Success dissemination case of technology validation by UCM

This example case demonstrates technology validation that are being adopted and adapted for the BEACONING platform as well as the initative to collaborate with existing local projects. UCM as lead of the learning analytics task, has collaborated with the DownTown project providing the technology and the experimental design for the scientific validation experiment to test a serious game. Specifically, UCM reingeneered the game incorporating the analytics system to collect data during the experiment to the preexisting game that was produced by CEIEC (Center for Research and Innovation in Knowledge Management), an Institute of Francisco de Vitoria University, in cooperation with Down Madrid Association.

The experiment, conducted in May 2017, involved 45 people with different cognitive disabilities (mainly Down Syndrome) and is a technology validation pilot of BEACONING.

The serious game, Downtown, A Subway Adventure, has had a great media impact:

• Madrid metro internal TV. A video promoting the serious game DownTown appeared on the subway interval television from May 29^th to June 3^rd. The number of passengers of the metro each day is more than 1 million people. This video already describes the experiment and the data analytics capture process proposed by BEACONING, even if BEACONING is not directly mentioned.
  Click here to access the video (in Spanish) video in the metro internal TV

Figure 1. Screeshot of the video in the metro internal TV.

• Television: The game has appeared on Telemadrid, the main local television in Madrid [link to the piece of news].
• Press. The game has appeared on multiple journals and press media, such as:
  • El Mundo, major journal in Spain [link to the piece of news].
  • Servimedia, agency of news [link to the piece of news].
• Social media.
  • The validation experiment has produced several tweets, including one of the official Twitter account of the Complutense University of Madrid, which has more than 60.000 followers. Only this tweet produced more than 50 retweets and more than 50 likes.

Figure 2. Screenshot of a related tweet by Complutense University of Madrid.

• Award:
  • After the experiment carried out with the game, and based on the obtained exposure, the serious game Downtown, A Subway Adventure was proposed to and received the Discapnet award to the best ICT application for people with special needs. The award was given by the Queen of Spain [link to piece of news on royal house website].