Abstract
In this editorial, we explore the growth of the International Simulation and Gaming Association (ISAGA) and Simulation & Gaming (S&G) over the past 40 years, comparing (a) the disciplines and affiliations of authors in the first volume of S&G, (b) authors who contributed papers to the ISAGA 2009 conference, and (c) authors of the most read and the most cited articles in the journal 41 years later, in September 2011. Finally, we present eight articles as an illustration of our growth and a foreshadowing of what we might attain in the next 40 years.
Keywords
In March 1970, in a time when a game was most often played with other humans, when computers could be described as a “physical monster with a tiny brain” (Duke, 2011, p. 345), before the advent and proliferation of digital games, and when an Internet to connect the global community had yet to be conceived, the journal, Simulation & Gaming (S&G) was born. Michael Inbar (1970), the first editor-in-chief, defined the aim of the journal: “to establish a forum for scholarly communication on any aspect of theory, research, and design bearing on the use of simulation” (p. 3). He did not limit that forum, but sought to make it interdisciplinary and international in scope.
Forty years later, on June 29, 2009, the only thing warmer than the tropical sea air that enveloped the 167 participants in the International Simulation and Gaming Association’s (ISAGA) 40th Anniversary Celebration was the hospitality of the hosts who greeted us at the National University of Singapore. Hosted by the Society of Simulation and Gaming of Singapore (SSAGSg), the conference was the culmination of months of work on the part of its two Organizing Chairs, Gee Kin Yeo (National University of Singapore) and Cai Yiyu (Nanyang Technological University, Singapore), with help from Conference Advisor David Crookall (Université de Nice Sophia Antipolis).
Of the 200 manuscripts submitted (C. Yiyu, personal communication, October 28, 2011), 150 were selected for presentation. These numbers alone are evidence that Michael Inbar’s vision had taken root. In this editorial, we examine how well the journal and ISAGA have fulfilled these goals.
Interdisciplinary Scope
In 2009 and 2010, several introspective articles appeared in S&G that reveal the interdisciplinary nature of the journal. Bragge, Thavikulwat, and Töyli (2010) did a thorough study of the content and authorship of S&G. Their findings show that many of the authors who have published their research in the journal over the last 40 years have come from one of four broad areas: education, social sciences, business, and technology. ISAGA and S&G are able to appeal to such a diversity of disciplines because the authors and readers share a common interest in simulation and games and a common vision for serious academic research (Klabbers, 2009).
Table 1 lists the disciplines that have appeared in S&G in the order that they were first published. It also compares the coverage of each discipline in the first volume of S&G, the papers from ISAGA 2009, and those represented in the most read and most cited articles of September 2011. Articles are grouped with other articles in every discipline that applies. Thus, an article on business education would be grouped with business articles and with education articles. Note also that the figures are punctual (specific points in time) and thus do not necessarily reflect the prominence of a topic across all issues of S&G. For example, language acquisition has appeared more in S&G than the figures appear to show. (For a comprehensive survey, see Bragge et al, 2010.)
Quantitative Comparison of Articles by Discipline
Note: ISAGA = International Simulation and Gaming Association; S&G = Simulation & Gaming.
Statistics provided by the S&G website, September 2011.
Education has long been a cornerstone of the journal. In the first volume, 11 of the 44 articles examined the power of simulation and gaming to transform the learning experience. It is not surprising that more than one third of the papers at the ISAGA 2009 conference considered the pedagogical benefits of simulation and gaming; it was the theme of the conference. The fact that 38% of the most read and 38% of the most cited articles in September 2011 were from education demonstrates the centrality of this discipline to the make-up of simulation and gaming. One should note that only 5 of the articles on education appear in the most cited and the most read lists.
The discipline of education has expanded to include more specialties. For the first 19 years, the articles relating to education pertained either to business education or to education in general. In 1989, the first articles specifically on language acquisition appeared. By 2009, at ISAGA, 5% of all papers were related specifically to language learning; this represents 15% of the papers in the area of education.
From the beginning, the social sciences have received a fair amount of press in the journal of S&G. The first volume was dominated by articles related to the social sciences with 20 of the first 44 articles coming from the fields of psychology, sociology, decision sciences, and international relations. By far, the most dominating field throughout the years has been that of the decision sciences, which often uses keywords such as policy and planning. ISAGA was born of this field; it was a policy simulation that brought the first group together (Duke, 2011).
