[game_edu] Ad Hoc committee

[Burke, Robin]

I think the curriculum framework (thanks to Yusuf and others!) is pretty good in enumerating skills and attributes related to game development. They aren't packaged in a particular way, but I think that's OK because it allows universities to emphasize as they see fit. (As I've said before, I'd like to see the framework augmented with "Core Experiences" that students should have in addition to topics covered -- see the wiki at http://igda.org/wiki/Core_Experiences.)

So the question is what we should do in addition to this. I think the idea put forward at last year's discussion is still the best. We should:

1. Come up with a list of attributes that we think represent good practices in game development education.
2. Publicize that list where it will reach potential students.
3. Let people do their own investigating of game development programs and apply our criteria.

This approach has some significant advantages over "accreditation lite".

* It is dynamic. Once a program gets the IGDA stamp of approval, will it have to get re-accredited every year? Probably not. But students investigating a school and applying the "good practice checklist" may discover for themselves that something about a school has changed.

* It is flexible. Institutions can use the list of practices to see how well they're doing and decide what their priorities should be. Not every practice will necessarily be available or appropriate to every institution. With the threat of not getting "the stamp", there will be the unfortunate incentive to do a slipshod job in some mandatory category just put up an appearance. Similarly, students may place different priorities on different practices: a student who is art and design inclined may not be at all interested in a job in the industry, but rather be more interested in concepts of interactive design and Art with a capital A. Such a student can apply the criteria appropriate to his or her own case -- not the one-size-fits-all list that we would use.

* It is feasible. We seem to be relatively good at coming up with lists :-). I don't know whether or not we would be any good at reviewing dozens of applications from different institutions, and navigating the politically-charged waters of who gets a stamp and who doesn't. We've know how busy academic folks are and how difficult it is to get people's contributions of time and effort. A "good practices" list seems in keeping with the time and resources available to devote to the SIG.

robin
=:-{)
http://josquin.cti.depaul.edu/~rburke/

"The universe is made of stories, not of atoms" - Muriel Rukeyser





-----Original Message-----
From: Yusuf Pisan [mailto:yusuf.pisan at gmail.com] On Behalf Of Yusuf Pisan
Sent: Friday, February 29, 2008 5:28 AM
To: IGDA Game Education Listserv
Cc: Burke, Robin
Subject: Re: [game_edu] Ad Hoc committee


Doing accreditation right is difficult and resource intensive. Doing it
badly (or lightly) is not worth it.

I do not see the that IGDA has sufficient resources to conduct a serious
accreditation at this point. For me, accreditation would have to include
site visits, examining course outlines carefully, looking at sample
student projects, and talking with both students and teachers. This gets
expensive quickly.

There are many different academic programs. The advice from "industry"
is not yet uniform, and it may never be. I would like to see IGDA remain
in advisory capacity, collecting examples of best practice, or just
successful case studies, until the field matures further.

I was heavily involved in  updating the Curriculum Framework from the
2003 to the 2008 version. It is all volunteer time, and volunteer time
is hard to come by. I know lots of people who did not provide feedback
because there were many urgent things that they needed to do as part of
their job. Accreditation would be orders of magnitude harder, very time
consuming and resource intensive.

I'd like to suggest a way forward. Can we come up with a set of
'graduate skills and attributes' (my university's jargon) that we expect
   a student who has graduated from a "games program"?

My bet is that even before we can answer this question, we first have to
expand on different kinds of games programs

        Bsc in Game Development
        Bsc in Game Programming
        BA in Game Studies
        BA in Animation & Games
        ...

Let's work out what are the subbaranches first, then list what we expect
graduates to know and then we can talk about accreditation.

Cheers,

Yusuf

--
A/Professor Yusuf Pisan
Faculty of Information Technology
University of Technology, Sydney
http://staff.it.uts.edu.au/~ypisan/


Burke, Robin wrote:

> (I apologize if this message appears twice. My previous attempt did not

> appear on the list - I think because of an address mismatch issue.

> Trying again.)

>

>

>

> I really do not understand why this issue keeps moving forward despite

> the total lack of publicly-stated interest from the SIG membership. I've

> not heard word one in support of this idea on the mailing list, yet

> according to this email, it has already been decided that such a stamp

> of approval will be created, the only question being what the

> requirements will be. There's been "a large offline discussion." By

> whom? Why is such an important topic unable to be discussed in the only

> public forum that we have as a SIG?

>

>

>