2012, and as of January 2014, over 24 hunt using a smartphone.21 SCVNGR was retired, how-
million users completed over 100 million exercises in ever, in December 2012.
Codecademy.17 Purdue University developed its own digital badge
platform called Passport. Passport enables instruc-
tors to design digital badges and issue them to stu-
alatechsource.org

Examples of Gamification dents. Students can earn and display those digital
in Education badges in Passport to demonstrate their competen-
cies and achievements and share them in social media
Fantasy Geopolitics was developed as an auxiliary tool such as LinkedIn and Facebook. Passport was used to
for ninth grade students taking social studies in 2009. give out badges to students who passed an eight-week
Eric Nelson, a high school teacher at North Lakes MOOC-like course in nanotechnology with no credit
Library Technology Reports

Academy Charter School in Forest Lake, Minnesota, attached and to give out a badge related to intercul-
developed this lightweight game in order to encourage tural learning to students for their work in different
his students to care about geopolitics and see world disciplines and departments.22 Badges are currently in
news as something relevant to their lives. Fantasy use or in development at institutions of higher educa-
Geopolitics starts with a draft session, during which tion, such as MIT, Carnegie Mellon, the University of
students select a team of three countries (except the California, Davis, and Seton Hall, and they are also
United States and China due to their domination of the issued by organizations including NASA, the National
news); then the players track stories about those coun- Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the US
tries in the news and get points for every mention of a Departments of Veterans Affairs and Education, the

22
Understanding Gamification Bohyun Kim
Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and the movie numbers of visitors, the usage statistics of library
studio Disney-Pixar.23 books and resources, and the attendance at library
Recently, Purdue University created a competency programs and events. Libraries are also in constant
degree program, in which students progress at their need of sustaining continuous public funding. For this
own rate as they demonstrate mastery of specific skills reason, libraries are naturally interested in using gami-
rather than by performance measured only at fixed fication for the purpose of improving the pedagogical
calendar intervals of classroom time. Instead of letter efficacy of library instruction as well as both raising
grades, this program provides students with their com- library patrons’ awareness of available library services
petencies, which will indicate to employers what grad- and resources and promoting their use.
uates can do.24 As more emphasis is given to students’
competencies and skills than their general accomplish-
ments in the classroom, digital badges, one of the most Gamifying the Summer Reading Program
prominent gamification elements, will gain more pop-
ularity in education. Canton Public Library in Michigan gamified its summer
reading program. This gamified summer reading pro-
gram, called “Connect Your Summer” runs on a website
Passport that provides a variety of badges for library patrons who
www.itap.purdue.edu/studio participate in the program and follow the paths such as
Super Bookworm Path, On the Scene Path, and eLectri-
NASA: Digital Badges fied Path. Each of these paths feature different activities
www.nasa.gov/offices/education/programs/national/dln/ to earn twelve different badges. If a patron follows each
special/DigitalBadges.html theme on all three paths and earns all thirty-six badges,
she is awarded a MEGA badge and entered into a spe-
cial drawing. If she also completes the online survey,
In 2014, Nah et al. published a literature review on she earns the Super Mega Ultra badge and is entered
gamification in the educational and learning contexts into a Super Mega Ultra prize drawing. While this pro-
and identified fifteen studies that incorporated game gram uses an online platform created with Drupal and
design elements into education.25 The game elements its ‘User Badge’ (forked version), Content Construction
utilized for the gamification of learning in those stud- Kit (CCK), Views, and Rules module, it also offers a way
ies included points, levels, leaderboards, challenges, to participate in the program with a paper version.
badges, progress bars, immediate feedback, peer inter-
action and collaboration, prizes, in-game rewards,
onboarding, replay, unlockable content, customization, Canton Public Library: Connect Your Summer
achievement, storytelling, stages, storyline, visual ele- https://www.cantonpl.org/connect-your-summer/2014
ments, goals, character upgrade, peer motivation, and

