Social networking sites are among the most popular daily activities of students these days. Students are mostly using social networking sites for communication and sharing of their experiences. Facebook is an example of a social networking site, which supports additional features such as creating a profile page, creating group pages and supports possibility of implementing different integrated application with Facebook. These features improve the Facebook experience, allowing users to form groups, where they can introduce ideas and concepts, which can be shared and discussed in a structured style. For this thesis we have created a new learning management system by implementing an online educational platform within a Facebook context. This work introduces a new, complementary style of education, where students can improve their knowledge and sociality outside the university in an innovative way. The platform takes advantage of gamification, which introduces game-like elements to concepts such as education and learning management systems, to make them more fun and rewarding. The goal of this thesis is to extend the educational border to an interesting online environment where students can learn, communicate, and examine their knowledge globally in different courses within our application platform in Facebook.

Although bug tracking systems are fundamental to support virtually any software development process, they are currently suboptimal to support the needs and complexities of large communities. This dissertation first presents a study showing empirical evidence that the traditional interface used by current bug tracking systems invites much noise—unreliable, unuseful, and disorganized information—into the ecosystem. We find that noise comes from, not only low-quality contributions posted by inexperienced users or from conflicts that naturally arise in such ecosystems, but also from the difficulty of fitting the complex bug resolution process and knowledge into the linear sequence of comments that current bug tracking systems use to collect and organize information. Since productivity in bug tracking systems relies on bug reports with accessible and realible information, this leaves contributors struggling to work on and to make sense of the dumps of data submitted to bug reports and, thus, impacting productivity. Next generation bug tracking systems should be more than a tool for exchanging unstructured textual comments. They should be an ecosystem that is tailored for collaborative knowledge building, leveraging the power of the masses to collect reliable and useful information about bugs, providing mechanisms and incentives to verify the validity of such information and mechanisms to organize such information, thus, facilitating comprehension and reasoning. To bring bug tracking systems towards this vision, we present three orthogonal approaches aiming at increasing the usefulness and realiability of contributions and organizing information to improve understanding and reasoning. To improve the usefulness and realibility of contributions we propose the addition of game mechanisms to bug tracking systems, with the objective of motivating contributors to post higher-quality content. Through an empirical investigation of Stack Overflow we evaluate the effects of the mechanisms in such a collaborative software development ecosystem and map a promissing approach to use game mechanisms in bug tracking systems. To improve data organization, we propose two complementary approaches. The first is an automated approach to data organization, creating bug report summaries that make reading and working with bug reports easier, by highlighting the portions of bug reports that expert developers would focus on, if reading the bug report in a hurry. The second approach to improve data organization is a fundamental change on how data is collected and organized, eliminating comments as the main component of bug reports. Instead of comments, users contribute informational posts about bug diagnostics or solutions, allowing users to post contextual comments for each of the different diagnostic iiior solution posts. Our evaluations with real bug tracking system users find that they consider the bug report summaries to be very useful in facilitating common bug tracking system tasks, such as finding duplicate bug reports. In addition, users found that organzing content though diagnostic and solution posts to significanly facilitate reasoning about and searching for relevant information. Finally, we present future directions of work investigating how next generation bug tracking systems could combine the use of the three approaches, such that they benefit from and build upon the results of the other approaches. Next generation bug tracking systems should be more than a tool for exchanging unstructured textual comments. They should be an ecosystem that is tailored for collaborative knowledge building, leveraging the power of the masses to collect reliable and useful information about bugs, providing mechanisms and incentives to verify the validity of such information and mechanisms to organize such information, thus, facilitating comprehension and reasoning. To bring bug tracking systems towards this vision, we present three orthogonal approaches aiming at increasing the usefulness and realiability of contributions and organizing information to improve understanding and reasoning. To improve the usefulness and realibility of contributions we propose the addition of game mechanisms to bug tracking systems, with the objective of motivating contributors to post higher-quality content. Through an empirical investigation of Stack Overflow we evaluate the effects of the mechanisms in such a collaborative software development ecosystem and map a promissing approach to use game mechanisms in bug tracking systems. To improve data organization, we propose two complementary approaches. The first is an automated approach to data organization, creating bug report summaries that make reading and working with bug reports easier, by highlighting the portions of bug reports that expert developers would focus on, if reading the bug report in a hurry. The second approach to improve data organization is a fundamental change on how data is collected and organized, eliminating comments as the main component of bug reports. Instead of comments, users contribute informational posts about bug diagnostics or solutions, allowing users to post contextual comments for each of the different diagnostic iiior solution posts. Our evaluations with real bug tracking system users find that they consider the bug report summaries to be very useful in facilitating common bug tracking system tasks, such as finding duplicate bug reports. In addition, users found that organzing content though diagnostic and solution posts to significanly facilitate reasoning about and searching for relevant information. Finally, we present future directions of work investigating how next generation bug tracking systems could combine the use of the three approaches, such that they benefit from and build upon the results of the other approaches.