Since the first issue, business researchers have found simulation and gaming to be a useful tool in training and in research. At ISAGA 2009, 10% of the papers presented were related to business. Although not often downloaded by readers, as indicated by the “most read” statistics, articles related to simulation and gaming in business seem to be quite useful to researchers; 10 of the top cited articles are related to this discipline.
Being born in 1970, when Americans were becoming conscious of environmental issues and natural resources, the journal has often featured articles concerning the use of simulation to influence public policy (Duke, 2011) or to raise public awareness of the impact that we have on our environment. In all, 5% of the papers presented at ISAGA proposed games to help communities and their leaders recognize their role in saving or depleting natural resources.
Since September 1970, articles devoted entirely to simulation and gaming have appeared in the journal. These contribute to the establishment of gaming as a discipline in its own right, reflecting the mission of ISAGA and the journal (Klabbers, 2009). The proportion of articles devoted entirely to simulation and gaming was quite similar in the first journal (7%) and ISAGA 2009 (5%). As small as this proportion seems, unsurprisingly, it is an important category for researchers. Of the 40 most cited articles (25%) deal with game theory and design.
Since September 1972, the field of health and medicine has been of interest to the simulation and gaming community. At ISAGA 2009, 7% of the papers presented dealt with the use of simulation in health and medical science. According to the S&G website, only 3% of the most read papers discussed matters of health; 10% of the most cited do.This is amazing considering an inaugural issue of a sister journal, Simulation in Healthcare, was published in January 2006. This further demonstrates the interest of S&G’s users in the role of simulations in improving health care.
In considering the last five rows of the table, we note that the journal is not tethered to legacy topics. The journal is eager to publish articles on new technologies such as video games and virtual communities, as well as new and possibly surprising application areas such as biography and philosophy. In the years to come, we can expect the journal to continue to foster discourse on the types of technologies that support simulation and gaming and their areas of application.
International Scope
Over the years, S&G has been dominated by authors affiliated with American institutions (Bragge et al., 2010). Of the 47 authors who contributed to the first volume, two were from Jerusalem and one from England. Its international scope has expanded to include more nations. Of more than a thousand authors who have contributed to the journal since 1970 (Bragge et al., 2010), at least 300 have been affiliated with institutions in at least 40 countries outside the United States. The editorial board is also quite international with members residing in more than 20 nations (Crookall, 2009).
The expanding international scope is also demonstrated by ISAGA 2009. The conference drew 167 participants from 29 countries (Society of Simulation and Gaming of Singapore, 2009). If one were to compare this list of 29 countries with the 40 countries with which S&G authors have been associated, he would find that 4 of those 29 countries do not show up on the S&G list: Lithuania, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, and United Arab Emirates. The international flavor of the conference is more dramatically demonstrated by international collaboration; 20 of the papers (15%) in ISAGA 2009 were authored by teams from two or more nations. The proportion of international collaborations seen in the most popular recent articles in the journal is somewhat lower: of the 40 most read articles, 1 (3%), and of the 40 most cited articles, 3 (8%). In this symposium, 4 of the articles (44%), including this editorial, are the product of international collaboration.
This Symposium
The eight articles in this symposium represent the diversity and the interdisciplinary, international scope that ISAGA and S&G have grown to achieve so far. The papers in this symposium represent a subset of the papers presented during ISAGA’s 40th Annual Conference held in Singapore from June 29 to July 3, 2009. The theme of the conference was Learn to Game, Game to Learn.
When the call for papers went out for this symposium, 47 authors indicated that they intended to submit a paper; 22 submitted. Five of these 22 manuscripts were singled out to form a special issue on second language acquisition. After a rigorous review of 17 manuscripts, 8 were found to be academically sound by reviewers in their distinct discipline.
In many ways, the disciplines represented by these papers are much the same as those that the journal has traditionally offered and those that September 2011 readers downloaded most frequently: education, social sciences, and business. It does, however, venture into other areas as well, exploring the natural sciences and video games.
We begin with a contribution to game design by Christelle Mariais, Florence Michau, and Jean-Philippe Pernin. This team from France offers a framework for the analysis of learning role-playing games. The goal of the work is to provide instructional designers with a design process that shows the interconnection between game mechanics and pedagogical objectives.
