Academic Events
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IGDA Events
The IGDA hosts several academics events, summits and lectures each year. These events serve the purpose of furthering the IGDA's academic relations work, providing a forum for academics and developers to converse/connect and to work to build stronger ties. The proceedings, notes and materials from these events are catalogued (as much as possible) on this page. Please refer to the IGDA Events calendar for full details on all upcoming events that the IGDA will be at.
2006 IGDA Curriculum Workshop at GDC
At GDC:06, the IGDA hosted a full day tutorial titled "Game Curriculum Workshop: The Shape of Things to Come". Over 300 academics, students and industry professionals attended the workshop. The slides, notes and materials from those sessions are (mostly) available here:
- Workshop Agenda (doc - 24kb)
- Rants:
- Warren Spector - "vocational" slides (ppt - 370kb)
- Tracy Fullerton - "failure" paper (doc - 24kb)
- Susan Gold - "teamwork" paper (doc - 38kb) and slides (ppt - 136kb)
- Robin Hunicke - "quality"
- Frans Mäyrä - "funding"
- Nick Fortugno - "culture"
- I Want to be a Game Designer (ppt - 4.9mb)
- "Create-a-Game-Student Profile" worksheet (pdf - 178kb)
- Case Studies:
- FullSail (ppt - 361kb)
- Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (ppt - 99kb)
- University of Utrecht (ppt - 13.7mb)
- Art Institute of Pittsburg/The Art Institute Online (doc - 23kb)
- Carnegie Mellon University Entertainment Technology Center (ppt - 2.1mb)
- Electronic Arts (ppt - 139kb)
- Nihilihstic
- Bridging the Gap: Innovative Models (ppt - 2.7mb)
- Article: Fundamental Learning - GDC 2006 Curriculum Workshop
2005 Game Developers Conference
The IGDA hosted several academically oriented sessions during GDC 05. The slides, notes and materials from those sessions are available here:
- Roundtable Report: The Education of a Game Designer (txt - 6kb)
- Panel Notes: Academic Insights: What Researchers Can and Can't Tell You About Your Games (txt - 7kb)
- Panel Slides: Making an Industry/Academic Relationship Work (ppt - 3.4mb)
- other reports coming...
2004 Game Developers Conference
Despite not hosting a full blown Academic Summit at GDC in 2004, the IGDA did host several academically oriented sessions. The slides, notes and materials from those sessions are available here:
- Academics' Group Gathering by Matteo Bittanti
- summary report (doc - 27kb)
- Learning by Design: Games as Learning Machines by James Paul Gee
- full lecture paper (pdf - 125kb)
- Article: Gamasutra summary
- Make Better Criticism: A Mature Form of Cultural Analysis by Matteo Bittanti
- full lecture paper (pdf - 214kb)
- lecture slides (zipped ppt - 5579kb)
- Article: Conference Report V: Make Better Criticism
- Practical Game Theories: Academics Fragging Developers by Gonzalo Frasca
- summary report (doc - 29kb)
- Interview: Gonzalo Frasca Discusses Academia and Political Gaming
- Preserving Videogame History by Simon Carless
- The Education of a Game Developer by Eric Zimmerman
and Tim Langdell
- summary report (doc - 24kb)
- IGDA Curriculum Framework
- Towards Relevant Research: Collaboration 101 by Robin Hunicke, with Raph Koster, Mark DeLoura, Michael van Lent, Will Wright
2003 AustralianGDC Academic Summit
The "Playing with our Mind" Academic Summit was the inaugural academic event at the annual Australian Game Developers Conference in late November. The IGDA presented its framework for curriculum development.
- "A Framework for Game Development Curricula" presentation (zip 20kb)
- AGDC summary report and pictures
- AGDC main web site
2003 IGDA Academic Day
The Education Committee hosted a full-day academic event during Game Developers Conference Europe on August 29th. The Academic Day was attended by over 60 academics and developers, who discussed the challenges and opportunities that lie at the intersection of industry and academia.
- Proceedings and Group Discussion Notes (pdf 400kb)
- Academic Day Hand-Out (pdf 190kb)
- Education Committee Progress Report (zip 65kb)
- Case Studies (zip 75kb)
- Group-Work Table Bullets & Brainstorm (zip 60kb)
- Seamus Blackley Closing Lecture (zip 20kb)
- GDC Europe summary report and pictures
2003 SIGGRAPH Educators Forum
The Education Committee hosted a 2-hour session in SIGGRAPH's Education Program. The goal of the session was to serve as an open forum for discussion on curricular challenges and opportunities. This session was attended by about 100 academics and provided some lively debate.