As global markets transcend nationalities in search for key advantages in cost,quality and flexibility, the once unbridgeable limit of geographical location isovercome by faster Internet speed lines, online services and tools that allowindividuals and businesses to interact regardless of space and time. This thesis studies the transition from traditional project management to virtualenvironments and the impact that this new paradigm has over dispersed teamsand their interactions among themselves and the project manager. The focus of the study lays on the concept of motivation within virtual projectmanagement and the role of the project manager to overcome the specificchallenges of this new working scenario. Additionally, parallels are drawn on themotivation features that virtual project management systems offer to projectmanagers as well as team members. This study shows the importance of bridging the difficulties of motivatingdispersed teams and how traditional techniques of motivation have a muchlesser impact on team members. The idea of progress and self accomplishmentare brought forth as the strongest motivators for dispersed teams. Finally, this study exposes the shortcomings of current projectware as a tool tomotivate teams and explores the idea of applying gamification techniques tothese software packages to lift the motivation responsibilities off the shoulders ofproject managers.

Spel har varit en del av människans interaktion, inlärning och förståelse för mänskligt beteende under flera tusen år. På senare tid har begreppet 'gamification', eller 'spelifiering', diskuterats när det gäller informationsöverföring och marknadsföring i ljuset av den ökande användningen av internet, smartphones och sociala medier. Analytiker anser att spelifiering är ett effektivt sätt att skapa engagemang kring och spridning av information samt att begreppet kommer användas flitigt om fem till tio år. Det saknas dock i många fall förståelse för hur spelmekaniken är kopplad till informationsöverföringens specifika syfte och mottagare och hur man på ett relevant sätt använder sig av spelmekaniska element för att uppnå det engagemang som eftersträvas hos mottagaren. Syftet med denna uppsats är att undersöka hur användningen av spelifiering ser ut idag, hur spelifiering som begrepp och dess användning diskuteras både bland praktiker och teoretiker samt vilka möjligheter som finns för konceptet. Genom en kategorisering baserad på vilken typ av information som förmedlas och vem mottagaren är, utifrån en undersökning av böcker och artiklar i såväl akademiska tidskrifter, facktidningar och nyhetsmedier, samt intervjuer med praktiker kan vi konstatera att det idag saknas teoretisk kunskap om varför spelifiering kan skapa engagemang, hur spelifiering påverkar användare och vad det kan innebära för avsändaren.

Uppsatsens huvudsakliga syfte är att utforska och kartlägga begreppet gamification. Syftet operationaliseras i tre frågeställningar. Vad finns det för likheter respektive skillnader i synen på Gamification mellan ett antal yrkesverksamma inom Gamification? Hur ser yrkesverksamma med olika bakgrunder inom psykologi, pedagogik och marknadsföring på framtiden för Gamification och dess användningsområde? Vilka för- och nackdelar kan finnas med Gamification? Uppsatsen teoretiska utgångspunkter omfattar de psykologiska krafterna bakom spel som flow och motivation, teorier om det praktiska användandet av gamification och teorier om Generation Y. För att samla empiri har kvalitativ metod använts i form av semistrukturerade explorativa intervjuer där yrkesverksamma inom gamification har intervjuats. Resultatet tyder på att även om de yrkesverksamma har olika användningsområden för gamification är ledord som feedback, motivation och engagemang återkommande hos samtliga informanter. Även om framtidsutsikterna aningen skiljer sig hos informanterna råder en konsensus över att appliceringen av spelmekanik i andra sammanhang än spel även har en plats i framtiden.

