Abstract

Educational simulations can help mitigate the natural gap between traditional education styles and the current professional world. Researchers at BYU have developed an educational simulation solution called Playable Case Studies (PCSs). PCSs are simulations that expose the user to real world scenarios and problems within a pre-built environment. With rising demand and use of these educational simulations, there is a need for easy and inexpensive ways to develop these simulations or Playable Case Studies (PCSs). We propose a content management system (CMS) that is tied to a system that utilizes dynamic modules that make up these simulations. We present a basic design and identify core functionality of the system. We include our results from utilizing this system and what future developments can enable the goal of easy and inexpensive development of PCSs. In this study, we identify the design features needed for an easy to use, efficient content management system for educational playable case studies. We began by identifying both pain points in our old system and the features that would address these issues. We then designed and built a new system that included these features. In the testing of this new system, we primarily looked at the ease of building a new PCS with minimal technical knowledge. Although this project was a success overall, there are still points of failure due to the direct manipulation of JSON by content creators (who were not all developers), among other minor issues that need correcting. Overall, we found that our design was effective in providing an efficient platform for creating and maintaining PCSs.

Degree

MS

College and Department

Ira A. Fulton College of Engineering and Technology; Technology

Rights

https://lib.byu.edu/about/copyright/

Date Submitted

2022-04-18

Document Type

Thesis

Handle

http://hdl.lib.byu.edu/1877/etd12119

Keywords

content management system, CMS, playable case study, PCS, alternate reality games, ARG, educational games

Language

english

Included in

Engineering Commons

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