Library Technology Reports

scoreboard. The learner outcomes that some of these Connect Your Summer: Paper Reading Log
studies aimed at included engagement, participation, https://www.cantonpl.org/sites/default/
motivation, enjoyment, productive learning experience, files/2014CYSReadingLog.pdf
sense of achievement, sense of accomplishment, perfor-
mance, recognition, and interest in course.26
Another library that gamified the summer read-
ing program is Pierce County Library in Washington
Examples of Gamification State. Its “Teen Summer Challenge” website opened
in Libraries in 2012. Anyone can register and participate, but in alatechsource.org
order to earn prizes, a participant must be a teen with
Libraries provide an interesting platform for gamifica- a valid Pierce County library card. As of September
tion. Gamification in libraries can play both an edu- 2014, 126 people participated in the Teen Summer
cational and a semi-business role. The educational Challenge and completed 3,071 activities, thereby
function of a library clearly lies in its instructional earning 21,056 points and 234 badges.27 Each badge
and teaching-support activities. But libraries also have requires the completion of multiple activities such as
February/March 2015

semi-business-like functions such as marketing library answering a question after watching a video or visit-
services, promoting library programs to boost the ing a local bird sanctuary. And each activity has cer-
attendance, and raising awareness of various learn- tain points assigned to it. You can see the leaderboard
ing resources that libraries offer. This function is not and badges at the links in the gray box. Pierce County
directly tied to libraries’ revenue since most libraries Library also organizes meet-ups where teens who par-
are nonprofit organizations. Nevertheless, libraries ticipate in this summer reading program can get to
are often asked to justify their operation by providing know one another and work on challenges together.

23
Understanding Gamification Bohyun Kim
 The content of this gamified summer reading program library’s e-resources. Students can display the badges
was created by a team of youth services librarians, and that they earned in social networks such as Face-
the game platform increased participation in summer book and Twitter. The goal of this game was to nudge
reading from about 200 participants county-wide to positive behavior, supporting and increasing intrin-
about 650 with practically no marketing.28 The online sic motivations, and for this reason, Lemontree does
game platform was originally built in-house by a staff not offer any real-world rewards.31 Also in order to
member with WordPress and was improved with more achieve its goal of reducing library anxiety and engag-
customizations by hired programmers as the project ing students who use few library resources, its user
grew and got grant funding. interface was designed to look as fun and lighthearted
as possible, with no university or library branding vis-
ible.32 According to the student feedback and the eval-
Teen Summer Challenge uation survey results, those students who chose to play
http://challengebeta.mypcls.org Lemontree self-reported an increase in engagement as
measured by the reported usage of library resources.33
Leaderboard
http://challengebeta.mypcls.org/leaderboard
Lemontree
Badges https://library.hud.ac.uk/lemontree/about.php
http://challengebeta.mypcls.org/badge-catalog

Teen Summer Challenge Meet-Ups

http://challengebeta.mypcls.org/teen-summer-challenge- Gamifying Library Instruction
meet-ups
The North Carolina State University (NCSU) Libraries
gamified traditional library instruction. As an alterna-
tive to the usual one-shot library instruction, which
Gamifying the Library Experience often consists of showing the library website and
explaining how to use the library and its resources
Pierce County Public Library also provides online to students in a classroom, NCSU Libraries created a
gamification for adults called “Scout.” Scout invites mobile scavenger hunt that gets the students out into
library patrons to explore the library, complete various the library itself and makes them interact with the
activities, earn badges, qualify for prizes, and share library staff, explore the library spaces, and discover
their experience. The badges belong to one of the four the library’s collections themselves.34 In this gami-
categories, which match the type of prizes: food, do- fied library instruction, students were divided into
it-yourself, local, and books. Participants register at several four-member teams, each of which was given
February/March 2015

the Scout website and can check their statuses in the a packet with a list of fifteen questions and an iPod
leaderboard. Scout also provides a forum where par- Touch. Students got twenty-five minutes to submit
ticipants can ask one another questions about badges their answers to the questions using the iPod while
and challenges. As of September 2014, 1,693 people roaming the library. These answers were checked by
participated and completed 28,381 activities, thereby librarians in real time, and each team earned points
earning 187,003 points and 3,965 badges.29 for correct answers. When the time was up, students
came back to the classroom, got to see the photos
alatechsource.org

they took, learn the correct answers to the questions,

Scout and find out which team won the game and receive
https://scout.pcls.us prizes. Both students and faculty responded positively
to this gamified library instruction. During two semes-
ters, NCSU Libraries ran over ninety scavenger hunts,
The University of Huddersfield Library in the thereby reaching more than 1,600 students. Of the sur-
Library Technology Reports

