Open source portals for online simulation games? The computer-supported business game "Go4C" for realistic IT and business management training

Matthias Baume, Yuriy Taranovych, Helmut Krcmar

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapterpeer-review

Abstract

The education and training of IT in interrelation to business management at universities is seen more and more critical in the last years because of often delivered 'inactive' knowledge and the lack of reference to reality. By contrast surveys of companies and management executives disclose a strong need for IT managers with a wide range of knowledge and skills: Holistic competencies for analysis of business values, (strategic) decision making in strong time restrictions, thinking in processes, and in particular the ability for communication, discussion and presention. One effective way for the instruction of sustainable and future-oriented decision making is the work with computer-supported business games. Realistic web-based business games for IT and management training, however, can reach a high complexity and in most of the cases demand various elements like user administration, authorization, community tools and a dynamic business model of the simulated company. Hence, a 'from scratch' development of an online platform for business games is a very laborious and time-consuming process. Existent open source portals can provide a powerful basis for the online business game development. Portals deliver a solution for the aggregation of content and individual applications and moreover offer a single point of contact, customized views and even collaboration features via an easy-to-use web interface. Because of the disclosed source code of open source portal projects, the portal features can be enhanced with the requirements of a business game like the business model or the specific views on business ratio systems or game management tools. These applications are plugged into the portal as so called portlets or portlet applications. On the basis of academic research the chair for information systems of Prof. Helmut Krcmar at the TU München in cooperation with the management consultancy Accenture designed, implemented and evaluated a web-based, computer-supported business game for IT management training for students and entrants in IT management. The current online version of the business game is totally integrated into an open source portal structure. "Go4C" regards a holistic approach for the strategic and operational IT- and business planning, controlling and monitoring. The fundamental training aims are derived from current studies and interviews with executives of the first and second leadership level in different industries in connection with learning theory, didactical principles and multimedia integration. In our paper we give insights into the conceptual and technical framework of the business game "Go4C" on the basis of the "Liferay" open source portal. Moreover the paper delivers an overview of the different game concepts and the didactical framework behind the business game. Finally we present first evaluation results of the practical trainings with students and executives in IT strategy.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publication2nd European Conference on Games Based Learning, ECGBL 2008
EditorsMark Stansfield, Thomas Conolly
PublisherDechema e.V.
Pages31-42
Number of pages12
ISBN (Electronic)9781906638184
StatePublished - 2008
Event2nd European Conference on Games Based Learning, ECGBL 2008 - Barcelona, Spain
Duration: 16 Oct 200817 Oct 2008

Publication series

NameProceedings of the European Conference on Games-based Learning
Volume2008-January
ISSN (Print)2049-0992

Conference

Conference2nd European Conference on Games Based Learning, ECGBL 2008
Country/TerritorySpain
CityBarcelona
Period16/10/0817/10/08

Keywords

  • Computer-supported business game
  • Open source portals

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