Index

Immersive technologies blend the physical world with digital reality to create unique experiences. Among these technologies, Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) stand out as primary forms that share many common characteristics. AR integrates computer-generated information into the user’s real-world surroundings, while VR employs computer-generated content to construct a fully immersive virtual environment.

In contemporary society and workplaces, these immersive technologies have evolved into everyday tools. Notably, the gaming industry has witnessed substantial investments in immersive technologies, with numerous companies developing VR games. In healthcare, surgeons use AR headsets to visualize surgical procedures and access patient health information during operations. Education employs AR and VR for visualizing interactive content in lectures. Furthermore, companies adopt VR for employee training, fostering creativity in product design, and facilitating collaboration among team members situated in different locations. In marketing, VR allows consumers to virtually interact with products, eliminating the need for physical presence.

This lecture delves into the profound impact of immersive technologies on shaping the future of both society and the workplace. It explores the current and future opportunities and challenges associated with these technologies, teaches fundamental concepts and design principles, explains their applications, and provides insights into the current state of research. Additionally, the lecture equips participants with essential knowledge to create their own immersive information systems.

Project

The course is complemented with a practical project where students, working in teams, choose and apply design methods as well as techniques to develop a prototype for an immersive information system. To facilitate this, students will learn fundamental skills in developing immersive applications using Unity. Within this project, students can effectively apply the knowledge and skills acquired during the lectures and throughout their studies in a challenging context.

Learning Objectives and Skills

Students will acquire an understanding of the foundational design principles of immersive information systems and can analyze and discuss such systems. Students will also learn state-of-the-art methods, techniques, and tools for successfully conducting VR projects, with the ability to choose and apply them appropriately. The course fosters the development of creativity as well as prototyping skills and enhances collaboration and presentation abilities.

Prerequisites

It is crucial that participants are highly motivated for collaboration in a group project. Furthermore, having fundamental programming skills would be beneficial to facilitate the practical implementation of a prototype in Unity as part of the project. However, the module does provide a step-by-step tutorial for Unity.

Lecturers

Sandra Birnstiel

Runjie Xie

Guest lecturers in summer semester 2024:

Theo Papadopoulos – Head of Siemens Industrial Metaverse Lab

Course details

Lecture + Open Lab Sessions, 4 SWS

ECTS

Credits: 5

Form of examination

60-Minute written exam (60%) and project presentation (40%)

Registration

11.03.2024 – 07.04.2024 via StudOn

Dates and Room

Tuesday, 15:00 – 16:30, LG 4.156

Module compatibility

Bachelor Information Systems: Module in the section Information Systems – Architectures & Development (Elective)

Bachelor Information Systems: Module in the section Information Systems – Extension Courses (Elective)

Additional information

More details on course updates, materials, technical requirements, and other information will be announced in StudOn.

Keywords: Immersive Information Systems, Virtual Reality, Human Computer Interaction, User Experience, User Interface, Unity

The research seminar Interactive and Gameful Information Systems provides theoretical, methodical, and practical insights into research in the fields of Information Systems and Human-Computer Interaction (HCI). The seminar offers students the opportunity to work independently or in small groups on current research topics of the Gamification Research Group. Projects focus on topics such as gamification, augmented reality, virtual reality, metaverse, user experience design, human-robot interaction, content creation, social media, and serious games.

The seminar aims at teaching students to conduct qualitative and quantitative studies using statistical software, such as SPSS or SmartPLS. Students learn to independently plan and execute research as a preparation for a master thesis. In addition, students gain an understanding of the advantages and limitations of empirical research, as well as how to effectively communicate and critically evaluate scientific findings. This knowledge can prove valuable not only for pursuing an academic career, such as a doctoral program, but also for any role in public or private sectors that involves decision-making.

Topics

In the summer semester of 2024, we will be offering topics related to:

– Fontan Quest: Development and empirical evaluation of a gamified application for Fontan kids and their parents.

