Alexander Grigorov

Emerging models and e-infrastructures for teacher education

The paper presents a digital repository of metadata resources for teachers education, as well as a portal for the community of practices, build around the repository. Both the repository and the community are developed in the frame of the European project Share.TEC. Some approaches for endowing digital libraries with adaptability capabilities in order to scaffold and enhance end user experience are examined. The paper provides a general overview of techniques and methods commonly adopted for achieving adaptability. It also discusses how these can be implemented. Finally, it illustrates specific examples and guidelines drawn from the practical experience that the authors are currently gaining in the Share.TEC European project. In this context the adaptability is a key for managing and responding to considerable diversity in user requirements.

The RAGE Software Asset Model and Metadata Model

Software assets are key output of the RAGE project and they can be used by applied game developers to enhance the pedagogical and educational value of their games. These software assets cover a broad spectrum of functionalities – from player analytics including emotion detection to intelligent adaptation and social gamification. In order to facilitate integration and interoperability, all of these assets adhere to a common model, which describes their properties through a set of metadata. In this paper the RAGE asset model and asset metadata model is presented, capturing the detail of assets and their potential usage within three distinct dimensions – technological, gaming and pedagogical. The paper highlights key issues and challenges in constructing the RAGE asset and asset metadata model and details the process and design of a flexible metadata editor that facilitates both adaptation and improvement of the asset metadata model.

The RAGE Advanced Game Technologies Repository for Supporting Applied Game Development

This paper describes the structural architecture of the RAGE repository, which is a unique and dedicated infrastructure that provides access to a wide variety of advanced technologies (RAGE software assets) for applied game development. These software assets are reusable across a wide diversity of game engines, game platforms and programming languages. The RAGE repository allows applied game developers and studios to search for software assets for inclusion in applied games. The repository is designed as an asset life-cycle management system for defining, publishing, updating, searching and packaging for distribution of these assets. The RAGE repository provides storage space for assets and their artefacts. It will be embedded in a social platform for networking among asset developers and other users. A dedicated Asset Repository Manager provides the main functionality of the repository and its integration with other systems. Tools supporting the Asset Manager are presented and discussed. When the RAGE repository is in full operation, applied game developers will be able to easily enhance the quality of their games by including advanced game technology assets.