The UConn Operations and Information Management (OPIM) Department conducted a Gamification workshop on Friday, April 14. This comes as a part of a series of technology workshops being held by the department throughout the semester as a part of the OPIM Innovate Initiative.

OPIM Professor Jon Moore, one of the coordinators of OPIM Innovate, taught the workshop. Moore, also, currently teaches a course on Gamification here at UConn. The workshop gave students some background on the process of Gamification and an activity on the topic.

Gamification is the study of creating experiences that increase engagement and learning in variety of different environments – such as, marketing, customer engagement, training and efficiency enhancement, Moore said. The importance of Gamification has grown because of the increase in customer data and, in turn, the acquisition of more accurate analytics data that can predict and display exactly what clients want, he said.

“I believe that Gamification is a new topic and pretty exciting to study,” Moore said.

Many students that have taken his class are Management Information Systems (MIS) majors, but Moore said what is interesting about Gamification is that it attracts a diverse audience, because it is applicable for many different majors.

Moore’s goal for the workshop was to spark students’ interest in Gamification and to introduce the topic to those who did not know about it beforehand. He said he hoped to gain the interest of potential students and to lead them into taking his Gamification class in the Fall.

One of the students in attendance, Shanzay Iqbal said she thought the workshop and the topic was very interesting. Iqbal has attended most of the OPIM Department’s workshops throughout this year.

“I really enjoyed the activity because it engaged students. Some of the other workshops are more of a lecture format and aren’t as interesting. I’m a hands on person so I liked that,” Iqbal said.

Moore said he included an activity to keep his audience engaged throughout the workshop. He said because Gamification software is less hands-on, he decided to add a group activity halfway through the workshop.

Moore was pleased with the outcome of the workshop with positive responses overall from the students in attendance. He said that many students approached him following the workshop, showing interest and seeking more information on the topic.

Additionally, Moore said he is looking for students who are interested in helping with Gamification consulting in the future, because many companies and outside organizations have shown interest in partnering in the space.

The last workshop of the semester, Exploring IoT through SPLUNK Analytics, will be taking place on Friday, April 21st in the Gladstein Lab. Please register here to reserve your spot in the workshop, as space is limited.