AISB'07 Symposium: AI and Narrative Games for Education

AISB'07 Symposium: AI and Narrative Games for Education
April 2nd-5th 2007, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK

A workshop organised by Daniela Romano and Paul Brna and Judy Robertson and Sandy Louchart

AISB'07

LOCATION

REGISTRATION

SCOPE

SUBMISSION

PUBLICATION

PROGRAM

DEADLINE : 22nd of January 2007

Download call for papers in collaboration with

***** EXTENDED DEADLINE PAPERS SUBMISSION 22nd January 2007 **********

SCOPE

There is an increasing interest in the computer games industry in the development of games with emotionally compelling interactive stories. Games designers, screen writers and narrative theorists propose contrasting approaches to engineer satisfying stories in which players can participate for pure entertainment or educational purposes.
Intelligent serious games for education are applications that use the power of AI and the characteristics of games to create educational engaging learning experiences. A game is a system in which a player/s can engage in an artificial challenge that results in a quantifiable outcome. The outcome of a serious game is the achievement of the learning goals set within a realistic context.

This symposium focuses on the application of artificial intelligence techniques, frameworks and theories to the creation of interactive engaging narrative games for education. It will address questions such as:

How is believable story engineered through games?

What are the crucial elements of a believable story?

How can educational goals be achieved through narrative games?

How should the interaction between the player/s and the game take place?

How should the characters behave to achieve emotionally convincing stories?

How can we design interactive stories in which the player's experience is central?

How can we scale up prototype interactive narrative architectures to meet the requirements of today's game engines?
Themes running throughout the symposium will be the extent to which game engines can be used as research tools and the appropriate methods for disseminating and sharing prototype systems throughout the community.

We welcome researchers from academia, education and industry, in particular those involved with the design, development and evaluation of AI based narrative and games. Their expertise could be in a range of areas including: narrative, educational research, multimedia, game design and development, interaction design and evaluation for children and any other relevant area.

SUBMISSION

Papers sought in the following areas, but are not limited to:
* Interactive narrative and virtual storytelling
* Applied AI in games and serious games
* Believable synthetic agents for games or narrative
* Agent strategy planning in a games or interactive narrative context
* Educational/training applications
* The use of games as test-beds for research

Paper submissions should be no longer than 8 pages. We welcome and encourage submissions of original papers.
Papers should be written in English, formatted according to ECAI style which can be obtained from
http://ecai2006.itc.it/cda/images/ecai2006.pdf
http://ecai2006.itc.it/cda/images/ecai2006.zip
The program committee will also review posters for work in progress. Please submit one A4 page as a poster submission.
Please send an email with the relevant attachment to D.Romano@sheffield.ac.uk, with the title AISB SYMPOSIUM SUBMISSION. Receipt will be acknowledged by email within 7 days.

IMPORTANT DATES

EXTENDED DEADLINE: 22nd January 2007 - Papers submission deadline

2nd February 2007 - Reviews due

7th February 2007 - Registration opens (see AISB'07)

19th February 2007 - Notifications of acceptance

2nd March 2007 - Camera ready copies due

PUBLICATION

All accepted papers will be published in the AISB proceedings produced for the conference. Best papers will be invited to submit to a Special Edition of the International Journal of AI in Education (Journal Editor: Paul Brna). Please note that such papers would be resubmitted and re-reviewed for the special issue using the normal standards for acceptance. Further details will be announced at the symposium.

Papers submission to the symposium should follow the guidelines set by the AISB committee and can be found at the following URL: http://www.aisb.org.uk/convention/aisb07/index.html Files should be submitted as MS Word or PDF documents.

REVIEWING PROCESS

Submissions will be judged on relevance to the symposium themes, originality, quality and clarity.
Each paper will be reviewed by at least two referees. Authors are asked to take care not to identify themselves in their submissions, as the reviews will be anonymous. The reviewers will give the authors feedback on their papers.

ORGANISERS

Symposium Co-Chairs

Daniela M. Romano University of Sheffield
Paul Brna University of Glasgow
Judy Robertson Heriot-Watt University
Sandy Louchart Heriot-Watt University

PROGRAMME COMMITTEE:

Ahmed BinSubaih - University of Sheffield
Ana Pavia - INESC-ID/Instituto Superior Técnico, Portugal
Daniel Kudenko - University of York
Dave Moffat - Glasgow Caledonian University
Doron Friedman - University College London
Isabel Machado Alexandre - DCTI - ISCTE and INESC-ID
Judith Good - University of Sussex
Lisa Gjedde - University of Education Dk
Marc Cavazza - Teesside University
Marco Gillies - University College London
Maria Roussou - MakeBelieve.gr
Nicolas Szilas - TEFCA geneva
Patricia Azevedo Tedesco - Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, Brazil
Peter Wallis - University of Sheffield, UK
Paul Richmond - University of Sheffield, UK
Ruth Aylett - Heriot-Watt University
Stephane Donikian - IRISA
Stephane Bura - Elsewhere Entertainment
Sue Thomas - De Montfort university, UK

The Department of Computer Science, Regent Court, 211 Portobello Street, Sheffield, S1 4DP, UNITED KINGDOM
Dpt Tel: +44 (0) 114 222 1800, Dpt Fax: +44 (0) 114 222 1810, Email: dept@dcs.shef.ac.uk