London Met Repository

Co-creation dynamics in the design of a digitally gamified initiative to enhance student engagement and employability in higher education

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Moschini, Elena and Bamford, Jan (2023) Co-creation dynamics in the design of a digitally gamified initiative to enhance student engagement and employability in higher education. In: Students as Co-creators symposium 2024: ‘What works?’ - AdvanceHE Symposium, 31st January 2024, Online.

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Abstract

The presentation will outline a substantial, ongoing co-creation project that started in 2019 and is implemented at a London-based university. This is a digitally gamified educational initiative designed to promote, enhance and reward student learning, engagement and employability. The entire project has been planned, designed, deployed and evaluated adopting co-design and participatory design principles and practices. The co-designers included the academic projects leads, student co-leads, the wider student cohorts as well as members of the university Careers Services and the VLE manager. The co-creation processes effectively acknowledge and reward all its stakeholders, with a particular emphasis on the student partners. The student co-designers have been actively involved in the co-creation of the structure, content, interactive components and visual style of the project, as well as in the co-design of its evaluation and in the dissemination of the research results.

The presentation will highlight the lessons learned from the iterative process or defining and refining the dynamics, tools and methods of co-creation and will offer insights on how to optimise co-design experiences. It will also discuss the result of the evaluation and the impact on the student co-designers and participants as well as on the academic staff involved.

Outline

The presentation will outline a substantial, ongoing co-creation project that started in 2019 and is implemented in a large Business and Law department at a London-based university. This is a digitally gamified educational initiative designed to promote, enhance and reward student learning, engagement and employability (Bamford, Moschini and Tschirhart, 2022). The entire project has been planned, designed, deployed and evaluated adopting co-design and participatory design principles and practices (Pohl, 2008; Simonsen and Robertson, 2013; Bonsignore et al., 2017). The partners co-designers included the academic projects leads, student co-leads, the wider student cohorts as well as members of the university Careers Services and the VLE manager. The co-creation processes implemented actively and effectively acknowledge and reward all its stakeholders, with a particular emphasis on the student partners. The student co-designers have been actively involved in and have led the co-design of the structure, content, interactive components and visual style of the project, as well as in the co-design of its evaluation and in the dissemination of the research results.
The presentation will highlight the lessons learned from the iterative process or defining and refining the dynamics, tools and methods of co-creation and will offer insights on how to optimise co-design experiences. It will also discuss the result of the evaluation and the impact on the student co-designers and participants as well as on the academic staff involved. It will also discuss future development and the extension of the co-design activity with international partners.

The London Met Citizenship project is an online gamified environment where students can choose missions from four strands: Learning; Employability; Citizenships. Each mission requires an element of learning and then active interaction with a task to achieve completion and a badge. Gaining a certain number of badges enables the student to obtain the final goal: being awarded the London Met Citizenship Passport. This achievement is recognised via the: Students are supported and motivated by the game mascot Max/Maxine and have the opportunity to enjoy interactive games, activities and quizzes.

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