- Forum discussion notes (160kb pdf)
- Forum hand-out (120kb pdf)
- SIGGRAPH event summary report and pictures
2003 IGDA Academic Summit
The 2003 Academic Summit emphasized group interaction and discussion, and explored ideas and aspirations for industry/academic relations, as well as implementation strategies to get us there. Around these themes of “Ideas” and “Implementation”, discussion focused on the following three axes: curriculum and instrusction, theory and scholarship, and research and application.
- Download the notes from the group working sessions (195kb pdf).
- Download the Academic Summit Hand-Out (71kb pdf) to view the agenda, abstracts and other pertinent info.
- Download the closing summary from Ernest Adams (60kb pdf)
- Download the latest version of the Curriculum Framework, which was distributed at the Summit.
- Download the slides from the State of Industry/Academic Relations (32kb zip) presented by Warren Spector and Frans Mayra.
- Download the slides from the IGDA Education Committee Progress Report (32kb zip).
- Download the slides from the 14 Case Studies (70kb zip) that were presented at the Summit.
- Read the post Summit write-up, "The Destiny of Games" at Game Girl Advance.
- Read Ben Sawyer's Day-1 Report and Day-2 Report at the Adrenaline Vault.
- Read the "personal diary" reports from the GDC Scholarship recipients.
- Read the event report by Gareth Schott at Reconstruction.
The 2003 Academic Summit was sponsored in part by the Academy of Art University .
2002 IGDA Academic Day
The Education Committee hosted a full-day academic event during the European Game Developers Conference. The Academic Day was attended by over 70 academics, developers and industry types, who discussed curriculum, the use of games in traditional learning and games research initiatives.
- Download the Academic Day Hand-Out (90k zip or 175k pdf), which includes the latest draft of the curriculum framework.
- Download the Curriculum Case Study presentations:
- View pictures and a brief recap from the Academic Day, and GDC Europe and ECTS.
2002 SIGGRAPH Educators Forum
The Education Committee hosted a 2-hour session in SIGGRAPH's Education Program. The Committee presented its guidelines and framework for game-oriented curricula and conducted discussion to solicit input and criticism on the framework. This session was well attended (~175) and provided some lively debate.
- Download the Educators Forum Hand-Out (~100k zip or pdf), which includes the latest draft curriculum framework proposal and other pertitent info.
- View pictures and a brief recap from the Educators Forum and SIGGRAPH.
2002 IGDA Academic Summit
The Education Committee hosted a 2-day Academic Summit during the 2002
Game Developers Conference
to bring together members of the academic and game development communities.
The event focused on research initiatives and relations as well as the creation
of game development and game analysis curricula.
- Download the Academic Summit hand-out (~350k zip or pdf) to view the program abstracts, the draft curriculum framework proposal and other pertitent info.
- The Education Committee presented their initial draft proposal for a game curriculum framework (download the above hand out to view the draft).
- The presentations for lectures and case studies from the Academic Summit
are being posted as they come in...
- Lecture: Mutual Exploitation between Consenting Adults - Bill Buxton, chief scientist, Alias|Wavefront (2000kb zip)
- Curriculum Case Study: Liverpool John Moores University International Centre for Digital Content - Simon Redmon, programme leader (560kb zip)
- Snapshot: The State of Industry/Academia Relations (15kb zip) - Matthew Ford, lead program manager, Microsoft Games Group
- Curriculum Case Study: Hong Kong Polytechnic - Multimedia Innovation Centre - Gino Yu, head (300kb zip)
- Collaboration Case Study: UC Irvine & UC San Diego - Future Collaboration Initiatives - Celia Pearce, lecturer, Department of Studio Art, UC Irvine (310kb zip)
- Curriculum Case Study: Carnegie Mellon University Entertainment Technology Center (1200kb zip) - Randy Pausch & Don Marinelli, co-directors
- Collaboration Case Study: Jynx Playware and Universidade Federal de Pernambuco Brazil - Jeferson Valadares, co-founder/designer/programmer (60kb zip)
- Curriculum Case Study: DigiPen Institute of Technology - Claude Comair, president & founder (10kb zip)
- Curriculum Case Study: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Comparative Media Studies Program - Henry Jenkins, director (3000kb zip)
- View pictures and a brief recap from the Academic Summit. Joystick101 has also posted a summary.
- SIGGRAPH's Education Committee has posted a thorough report of the IGDA's Academic Summit.
The 2002 Academic Summit was sponsored in part by Microsoft Research.