In the tradition of the journal, the interdisciplinary scope is not so much of a fusion of disciplines as a sampling of different disciplines as they approach simulation and gaming. An article to appeal to business and intercultural relations is that of Geert Jan Hofstede from the Netherlands and Elizabeth J. Tipton Murff from the United States, who describe how East Asian cultural factors change the dynamics of a game. The authors use a cross-cultural analysis to explain why it is that learners chose to work with one another to arrive at a team solution rather than conspiring against one another to achieve individual victory.
Regarding general and science education, this symposium offers two articles. Elizabeth Koh, Yeo Gee Kin, Bimlesh Wadhwa, and John Lim survey Singaporean teachers, exploring factors that encourage or impede the adoption of simulations and games as part of regular instruction. Sutha Luealamai and Bhinyo Panijpan from Thailand propose a computer-based simulation to teach science students about unit cells and crystal lattice types.
Three articles explore the social sciences. From the decision and management sciences, Sebastiaan A. Meijer, Igor S. Mayer, Jelle van Luipen, and Natasha Weitenberg, all from the Netherlands, explore the use of simulations as a quality assurance tool for moving cargo by rail. An article from a tricontinental team, Deborah Cleland (Australia), Anne Dray (Australia), Pascal Perez (France), Annabelle Cruz-Trinidad (Philippines), and Rollan Geronimo (Philippines), combines decision sciences and environmental science in REEF GAME, a game designed to explore fisher folk livelihood strategies and attitudes and to help fisher folk better understand the impact of their decisions on the environment. In a return to the oldest gaming discipline of all, war gaming, Anders Frank (Sweden) explores whether military cadets will abandon learning outcomes in favor of winning the game.
We conclude this special issue with an article that has already demonstrated a wide appeal to S&G readers. Timothy C. Lisk (the United States), Ugur T. Kaplancali (Turkey), and Ronald E. Riggio (the United States) explore the potential of interactive multiplayer video games for developing tomorrow’s leaders.
In short, with the help of reviewers from S&G as well as experts not necessarily related to the journal, the articles in this issue demonstrate the depth of the interdisciplinary scope that one can expect from S&G. Through the appeal of ISAGA, the articles portray a wealth of international perspectives and the power of international collaboration. We hope that readers will find this issue a worthy forum for scholarly communication about simulations in their discipline and their corner of the world.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
We thank all the authors for contributing their work. We also thank them for their patience and persistence. A special thanks is due to the many reviewers from 12 nations and 4 continents whose generosity with their time and expertise helped us ensure the quality of this issue:
• Guillame Alinier, University of Hertfordshire, UK.
• Hans Christian Arnseth, University of Oslo, Norway.
• Daniel Burgos, ATOS Research & Innovation, Spain.
• Richard Burkhard, San Jose State University, USA.
• Peter Dieckmann, Danish Institute for Medical Simulation (DIMS), Denmark.
• Emilyn Q. Espiritu, Ateneo de Manila University, Philippines.
• Mark Freiermuth, Gunma Women’s Prefectural University, Japan.
• Steven Gold, Rochester Institute of Technology, USA.
• Armando Guidote, Ateneo de Manila University, Philippines.
• Gene Halleck. Oklahoma State University, USA.
• Gert Jan Hofstede, Delft University of Technology, Netherlands.
• Matthew Jadud, Allegheny College, USA.
• Susan Krumdieck, University of Canterbury, New Zealand.
• Christophe LePage, CIRAD-UPR Green, France.
• Andrew Martin, University of Warwick, UK.
• Sebastiaan Meijer, Delft University of Technology, Netherlands.
• Lisa Ncube, Purdue University, USA.
• Maureen Nicolas, University of Balamand, Lebanon.
• Peter Perla, Center of Naval Analysis, USA.
• Beverly Rising, Universidad Pontificia Comillas, Spain.
• Augustin Martin Rodriguez, Ateneo de Manila University, Philippines.
• Riad Saba, University of Balamand, Lebanon.
• Suwat Tanyaros, Rajamangala University of Technology, Thailand.
• Prasert Tongnunui, Rajamangala University of Technology, Thailand.
Their comments proved to be invaluable in increasing the quality of the articles included in this symposium. Finally, we thank David Crookall for entrusting us with this issue and for his guidance in the editorial process.
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.