United Kingdom took a holistic approach in gamifying veyed students, 91 percent considered the activity fun
the library experience. Instead of gamifying a library and enjoyable, 93 percent said they learned something
program or library instruction, it developed a social new about the library, and 95 percent indicated that
online game called Lemontree. The primary purpose of they felt comfortable asking a staff member for help
this game is increasing engagement around the usage after having completed the activity. Instructors also
of library resources with the game element of com- praised the activity for its ability to lead students to
petition.30 Lemontree gives points and badges for stu- increased understanding, deeper learning, and almost
dents’ library activities, such as visiting the library, complete recall of important library functions.35
checking out a library book, and logging in to use the Using the Passport platform for digital badges

24
Understanding Gamification Bohyun Kim
developed by Purdue University, University of Ari-
zona Libraries have also undertaken gamifying library
instruction to direct student motivation at develop-
ing research skills that can be visually demonstrated
to instructors and future employers through digital
badges, with points serving as feedback and further
motivation.36 For this goal, they are using the ACRL
Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher
Education as an outline to design the badges such as
Research Initiator (Standard 1), Research Assailant
(Standard 2), Research Investigator (Standard 3), and
Research Warrior (Standard 4) and creating a variety
of tasks that will serve as challenges to meet for earn-
ing each badge.37

ACRL Information Literacy Competency

Standards
www.ala.org/acrl/standards/
informationliteracycompetency

Portland State University Library created a dig-

ital badge system and a digital badge curriculum to
certify and acknowledge skills attainment for creativ-
ity and critical thinking and deployed this curriculum
for a subset of more than 250 undergraduate students
in community health in the fall of 2014.38 The digital
Figure. 4.1
badges have been created and administered using the Various screens of the Library Quest app developed by
digital badge site Credly. The badges that students are GVSU Libraries. [Images from Kyle Felker, “Library Quest:
earning in the fall term of 2014 included Web Ninja, Developing a Mobile Game App for a Library,” ACRL Tech-
Source Sleuth, Keyword Hacker, Recorder, Silver Pen, Connect Blog, September 17, 2013, http://acrl.ala.org/
and Master Info Analyzer, which certify website evalu- techconnect/?p=3783, licensed under the Creative Commons
ation, understanding of information formats and audi-
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License,
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/.]
ences, search techniques, citation style, and a peer

Library Technology Reports

review and writing exercise, respectively.39 Students
earn these badges through the D2L Learning Manage- the international student orientation to increase the
ment System. students’ awareness of all the library services. Boise
State University Library experimented by having stu-
dents create a SCVNGR trek about the library based
Credly upon the previous paper version of a library scavenger
https://credly.com hunt, as their final assignment, with great results.40
University of California, San Diego, Libraries also
launched their own SCVNGR trek in the fall of 2011. alatechsource.org
University of California, Merced Library ran a similar
Gamifying Library Orientation library orientation using SCVNGR in 2012. In spite of
active promotion, the student participation was very
Some libraries have also experimented with gamify- low.41 The result showed that even when students are
ing library orientation using the mobile app SCVNGR, interested in this type of gamification, a variety of fac-
which was mentioned above and is no longer avail- tors, such as an event date, location, and a mobile device
February/March 2015

able. SCVNGR allowed users to find treks within a required for participation could easily become obsta-
twenty-five-mile radius, visit their locations to com- cles.42 It has been also noted that the reward offered in
plete challenges such as taking a photo or answer- this case, a chance to win an iPod Shuffle, didn’t seem
ing a simple question, and earn points. Organizations to work as a sufficient incentive to students.43
could purchase a SCVNGR plan to create their own University of Arizona Libraries, mentioned above,
treks and challenges suitable for their target users. also gamified the library orientation using SCVNGR
Oregon State University Libraries used SCVNGR for in order to promote the library and increase student

