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Academic Events

Academic 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:

 

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:

 

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:

 

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.

 

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.

 

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.

 

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.

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 (175k pdf), which includes the latest draft of the curriculum framework.
  • Download the Curriculum Case Study presentations:
    • International Centre for Digital Content: Liverpool John Moores University - Matthew Southern (250kb zip)
    • University of Hull - Jon Purdy (70kb zip)
    • SupInfoGame - Sebastien Doumic (40kb zip)

 

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 ( 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 ( 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 ppt)
    • Curriculum Case Study: Liverpool John Moores University International Centre for Digital Content - Simon Redmon, programme leader (560kb ppt)
    • Snapshot: The State of Industry/Academia Relations (15kb ppt) - Matthew Ford, lead program manager, Microsoft Games Group
    • Curriculum Case Study: Hong Kong Polytechnic - Multimedia Innovation Centre - Gino Yu, head (300kb ppt)
    • Collaboration Case Study: UC Irvine & UC San Diego - Future Collaboration Initiatives - Celia Pearce, lecturer, Department of Studio Art, UC Irvine (310kb ppt)
    • 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.