This thesis explores how heritage museums can engage more visitors to take part of cultural heritage in context to digital culture, and going deeper in on what implementation of gamification and alternate reality games can contribute with. Through the establishment of how the heritage museum space has changed since the implementation of technology, gives a response concerning new perspective in the experience economy. Connecting Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s characteristics of flow together with Jane McGonigal’s theory of alternate gaming can serve the visitor to invest in their own learning outcomes, thus invest more in cultural heritage. Nevertheless also how visitors can experience cultural heritage as one but at the same time as a community, participating through a common ‘goal’.

La tesi si propone di indagare il processo di “ludicizzazione del reale”, cui viene dedicata sempre maggiore attenzione negli studi mediali contemporanei. Tale processo si declina in forme diverse, passando indiscriminatamente dall'idea di gamification, legata al marketing e all’affermazione del potere del gioco in senso pervasivo e critico, alla più ampia considerazione dell’universo mediale contemporaneo come ambiente ideale per il realizzarsi di un fare “ludico”. Si procederà dunque a un'osservazione morfologica di stampo sociosemiotico del fenomeno, utilizzando al contempo i contemporanei studi mediologici sulla transmedialità e gli ecosistemi, la semiotica esperienziale e le teorie del gioco tradizionali. Scopo finale sarà quello di distinguere caratteristiche oggettive e soggettive, affordance e utilizzi specifici del gioco: da un lato presentando una serie di nodi che problematizzino la definizione generale di “ludico” attraverso il riconoscimento dei suoi tratti a livello transmediale e storico; dall’altro ipotizzando una possibile descrizione della situazione contemporanea attraverso l'idea di “semi-ludico” e l'analisi di alcuni casi di studio significativi che evidenzino come il processo di “semi-ludicizzazione” rinunci alla natura processuale ed emergente del gioco in favore di rigide strutture formali. / Aim of this work is to further observe the process of “ludicization of the real” described by many contemporary media studies. This kind of process takes different forms: from the concept of “gamification”, connected to marketing strategies and to the critical and pervasive power of play, to a broader idea of contemporary mediascape as the ideal context for ludic practices. We propose a morphological observation of socio-semiotics kind, using at the same time works on transmediality and ecosystems, studies of semiotics of experience and traditional game theories. The final objective will be to distinguish different qualities, affordances and specific uses of the “game/play” dichotomy: on the one hand presenting a series of critical nodes that call into question the general definition of “ludic” through the recognition of its traits in a transmedial and historical context; on the other hand hypothesizing a description of the contemporary media environment through the concept of “semi-ludic” and the analysis of twenty meaningful case studies that demonstrate how the “semi-ludicization” process rejects the emergent and processual nature of play in favor of rigid and formal structures.

Gamification refers to the process whereby game design and game mechanics are applied in non-game contexts to influence behaviour. This research study explores the effects of gamification on piano students' practice of technical elements such as scales, chords, and arpeggios, within the private lesson environment. A control and a treatment group of 10 piano students each were formed across two different private piano studios. A game called Technique Tower was designed for the treatment group, in which the players experienced game elements such as rewards (points, badges, and levels), avatars, and the sharing of their progress in an online social context. Gamification was found to have a positive effect on the number of technical elements students mastered, and on their attitude toward practicing technical elements, while self-efficacy levels were not affected. The educational implications for this finding are discussed.

Gamification refers to the process whereby game design and game mechanics are applied in non-game contexts to influence behaviour. This research study explores the effects of gamification on piano students' practice of technical elements such as scales, chords, and arpeggios, within the private lesson environment. A control and a treatment group of 10 piano students each were formed across two different private piano studios. A game called Technique Tower was designed for the treatment group, in which the players experienced game elements such as rewards (points, badges, and levels), avatars, and the sharing of their progress in an online social context. Gamification was found to have a positive effect on the number of technical elements students mastered, and on their attitude toward practicing technical elements, while self-efficacy levels were not affected. The educational implications for this finding are discussed.