25
Understanding Gamification Bohyun Kim
 awareness.44 It was reported that the gamified orien- system worked or where something or someone was
tation and instruction had greater success and engage- located in the library building. They discovered that
ment when the trek was tied to something, such as a even simple quests required a fair amount of coopera-
class assignment or a required portion of an orienta- tion and coordination. In order to inform the library
tion session that had to be completed.45 staff about Library Quest, GVSU Libraries also created
a quest write-up sheet called “Raiders of the Lost . . .
Bin,” which provides information about the name of
Building a Library Gamification Mobile App the quest, points, educational objective, steps, com-
pletion codes, and any other information that defined
Grand Valley State University (GVSU) Libraries the quest. This Quest Design Worksheet can be down-
decided to build a gamification mobile app to engage loaded online.
their library users. The app called “Library Quest” was
released in August 2013 for both iPhone and Android
smartphones in the Apple App Store and Google Play GVSU Library Quest Design Worksheet
(figure 4.1). Library Quest offers tasks to students and http://acrl.ala.org/techconnect/wp-content/uploads/
verifies their progress through multistep tasks by ask- 2014/08/Raiders-of-the-Lost%E2%80%A6Bin_.docx
ing users to input alphanumeric codes or to scan QR
codes displayed in the library building in order to
encourage them to explore the large brand-new library The postgame assessment of GVSU Libraries’
building and to make them aware of various library Library Quest app revealed some very interesting
services.46 Students earn points for every quest com- results. According to the responses to the postgame
pleted in the app, and for every thirty points they earn, questionnaire, 90 percent of the respondents to this
they are entered once in a drawing to win an iPad. survey indicated that they had learned something
The first round of the game ran from late August to about the library, that they thought the gamification
mid-November, and GVSU Libraries held the drawing, mobile app was a good idea, and that it was something
publicized the winner, and then commenced a round GVSU Libraries should do again.48 Students’ feedback
of postgame assessment. on the game was very positive and showed that stu-
dents appreciated that the library was trying to teach in
nontraditional, self-directed ways. What is most inter-
Library Quest esting in the postgame assessment results of Library
Quest is that students reported that the game changed
Apple App Store the way they thought about themselves in relation to
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/library-quest/ the library rather than the way they thought about
id684978642?mt=8 the library.49 For example, the game made them feel
that they are now more aware of, confident to use, and
February/March 2015

Google Play knowledgeable about library services and resources.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=air.com. Students also remembered remarkably well what they
yeticgi.libraryquest learned about GVSU Libraries through the game, such
as library-specific lingo and knowledge of specific pro-
cedures like document delivery. This matches the find-
This project is a good example of how much ings from NCSU’s Scavenger Hunt that the gamified
investment is necessary for a library to successfully library instruction resulted in the very high recall of
alatechsource.org

develop and release a mobile library gamification app. library functions by students.
Developing this one app cost GVSU Libraries approx- On the other hand, the responses to the midgame
imately $14,700 without including the library staff survey showed that some students cited a certain quest
time spent on this project.47 While the actual pro- as their favorite feature of the game while others cited
gramming of the app was done by an outside mobile exactly the same quest as their least favorite, often for
development company, librarians prototyped the the same reason.50 Felker attributes these seemingly
Library Technology Reports

game, ran the usability testing, and designed actual contradictory responses to the fact that students had a
quests. Librarians designed from three to five new variety of different reasons for playing Library Quest,
quests each month while the game was running, and ranging from the chance to win an iPad to learning
Library Quest offered short-duration quests run at ran- about the library or curiosity about the game itself.51
dom intervals to encourage students to keep checking This shows that one and the same gamification can
the app. GVSU librarians created about thirty quests be appealing or annoying depending on each player’s
in total over the course of the game, and each quest motivation.
was designed with a specific educational objective in A total of 397 students signed up for Library Quest
mind, such as showing students how a specific library and completed over 6,000 quests. Felker writes that

