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The aim of the Game On project is to adapt and create highly engaging and motivating serious games to teach employment skills to prisoners, ex‐offenders and those at risk of offending (termed offenders). The target audience first trialled existing serious games with work‐based educational content to identify their limitations and to highlight gaps in provision. From this, a development plan evolved for the adaptation of these materials and the creation of new materials using 3D games mods' to teach induction information to prisoners in an accessible format. Games features include an ability to personalise educational content, locale detection for use in a variety of countries, accessibility features including signing tracks and closed captions and accompanying activities for a blended learning approach. Retrial of these serious games and games mods' with trainers and offenders found that they provided positive measures of engagement and effectiveness.

Accessible games, both for serious and for entertainment purposes, would allow inclusion and participation for those with disabilities. Research into the development of accessible games, and accessible virtual environments, is discussed. Research into accessible Virtual Environments has demonstrated great potential for allowing people who are blind to explore new spaces, reduce their reliance on guides and aid development of more efficient spatial maps and strategies. Importantly, Lahav and Mioduser (2005, 2008) have demonstrated that, when exploring virtual spaces, people who are blind use more and different strategies than when exploring real physical spaces, and develop relatively accurate spatial representations of them. The present paper describes the design, development and evaluation of a system in which a virtual environment may be explored by people who are blind using Nintendo Wii devices, with auditory and haptic feedback. The nature of the various types of feedback is considered, with the aim of creating an intuitive and usable system. Using Wii technology has many advantages: it is mainstream, readily available and cheap. The potential of the system for exploration and navigation is demonstrated. Results strongly support the possibilities of the system for facilitating and supporting the construction of cognitive maps and spatial strategies. Intelligent support is discussed. Systems such as the present one will facilitate the development of accessible games, and thus enable Universal Design and accessible interactive technology to become more accepted and widespread.

The main purpose of this paper is to explore implications of the illusion of reality in the gaming world for libraries, aiming to uncover the challenges and opportunities they face in adapting their services to the gaming context.

Through a comprehensive exploration of the topic, various sources, such as Scopus, Google Scholar and ResearchGate were used. This study draws upon existing literature to analyze the impact of the illusion of reality in gaming on libraries and their offerings.

The findings emphasize the crucial role of libraries in comprehending the illusion of reality in gaming to remain relevant and effectively meet the evolving needs of patrons. It also emphasize the impact of the illusion of reality on user engagement, information-seeking behaviors, digital literacy challenges and the evolving gaming landscape. The findings highlight opportunities for libraries to leverage the illusion of reality, thereby enhancing user experiences, fostering community engagement, promoting information literacy and creating immersive learning environments.

This paper contributes a unique investigation into the impact of the illusion of reality in gaming on libraries, underscoring its significance. It offers practical recommendations to enhance library services, user experiences and community engagement within the gaming domain. The study provides valuable insights for library professionals, researchers and policymakers seeking to understand and adapt to the changing dynamics of the gaming world.

The potential for substantial revenues from gaming has moved gambling from an underworld activity to a legitimate mainstream business. This selective list of portals, Web sites, and print resources is intended to guide local communities, librarians, and researchers to a variety of sources (statistics, regulations, history, and industry trends) focused on the business of gaming.

Mothers, especially working mothers, take an active role in many activities. They manage the family’s daily lives. They take care of children. They work or study. And they also strive to take care of themselves. Working mothers are normally overloaded with all kinds of tasks ‐ almost on a daily basis, year after year. Although there are many many kinds of useful information and services available over the Internet that could be a big help to mothers, working mothers or mothers with children around them at home are often so occupied that they cannot afford the luxury of sitting in front of a computer to access those services. So, what kind of services could help to make their lives a bit easier? Readily accessible mobile services over the wireless network seem to be exactly what they need. But what mobile e‐services do working mothers need? What is the specific added value offered by such services? These form the issues that we will address in this paper.

In this paper, the authors present the insights and takeaways related to their experience with the design and development of ProblemUp!, a card game focused on helping higher education students develop personal strategies to overcome challenges in college and in life.

This paper presents a case study with analysis of and reflections on the design and development of an educational card game.

The design and development of ProblemUp! has engendered a number of insights to analyze, design and implement games that can help students become successful learners in school and life, beyond subject matter. The authors realized that it is worthwhile to offer different opportunities for players to engage with the game (e.g. alternative sets of rules, face-to-face and online versions), while at the same time keeping the game affordable, accessible and fun to play. Ultimately, ProblemUp! reflects a social and playful approach to learning that can help students become strategic learners and creative problem solvers in a complex and ever-changing world.

