Serious Games and Welfare Technology Erasmus Project

Project Title

Serious Games and Welfare Technology

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for higher education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2016

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: ICT – new technologies – digital competences; Health and wellbeing; Enterprise, industry and SMEs (incl. entrepreneurship)

Project Summary

Context/background of the project
One of the great challenges of our time is keeping people healthy throughout their lifespan. Many European countries are experiencing an increase in life expectancy alongside the possibility of more treatable diseases. Therefore, there is an increasing cost to healthcare and one has to look for new options for rehabilitation or maintaining public health. This brings new challenges to the healthcare system both in caring for the elderly as well as in ordinary rehabilitation programmes. Multidisciplinary cooperation in the intersection between technology and different health disciplines is a precondition for innovation in this area and for developing technological solutions to address social challenges and enabling related industry. Fall prevention, increased focus on physical activity and mental health, and training in rehabilitation institutions or in home settings are examples of possible applications for serious games.

Objectives
The aim of this project was to promote collaborative learning through industry partnered, interdisciplinary, student centred projects and develop innovative solutions within welfare technology.

The project partners have the following complementary experience and competences:
Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU): E-Learning, MOOCs, Serious games, Real time human motion capturing and gait analysis, physiotherapy, Occupational therapy, Nursing, Clinical experience with serious games used at spinal cord injury units.
Fachhochschule Vorarlberg (FHV) Serious games, 3D motion Capturing, Modelling and Visualization, User-experience with Ambient Assisted Living (AAL), Gaming-Simulation
Hochschule Bonn-Rhein-Sieg (HBRS): Research, development and validation of hardware and software for safety- and security-critical systems and components, Safety, Robotics
Institute of Technology Carlow (ITC): Serious Games design, Development and sports rehabilitation, Internet of Things
Stichting Hogeschool van Amsterdam (HvA): Privacy and Ethics, Internet of Things, Serious Games design and development
3D Motion Technologies AS: The developer of a real time human motion capturing system. Their system is an optical based system using cameras to compute 3D positions of a set of markers. Advanced calibration and tracking algorithms ensures high precision 3D-measurements.

Description of undertaken main activities
The projects followed an agile/iterative learning model when designing the projects activities and it was linked into each HEI’s curriculum to satisfy the academic requirements for the students. 1 year: Teachers developed learning materials (MOOC), a collaborative learning model (CLM) and recruited client companies and students to the project. The MOOC was specifically designed to teach both healthcare and technological students about how to create an exergame. 2nd year: Enrolled students followed the CLM that made them progress from initial briefing of a problem to developing a final product – a functional exergame. The CLMs components consist of the following: a MOOC, developing a serious game prototype (co-located and distributed collaboration) and Graduation projects. The MOOC allowed all students to gain an introductory level of knowledge in all topics, while students from each specialisation would be expected to take the lead in any further research needed for the projects. The students were split into multinational and multifunctional teams and was assigned to projects originated by a client company. During the last period, some of the students went abroad as Erasmus+ mobility students to continue the work on the prototype as part of their graduation project whereas other students joined them at their own home universities. The students tested the prototypes with the end-users and improved them to come up with their final working products. Mentoring was provided to the teams by the teachers and client companies.

Results and impact attained
The collaborative learning approach adopted proved to be successful in producing graduates who can effectively participate in multi-disciplinary projects. Close collaboration with the client companies was beneficial to the students’ learning in terms of timely clarification of requirements and validation of solutions. The students indicated that the MOOC increased their perception of the problem and issues involved, and the assignments given by companies were perceived as relevant. All HEIs involved, were dedicated, committed, and actively assisting students during the project. There has been a vast amount of knowledge exchange between professors of the HEIs regarding course development, teaching approaches and evaluation methods. Students that finished their graduation projects received compliments on the final developed serious game prototypes from client companies and the graduation projects were largely deemed of high quality by the HEIs.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 225990,15 Eur

Project Coordinator

NORGES TEKNISK-NATURVITENSKAPELIGE UNIVERSITET NTNU & Country: NO

Project Partners

• 3D Motion Technologies AS
• FACHHOCHSCHULE VORARLBERG GMBH
• STICHTING HOGESCHOOL VAN AMSTERDAM
• INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY CARLOW
• Hochschule Bonn-Rhein-Sieg