26
Understanding Gamification Bohyun Kim
although this was close to the number that the project Gamification Corp., January 11, 2013, www.gamifi-
aimed at, the game could have been marketed more cation.co/2013/01/11/deloitte-leadership-academy-
effectively to make more students aware of the game leads-with-the-gamification-of-training.
11. Kapp, Gamification of Learning and Instruction, 19-20.
considering the fact that the number of FTE students
12. Ibid., 20.
at GVSU is 25,000.52 More problematic was the low 13. Florin Oprescu, Christian Jones, and Mary Katsikitis,
completion rate shown in the fact that only 173 out “I PLAY AT WORK—Ten Principles for Transform-
of 397 registered players actually completed at least ing Work Processes through Gamification,” article
one quest. The other 224 players downloaded the app 14, Frontiers in Psychology 5 (January 2014): 1–2,
and logged in at least once but failed to complete any doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00014.
quest content. Both technical and nontechnical issues, 14. “Badges,” Stack Overflow Help Center, accessed Octo-
such as usability, the flow and pacing of new quests, ber 15, 2014, http://stackoverflow.com/help/badges.
15. “LevelUp for Photoshop,” Adobe, accessed October
and marketing, were found to be responsible for this.
15, 2014, http://success.adobe.com/microsites/level
up/index.html (page now discontinued).
Notes 16. Marczewski, Gamification, Loc 767 of 1798.
17. “Codecademy,” Wikipedia, last updated November 19,
1. Jane McGonigal, Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make 2014, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codecademy.
Us Better and How They Can Change the World (New 18. Alex Magdaleno, “How a High School Teacher
York: Penguin, 2011), 125. Is ‘Gamifying’ World News,” Mashable, Febru-
2. “Bottle Bank Arcade,” YouTube video, 1:36, posted ary 3, 2014, http://mashable.com/2014/02/02/
by “Rolighetsteorin,” October 15, 2009, embedded on high-school-fantasy-geopolitics.
The Fun Theory website, www.thefuntheory.com. 19. Eric Nelson, “Fantasy Geopolitics,” Kickstarter page,
3. “The Speed Camera Lottery,” YouTube video, 2:08, last updated March 31, 2014, https://www.kickstarter
posted by “Rolighetsteorin,” November 12, 2010, .com/projects/nelsonejn/fantasy-geopolitics.
embedded on The Fun Theory website, www.thefun 20. Heong Weng Mak, “The Gamification of College Lec-
theory.com. tures at the University of Michigan,” Gamification
4. “Piano Stairs,” YouTube video, 1:47, posted by “Ro- Corp., February 8, 2013, www.gamification.co/2013/
lighetsteorin,” October 7, 2009, embedded on The 02/08/the-gamification-of-college-lectures-at-the-
Fun Theory website, www.thefuntheory.com. university-of-michigan.
5. “SDG&E Celebrates San Diego’s Biggest En- 21. Josh Keller, “Smartphone Game Turns College Tours,
ergy Savers,” news release, San Diego Gas Orientations into Scavenger Hunts,” Wired Campus
and Electric, January 6, 2012, www.sdge. (blog), Chronicle of Higher Education, September 9,
com/newsroom/press-releases/2012-01-06/ 2011, http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/
sdge-celebrates-san-diego’s-biggest-energy-savers. mobile-game-turns-college-tours-and-orientations-
6. Nick Summers, “Nike+ Now Has Over 18 Million into-scavenger-hunts/33114.
Members,” The Next Web Blog, August 21, 2013, 22. David Raths, “How Badges Really Work in Higher Ed-
http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/08/21/nike- ucation,” Campus Technology, June 20, 2013, http://
now-has-18m-members-logging-their-daily-exercise- campustechnology.com/Articles/2013/06/20/How-

Library Technology Reports

with-a-fuelband-sportwatch-or-fitness-app. Badges-Really-Work-in-Higher-Education.aspx.
7. Richard Van Eck, “Digital Game-Based Learning: 23. Steve Tally, “Digital Badges Show Students’ Skills
It’s Not Just the Digital Natives Who Are Restless,” along with Degree,” news release, Purdue University,
Educause Review 41, no. 2 (2006): 16–30; Thomas September 11, 2012, www.purdue.edu/newsroom/
M. Connolly, Elizabeth A. Boyle, Ewan MacArthur, releases/2012/Q3/digital-badges-show-students-
Thomas Hainey, and James M. Boyle, 2012. “A Sys- skills-along-with-degree.html.
tematic Literature Review of Empirical Evidence on 24. Haley Dover, “Purdue Creates Competency Degree
Computer Games and Serious Games,” Computers and Program,” JConline, Lafayette Journal and Cou-
Education 59, no. 2 (2012): 661–86, doi:10.1016/ rier, September 5, 2014, www.jconline.com/story/
j.compedu.2012.03.004. news/2014/09/04/purdue-creates-competency- alatechsource.org
8. Sebastian Deterding, Dan Dixon, Rilla Khaled, and degree-program/15069165.
Lennart Nacke, “From Game Design Elements to 25. Fiona Fui-Hoon Nah, Qing Zeng, Venkata Rajasekhar
Gamefulness: Defining ‘Gamification,’” in Proceedings Telaprolu, Abhishek Padmanabhuni Ayyappa, and
of the 15th International Academic MindTrek Confer- Brenda Eschenbrenner, “Gamification of Education:
ence: Envisioning Future Media Environments (New A Review of Literature,” in HCI in Business: First
York: Association for Computing Machinery, 2011), International Conference, HCIB 2014, Held as Part of
9–15, doi:10.1145/2181037.2181040; Andrzej Mar- HCI International 2014, Heraklion, Crete, Greece, June
February/March 2015