Although bug tracking systems are fundamental to support virtually any software development process, they are currently suboptimal to support the needs and complexities of large communities. This dissertation first presents a study showing empirical evidence that the traditional interface used by current bug tracking systems invites much noise—unreliable, unuseful, and disorganized information—into the ecosystem. We find that noise comes from, not only low-quality contributions posted by inexperienced users or from conflicts that naturally arise in such ecosystems, but also from the difficulty of fitting the complex bug resolution process and knowledge into the linear sequence of comments that current bug tracking systems use to collect and organize information. Since productivity in bug tracking systems relies on bug reports with accessible and realible information, this leaves contributors struggling to work on and to make sense of the dumps of data submitted to bug reports and, thus, impacting productivity. Next generation bug tracking systems should be more than a tool for exchanging unstructured textual comments. They should be an ecosystem that is tailored for collaborative knowledge building, leveraging the power of the masses to collect reliable and useful information about bugs, providing mechanisms and incentives to verify the validity of such information and mechanisms to organize such information, thus, facilitating comprehension and reasoning. To bring bug tracking systems towards this vision, we present three orthogonal approaches aiming at increasing the usefulness and realiability of contributions and organizing information to improve understanding and reasoning. To improve the usefulness and realibility of contributions we propose the addition of game mechanisms to bug tracking systems, with the objective of motivating contributors to post higher-quality content. Through an empirical investigation of Stack Overflow we evaluate the effects of the mechanisms in such a collaborative software development ecosystem and map a promissing approach to use game mechanisms in bug tracking systems. To improve data organization, we propose two complementary approaches. The first is an automated approach to data organization, creating bug report summaries that make reading and working with bug reports easier, by highlighting the portions of bug reports that expert developers would focus on, if reading the bug report in a hurry. The second approach to improve data organization is a fundamental change on how data is collected and organized, eliminating comments as the main component of bug reports. Instead of comments, users contribute informational posts about bug diagnostics or solutions, allowing users to post contextual comments for each of the different diagnostic iiior solution posts. Our evaluations with real bug tracking system users find that they consider the bug report summaries to be very useful in facilitating common bug tracking system tasks, such as finding duplicate bug reports. In addition, users found that organzing content though diagnostic and solution posts to significanly facilitate reasoning about and searching for relevant information. Finally, we present future directions of work investigating how next generation bug tracking systems could combine the use of the three approaches, such that they benefit from and build upon the results of the other approaches. Next generation bug tracking systems should be more than a tool for exchanging unstructured textual comments. They should be an ecosystem that is tailored for collaborative knowledge building, leveraging the power of the masses to collect reliable and useful information about bugs, providing mechanisms and incentives to verify the validity of such information and mechanisms to organize such information, thus, facilitating comprehension and reasoning. To bring bug tracking systems towards this vision, we present three orthogonal approaches aiming at increasing the usefulness and realiability of contributions and organizing information to improve understanding and reasoning. To improve the usefulness and realibility of contributions we propose the addition of game mechanisms to bug tracking systems, with the objective of motivating contributors to post higher-quality content. Through an empirical investigation of Stack Overflow we evaluate the effects of the mechanisms in such a collaborative software development ecosystem and map a promissing approach to use game mechanisms in bug tracking systems. To improve data organization, we propose two complementary approaches. The first is an automated approach to data organization, creating bug report summaries that make reading and working with bug reports easier, by highlighting the portions of bug reports that expert developers would focus on, if reading the bug report in a hurry. The second approach to improve data organization is a fundamental change on how data is collected and organized, eliminating comments as the main component of bug reports. Instead of comments, users contribute informational posts about bug diagnostics or solutions, allowing users to post contextual comments for each of the different diagnostic iiior solution posts. Our evaluations with real bug tracking system users find that they consider the bug report summaries to be very useful in facilitating common bug tracking system tasks, such as finding duplicate bug reports. In addition, users found that organzing content though diagnostic and solution posts to significanly facilitate reasoning about and searching for relevant information. Finally, we present future directions of work investigating how next generation bug tracking systems could combine the use of the three approaches, such that they benefit from and build upon the results of the other approaches.