The potential contribution of ProblemUp! to students’ academic success in higher education is significant. Often students’ reluctance to face challenges is perceived as a lack of ability when it is actually a lack of knowledge and skills in metacognition and decision-making. If students have a sense of their own competence and control over challenges in academic learning, then they will be motivated to persevere with academic study. ProblemUp! offers the opportunity for students to develop knowledge and skills that are often hidden from them, their teachers and tutors.

In higher education, ProblemUp! has the potential for use in a variety of ways. It can be presented in post-secondary settings as a resource for students, with or without facilitation of tutors and others working to improve student retention. It can also be introduced within courses by a facilitator who can help students understand how the strategies they create can be adapted to overcome challenges within a course or, in general, for succeeding in college. Opportunities can also be created so that students can join an online game as the need arises, with or without support.

By speaking the “language of metacognition” embedded in the Cognitive Enrichment Advantage (CEA) approach (e.g. making comparisons, getting the main idea, connecting events, etc.), students can develop a “problem-solving grammar” which can be applied in a variety of situations to articulate the discourse on problems and the strategies to overcome them.

The paper presents a novel approach to metacognitive learning, strategic thinking and problem-solving by leveraging bizarre problems in a social-constructive environment. It also includes practical and usable insights for educators, teachers and game designers.

This paper aims to understand how the sustainability theme has been incorporated into the new Olympic planning guidelines based on analysing the case of Tokyo (2020), which was severely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

For this, field research using the case study method was carried out that involved 21 in-depth interviews with experts from different entities affected by the event.

As a result, it was possible to identify that some characteristics already presented in the Tokyo project came to break away from the gigantism observed in the past Olympic editions in an attempt to demonstrate alignment with the new principles brought by the IOC (2020) and 2020 + 5 Agenda that had as one of its main objectives to simplify the Olympics, making the event more sustainable and accessible for future host societies.

At the end, some trends for the future of the Olympic Games are also presented in order to guide future studies in the area, as well as help the future host cities and their companies in planning their investments.

Strokes are the most common cause of long-term disability of adults in developed countries. Continuous participation in rehabilitation can alleviate some of the consequences, and support recovery of stroke patients. However, physical rehabilitation requires commitment to tedious exercise routines over lengthy periods of time, which often cause patients to dropout of this form of therapy. In this context, game-based stroke rehabilitation has the potential to address two important barriers: accessibility of rehabilitation, and patient motivation. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

This paper provides a review of design efforts in human-computer interaction (HCI) and gaming research to support stroke rehabilitation.

Based on extensive review, this paper highlights challenges and opportunities in this area, and discusses an architecture guideline for a game-based stroke rehabilitation system.

This study was an original study.

The purpose of this study is to examine the use of game-based learning for approximations of practice within a critical, project-based (CPB) clinical experience for preservice teachers (PSTs). Within the clinical experience, secondary English Language Arts PSTs practiced modeling argumentative thinking through playing a board game, Race to the White House, with ninth-grade students.

Data collection took place at a public high school in the mid-Atlantic region of the USA. A variety of data was collected including written reflections by PSTs about their experiences leading the game play, audio recordings of the small group game play and a transcript of a whole-class 30-min post-game discussion with the PSTs and classroom teacher. To analyze the data, patterns of discourse were identified.

The game-based learning activity provided an accessible structure for PSTs to model their own argumentative thinking, presented opportunities for PSTs to elicit and interpret students’ thinking to support students’ practice in constructing an argument and created a playful context for PSTs to encourage students to produce arguments and critique the argumentation work of others.

Game-based learning within CPB clinical experiences has the potential to bring students, PSTs, inservice teachers and teacher educators together to experiment with how to help PSTs practice engaging with students in different ways than a traditional teacher-to-student dynamic.

Game design and game play within CPB clinical experiences has the potential to bring students, PSTs, inservice teachers and teacher educators together to experiment with how to make teaching and learning a more social and collaborative process.

This chapter coins the term Development through Mega-Events (DME) in order to propose a next step for developing social legacies in accordance with the principle of social development.

This chapter’s argument for DME is developed using quantitative, indicator-based data from the Olympic Games Impact (OGI) study as well as relevant literature from the sub-fields of Sport for Development and Peace and Sport Mega-Events.

We discuss the absence of a baseline understanding of the properties of sport mega-events. Also absent are progressive efforts to achieve sustainability by means other than competition among prospective bidders. We recommend that hosts tie social legacies to public policy objectives that are concomitant with the properties of the sport mega-events. Retrospectively applied, OGI data from 2010 reveals social inclusion as one potential social legacy that reflects the nature of the Olympics and the policy realm in the host region.

This chapter is original work. It would be of interest to potential host communities, policymakers, and researchers.