–  Archetypes of gameful radicalisation and extremism in the metaverse: A systematic analysis of user-generated games

Research topics will be announced on this website and in StudOn. If no (suitable) topics are announced, please contact Prof. Dr. Benedikt Morschheuser via email.

Prerequisites

Profound English skills are required.

Method of examination

Seminar paper and presentation

Lecturers

Prof. Dr. Benedikt Morschheuser

Course details

Block lectures + Seminar Thesis

ECTS-Credits: 5

Dates

Announced in StudOn and Campo

Registration

Via StudOn.

Seats are limited.

Additional information

More details on the seminar, materials, technical requirements, and other information will be announced in StudOn.

Since the science-fiction author Neal Stephenson coined the term “metaverse” in his novel Snow Crash, a portmanteau of “meta” (Greek for beyond) and “universe”, people have been dreaming of realizing his vision of a virtual reality-based three-dimensional (3D) successor to the Internet, in which people interact with each other, virtual agents and objects in the form of avatars. This virtual universe is envisioned to exist in parallel to reality, has its own economy, culture, organizations, rules, and laws, and, similar to the Internet, is considered to be an open, distributed, and collectively created space where anyone can become a content creator and can shape this collectively created virtual world.

Driven by recent cultural and societal developments − such as the increasing popularity of digital games and the acceptance of remote collaboration − as well as technological advances − such as AR and VR, 5G, blockchain technologies, cloud computing, streaming technologies, or artificial intelligence − various big technology companies have started developing platforms from which a potential metaverse could emerge soon. Metaverse-like platforms such as Roblox, Fortnite Creative, The Sandbox, VR Chat, Meta Horizon Worlds, and Minecraft are already attracting millions of users to design and jointly experience virtual worlds.

This seminar aims to understand how the metaverse may shape the future of research, education, business, healthcare, and society as well as what current and future challenges the topic entails. In this seminar, students explore the ongoing scientific discourse on the topic and strive to understand what socio-technological trends may support the further development of the metaverse. To this end, the students create immersive 3D content on popular and emerging metaverse-like platforms and investigate relevant research questions related to the topic in empirical studies. The seminar is positioned at the intersection of Information Systems and Human-Computer Interaction and strives to create knowledge by implementing and evaluating prototypes, interactive experiments, and case studies.

This project seminar applies a research-based learning approach, in which students learn how to read and understand scientific papers, develop, and evaluate hypotheses by using scientific methods, and think critically and creatively. Students learn how to solve scientific problems, challenges, and dilemmas. Further, the course trains skills for communicating in the field of science through writing and discussion and thus prepares writing a master thesis.

Prerequisites

Profound English skills are required. Further, creativity, experience in software design, user experience, prototyping, and software engineering are very helpful.

All participating students should be motivated to work in an international and interdisciplinary group on a challenging topic.

In-depth game design knowledge, e.g. from participation in the course Designing Gamified Systems, is helpful and recommended.

Most of our projects require knowledge of software development. Willingnes to code is a prerequisite to participate in this course.

Topics

In the winter semester of 2024, we will be offering topics related to:

– INFLAMMANIA 3D – The Inflammation World: Several topics related to how we could use Roblox games as a media in medical education and science communication (see: https://gamification.rw.fau.eu/courses/student-projects/inflammania-3d/)

– PRIME – Privacy in the Metaverse (see: https://gamification.rw.fau.eu/research-gamification-and-digital-customer-engagement/research-projects/)

– Industrial Metaverse – Understanding the potential of the metaverse to increase situational awareness in dynamic decisions

– Metaverse meets Healthcare – Designing and understanding solutions for including the virtual self in transformative healthcare

Method of examination

Seminar paper and presentation

Lecturers

Prof. Dr. Benedikt Morschheuser

Tutors

Runjie Xie & Jonathan Stief (Roblox development)

Course details

Block lectures + Group work + Seminar Project

ECTS-Credits: 5 as team project, 10 as individual project (by arrangement)

Dates

Announced in StudOn and Campo

Registration

Via the official IIS seminar registration process.
Link to StudOn: https://www.studon.fau.de/crs5986405_join.html

Seats are limited.

