Roger Altizer

Entertainment arts and engineering(or how to fast track a new interdisciplinary program)

The Entertainment Arts and Engineering (EAE) program is a unique, new undergraduate interdisciplinary program at the University of Utah bringing together the School of Computing and the Division of Film Studies in an effort to teach both video game development and computer animation. Students pursuing a film or computer science degree may enroll in the program as a means of focusing their education on digital arts and entertainment. The key characteristic of the program is the shared classes where students from both Computer Science and Fine Arts study together and cooperate on game and animation projects. The program is highlighted by a yearlong capstone course in which the students work together to make a video game or animated short from scratch. This paper chronicles our efforts starting the EAE program and demonstrates how to create an interdisciplinary program that not only attracts students to CS, but also equips them for careers or research in video games and animation.

When the games industry and academia collide: How we impact each other

What started as a list of suggested courses for students interested in focusing their Computer Science or Film degree on animation and games has grown into the #3 video game design program in the U.S. The key to this success has been directly involving the games industry in the Entertainment Arts and Engineering program. This program not only combined students and faculty from the arts and engineering, but spaned the public/private gap by actively including industry in the programs academic and professional mission. This paper extracts the impact we have each had on the other and lessons learned from not just collaboration across campus but across the city as we have partnered with industry.

Choreografish: Co-designing a Choreography-based Therapeutic Virtual Reality System with Youth Who Have Autism Spectrum Advantages

Choreografish is a virtual reality, therapeutic arts engagement leveraging participatory research and design to collaborate with young adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The research team was motivated by the social anxiety some with ASD have, and the attendant difficulties accessing art forms that may actually play well to Autism Spectrum Advantages (ASA). This project was co-designed with youth with ASA to explore the use of VR and choreographic thinking to empower users and designers to engage with the arts and self-manage anxiety. This paper describes the project, and gives a brief design history of Choreografish.

The Use of a Game-Based Decision Aid to Educate Pregnant Women about Prenatal Screening: A Randomized Controlled Study

Purpose This project developed and evaluated the efficacy of a game decision aid among pregnant women about prenatal screening in a randomized controlled study. Study Design Participants were recruited from an obstetric clinic of an academic urban medical center and randomized (n = 73) to one of two study groups: the control group (n = 39) that used a brochure or the intervention group (n = 34) that also used a game decision aid. Result Participants who played the game had higher knowledge scores (m = 21.41, standard deviation [SD] = 1.74) than participants in the control group (m = 19.59; SD = 3.31), p = 0.004. The median time of game playing was 6:43 minutes (range: 2:17‐16:44). The groups were similar in frequency of completing screening after the study, control = 6 (15%) versus intervention = 11 (32%), p = 0.087. However, the more interaction with the game resulted in more positive attitudes toward screening. Conclusion The addition of a game decision aid was effective in educating pregnant women about prenatal screening. As other genetic testing decisions continue to increase within clinical care, game‐based decision tools may be a constructive method of informed decision‐making.