czewski, Gamification: A Simple Introduction and a Bit 22–27, 2014, Proceedings, edited by Fiona Fui-Hoon
More, 2nd ed. (self-published on Amazon Digital Ser- Nah, 401–9, Lecture Notes in Computer Science 8527
vices, 2013), Kindle edition. (Cham, Switzerland: Springer International Publish-
9. Karl M. Kapp, The Gamification of Learning and Instruc- ing, 2014), doi:10.1007/978-3-319-07293-7_39.
tion: Game-Based Methods and Strategies for Training 26. Ibid., 402–403.
and Education, (San Francisco: Pfeiffer, 2012), 17. 27. “Leaderboard,” Team Summer Challenge, accessed
10. Heong Weng Mak, “Deloitte Leadership Acad- September 30, 2014, http://challengebeta.mypcls
emy Leads with the Gamification of Training,” .org/leaderboard.

27
Understanding Gamification Bohyun Kim
 28. Jami Schwarzwalder, “Gamification of Summer Read- FourSquare: Library Treks with SCVNGR,” Power-
ing,” YALSAblog, July 2, 2014, http://yalsa.ala.org/ Point file, ScholarsArchive@OSU, Oregon State Uni-
blog/2014/07/02/gamification-of-summer-reading. versity, February 24, 2011, http://hdl.handle.net/
29. Scout website, Pierce County Library, accessed Sep- 1957/20294.
tember 30, 2014, https://scout.pcls.us. 41. Elizabeth McMunn-Tetangco, “If You Build It . . . ?
30. Andrew Walsh, “The Potential for Using Gamification One Campus’ Firsthand Account of Gamification in
in Academic Libraries in Order to Increase Student the Academic Library,” College and Research Libraries
Engagement and Achievement,” Nordic Journal of In- News 74, no. 4 (April 2013): 208–10.
formation Literacy in Higher Education 6, no. 1 (2014): 42. Ibid., 210.
42. 43. Ibid.
31. Ibid., 44. 44. Nicole Pagowsky, “Taking a Trek with SCVNGR:
32. Ibid., 45. Developing Asynchronous, Mobile Orientations and
33. Ibid., 48. Instruction for Campus,” ACRL TechConnect Blog, May
34. Anne Burke, “Demystifying the Library with Game- 13, 2013, http://acrl.ala.org/techconnect/?p=3342.
Based Mobile Learning,” ACRL TechConnect Blog, July 45. Ibid.
30, 2012, http://acrl.ala.org/techconnect/?p=1418. 46. Kyle Felker, “Library Quest: Developing a Mo-
35. Ibid. bile Game App for a Library,” ACRL TechConnect
36. Nicole Pagowsky, “Test-Driving Purdue’s Passport Blog, September 17, 2013, http://acrl.ala.org/
Gamification Platform for Library Instruction.” ACRL techconnect/?p=3783.
TechConnect Blog, January 28, 2013, http://acrl.ala 47. Kyle Felker, “LibraryQuest Levels Up,” ACRL Tech-
.org/techconnect/?p=2676. Connect Blog, August 13, 2014, http://acrl.ala.org/
37. Ibid. techconnect/?p=4566.
38. “Digital Badges for Creativity and Critical 48. Ibid.
Thinking,” Portland State University Library, 49. Ibid.
September 30, 2014, http://library.pdx.edu/ 50. Ibid.
digital-badges-for-creativity-and-critical-thinking. 51. Ibid.
39. Ibid. 52. Ibid.
40. Amy E. Vecchione and Margaret Mellinger, “Beyond
February/March 2015
alatechsource.org
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