Additional information

More details on the seminar, materials, technical requirements, and other information will be announced in StudOn.

Keywords: Metaverse, Interactive Information Systems, HCI, Web3, Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Mixed Reality, Gamification, Games

Gamification’s popularity stems from the notion that games are a pinnacle form of hedonic information systems and thus are particularly effective in invoking intrinsic motivation and experiences such as autonomy, mastery, flow, immersion, relatedness, and overall enjoyment. Across industries, marketers, designers, and developers are thus using gamification as a design approach when engineering digital products and services with the purpose of inducing gameful experiences, influencing human motivation, and even change behavior in various contexts.

This course:

• teaches the key concepts, design patterns, and approaches of motivational, hedonic (i.e., games and video games), social and gamified information systems.
• offers deep insights into advanced concepts and theoretical foundations of game design, motivational psychology, and information system design.
• introduces methods and frameworks for designing gamified systems and managing gamification projects.
• discusses latest research findings and the potential impact of gamification on society, economy, and everyday life.

Course Overview

Capstone Project

The course is complemented with a practical design project in which students in a team select and apply design methods as well as techniques in order to create a prototype of a gamified or hedonic information system. Within this project, the students can apply knowledge and skills acquired in this lecture and their studies in a challenging context.

EELISA

This course is offered as part of the European Engineering Learning Innovation and Science Alliance (EELISA – https://eelisa.eu) to give the lecture an even more international setting and allow FAU students to collaborate in their projects with interdisciplinary students from all over Europe.

Learning Objectives and Skills

The students gain knowledge in understanding the underlying design principles of gamified and hedonic information systems and can analyze and discuss such systems. The students learn state-of-the-art methods, techniques, and tools for successfully conducting gamification projects and can select and apply them. The students can train their creativity, their prototyping skills as well as improve their collaboration and presentation skills.

Tutorials

The sessions are accompanied by tutorials where students learn the basics of developing games in Unity3D, as well as discuss current challenges in the implementation of their projects.

Prerequisites

Profound English skills are required. Further, creativity, experience in software design, user experience, prototyping, and software engineering are helpful. All participating students should be motivated to work in an international and interdisciplinary group on a challenging topic.

Lecturers

Prof. Dr. Benedikt Morschheuser

Tutors

Sandra Birnstiel (Unity3D and programming support)

Dr. Jeanine Kirchner-Krath (Advice on psychological theories and study design)

Partners and guest lecturers in summer semester 2024:

Project partners:

Dr. Jens Barth − Head of Software Solutions at STABILO International GmbH
Dr. Christine Anstätt − Senior Manager Innovation Projects at adidas AG
Pascal K. Whiba − Entrepreneur Digital Health (Exergaming.org)
Ralf Nickel − Schön Klinik, München
Dr. Kathrin Fuhrmann − Head of the Green Office at FAU

Guest lecturers:

Georgina Guillén-Hanson − Researcher on Gamifying Sustainable Consumption (Gamification Group Finland)
Daniel Fernández Galeote − Game Designer and Researcher on Gamifying Sustainable Consumption (Gamification Group Finland)
Dr. Velvet Spors − Researcher on Gamification of Mental Health (Gamification Group Finland)

Course details

Lecture + Capstone Project, 4 SWS, ECTS-Credits: 5

Dates

Thursday, 09:45-13:00, LG 0.424

Module compatibility

WF IIS-MA 1 (ECTS-Credits: 5)
WF IIS-MA 2 (ECTS-Credits: 5)
WF IIS-MA 3 (ECTS-Credits: 5)
WF IIS-MA 4 (ECTS-Credits: 5)
WF WING-MA from 1 (ECTS-Credits: 5)
WF ICT-MA from 1 (ECTS-Credits: 5)
WF EEI-MA from 1 (ECTS-Credits: 5)

ECTS

Credits: 5

Registration

Starts on 2024 February 25, 14:00 via StudOn.

