Playability of Serious Games in Information Literacy: The Findings of the European Project NAVIGATE

Abstract

The article deals with the playability of serious games in information literacy applied by academic libraries and university departments in Library and Information Sciences in the training sessions with students. Is it possible these games to be more playful and what is path we must follow to achieve this goal? In the literature review on the concepts of playfulness/gamefulness we are focusing on two opposite sides of a spectrum presented by Roger Caillois: Paidia (or playing; for pure joy, without any goals) and Ludus (or gaming; based on rules and competition). The author’s view is that the games can be at either end or somewhere in the middle (Caillois & Barash, 2001). We have a hypothesis that the serious games in information literacy can never be only playful but if they contain a higher level of playability it will be easier for the students to achieve the learning objectives set by the university teachers and librarians. In the framework of the European project NAVIGATE – Information Literacy: A Game-based Learning Approach for Avoiding Fake Content (https://navigateproject.eu) 70 games used for teaching information literacy in academic libraries and programs were identified and evaluated. We have selected among them 20 best examples of such games and ranked them according to the following criteria: Playability, Lastability, Engagement, User Interface, and Storytelling. An interactive database (https://www.navigateproject.eu/navigamesearch-tool/) was created in order to visualize the list and the categories (the NaviGAMESearcher). Taking into account the results of the evaluation of the top information literacy games and the two original digital games developed within the project (Information Trap Manager and the Navigator) we analyzed where are these games located on the scale of playfulness versus gamefulness and what is the correlation between the level of playability of these games and the students’ achievements. The further steps for evaluation of information literacy games according to the Playful Experiences (PLEX) framework were also defined in the article.

KEYWORDS:

• Gamefulness
• higher education
• information literacy games
• NAVIGATE project
• playability
• PLEX framework

Notes

1 The authors do not agree that serious games can only take place in a virtual setting (see definition below).

2 Translated from the German version, Huizinga (2004).

3 When we play in these two categories, this cannot be called a “game”, however.

4 The term is so broad that Wittgenstein uses the word “game” to demonstrate his theory of “family resemblance” in language. For him, the word “game” is a loose connection between different terms, that cannot be brought to a common denominator (Wittgenstein 1972, 66). This way of understanding the term would probably also allow “serious games” to be considered as games:

“Consider for example the proceedings that we call 'games'. I mean board-games, card-games, ball-games, Olympic games, and so on. What is common to them all?—Don't say: 'There must be something common, or they would not be called games '—but look and see whether there is anything common to all.—(…). And the result of this examination is: we see a complicated network of similarities overlapping and criss-crossing: sometimes overall similarities, sometimes similarities of detail. (Wittgenstein 1972, 66)

5 Caillois (2001) takes this term from the Latin language – although in Latin there are no different terms for different types of games or play. In Latin “ludus” means “game, play, sport, pastime, entertainment, fun” but also “school, elementary school” (Olivetti, n.d.).

6 At the time of the publication the authors were located at the Nokia Research Centre and were probably researching in the context of UX with smartphones or mobile phones. The aspect of nongoal-orientedness might therefore be even more relevant or more applicable than in serious games.