Additional information

More details on course updates, materials, technical requirements, and other information will be announced in StudOn.

Keywords: Gamification, Interactive Information Systems, HCI, Customer Engagement, Social Computing, Hedonic Systems, Games

Inspiration of previous semesters

Summer semester 2023

Capstone project topics:

• Design a strategy game in which the players take over the role of the immune system, make strategic decisions in order to win and learn more about the role of the protein IL-33 and how the immune system is using inflammations to eliminate attackers (for instance, bacteria) and set repair mechanisms in motion.
• Design a cooperative gameful simulation in Roblox in which the players take over the role of the immune system of a patient with Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE) in the novel and revolutionary CAR T-cell therapy developed as part of this FAU research project
• Design a gamification approach that engages patients with lung diseases (e.g. Asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease COPD) to participate in an app-based breath training for 20 days by using gamification elements to invoke competence satisfaction and an unique “game feel”.
• Design a gamification approach that engages patients with lung diseases (e.g. Asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease COPD) to participate in an app-based breath training for at least 20 days by using a theme or narratives as a core games mechanic.

Focus:
Gamification, Heath, Science Communication, Games

Partners and guest lecturers:

Baturay Yalvac − COO (Breathment)
Sandra Jeleazcov − CEO SFB1181 (University Hospital Erlangen)
Georgina Guillén-Hanson − Researcher on Gamifying Sustainable Consumption (Gamification Group Finland)
Daniel Fernández Galeote − Game Designer and Researcher on Gamifying Sustainable Consumption (Gamification Group Finland)
Dr. Velvet Spors − Researcher on Gamification of Mental Health (Gamification Group Finland)

Summer semester 2022

Capstone project topic:
Design and investigate a novel digital gamification solution for your favorite team sports in order to increase the athlete’s training experience and the social dynamics within teams. 

Focus:
Gamification, Team sports, Collaboration, Training, Augmented Reality, Health

Partners and guest lecturers:
Burkhard Dümler − Director Program & Projects IT Innovation (adidas AG)
Georgina Guillén-Hanson − Researcher on Gamifying Sustainable Consumption (Gamification Group Finland)
Daniel Fernández Galeote − Game Designer and Researcher on Gamifying Sustainable Consumption (Gamification Group Finland)

Winter semester 2021/2022

Capstone project topic:
Design of an innovative game or gamification approach at the intersection of gaming, mobility and space technology, which improve life on earth or travel in space. 

Focus:
Gamification, Crowdsourcing, Satellite Techonology, Mobility, Augmented Reality

Event:
Billionaires start space tourism

Guest lecturers:
Alexander Satanowsky − Head of in-Car Gaming (Mercedes-Benz AG)
Georgina Guillén-Hanson − Researcher on Gamifying Sustainable Consumption (Gamification Group Finland)
Daniel Fernández Galeote − Game Designer and Researcher on Gamifying Sustainable Consumption (Gamification Group Finland)
Dr. Michael Reinhardt − Head of OpenIT Studio (Siemens Healthineers)
Nicolas Butterwegge − IT Strategy Manager (Siemens Healthineers)

Summer semester 2021

Capstone project challenge:
Design of an innovative game or gamification approach in which sports, gaming, and mobility meet as part of an unforgettable mixed-reality experience for potential visitors of the 2022 Olympic Asian Games in China, Hangzhou.

Focus:
eSports, Sports, Augmented Reality, Mobility, Gamification

Event:
Asian games announced to have eSports as official discipline

Guest lecturers:
Alexander Satanowsky − Head of In-Car Gaming (Mercedes-Benz AG)
Georgina Guillén-Hanson − Researcher on Gamifying Sustainable Consumption (Gamification Group Finland)
Daniel Fernández Galeote − Game Designer and Researcher on Gamifying Sustainable Consumption (Gamification Group Finland)