Ahmed BinSubaih
A.BinSubaih@dcs.shef.ac.uk
Supervisors:
Dr. Steve Maddock
Dr. Daniela Romano
2003-2007

Research

The research investigates two topics:

1- Using a Serious Game for training:
The use of serious games for training traffic accident investigators at Dubai Police. Currently new police officers recruited by Dubai Police go through the same training process, which consists of lectures and on-the-job training (designed for their specific rank category). The training is administered by Dubai Police Academy which also accepts recruits from other Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, Republic of Yemen, and Palestine. The training duration varies from 6 months to 4 years, based on the rank category. During the course and after graduation, recruits are assigned to police stations and departments in which they receive further on-the-job training. Considering that in Dubai traffic accidents kill one person every 37 hours and injure one person every 3 hours. Novice traffic accident investigators are expected to 'learn by doing' in this intense environment. Currently, they use no alternative to the real world in order to practice. We argue for the use of an alternative learning environment, where the novice investigator can feel safe in exploring different investigative routes without fear for the consequences. The environment should also encourage repetition and social interaction.

Findings:
Fifty-six policemen took part in an experiment involving a virtual traffic accident scenario. They were divided into two groups: novices (0 to 2 years experience) and experienced personnel (with more than 2 years experience). (see BinSubaih et al, 2006c)

Novices managed to improve their performances by 36.17% (t(15)=17.01, p<0.05, t critical two-tail=2.13).
Experienced managed to improve their performances by 23.54% (t(13)=7.88, p<0.05, t critical two-tail =2.16).
The experiment revealed significant performance improvements in both groups, with the improvement reported in novices significantly higher than the one reported in experienced personnel.
Both groups showed significant differences in navigational patterns (e.g. distances travelled and time utilization) between the two training sessions.

2- Building an Architecture to Enable Porting a "Game" between Game Engines:
The problem with the current game development approaches is the tight coupling they introduce between the "game" and the game engine. This makes porting the game to another engine cumbersome. We have built an architecture called Game Space based on a service-oriented design philosophy that enables a game to be developed externally and be serviced to two different game engines without modifying the game to suit that engine (BinSubaih et al, 2006; BinSubaih et al, 2005d).


A Serious Game for Traffic Accident Investigation using Torque game engine.	After action review (AAR) generated to enhance learning.	The Emirates Evening Post (30-Jan-06), Page 6.	Al-Amn Magazine (April, 2006) - Arabic

Publications

2008

BinSubaih, A., and Maddock, S. (2008). Game Portability Using a Service-Oriented Approach. International Journal of Computer Games Technology (IJCGT)(In press).

BinSubaih, A., Maddock, S., and Romano, D. (2008). Developing a serious game for police training. In Handbook of Research on Effective Electronic Gaming in Education, Ferdig, R.E. (Ed.) Information Science Reference (In press).

2007

BinSubaih, A., Maddock, S.(2007). G-factor Portability in Game Development Using Game Engines. The Third International Conference on Games Research and Development 2007 (CyberGames 2007)10-11 September 2007, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK, pp. 163-170.

BinSubaih, A., Maddock, S., Romano, D. (2007). A Survey of ‘Game’ Portability. Department of Computer Science Technical Report CS-07-05, 2007, University of Sheffield.

2006

BinSubaih A., Maddock S., Romano D.M. (2006c). "A Serious Game for Traffic Accident Investigators". Special Issue of International Journal of Interactive Technology and Smart Education on "Computer Game-based Learning."

BinSubaih A., Maddock S. (2006b). "Using ATAM to Evaluate a Game-based Architecture". Workshop on Architecture-Centric Evolution (ACE 2006). Hosted at the 20th European Conference on Object-Oriented Programming ECOOP 2006 July 3-7, 2006, Nantes, France.

BinSubaih A., Maddock S., Romano D.M. (2006). "An Architecture for Portable Serious Games". Doctoral Symposium, hosted at the 20th European Conference on Object-Oriented Programming ECOOP 2006 July 3-7, 2006, Nantes, France.

2005

BinSubaih A., Maddock S., Romano D.M. (2005d). "Game Logic Portability". ACM SIGCHI International Conference on Advances in Computer Entertainment Technology ACE 2005, Computer Games Technology session, June 15-17th, Valencia, Spain.

BinSubaih A., Maddock S., Romano D.M. (2005c). "Comparing the use of a tabletop and a collaborative desktop virtual environment for training police officers to deal with traffic accidents: Case study" International Conference on Engineering Education. July 25-29th, Gliwice, Poland.

BinSubaih A., Maddock S., Romano D.M. (2005b). "OntRAT: Ontology-Based Rules Acquisition Tool". m-ICTE2005, 3rd International Conference on multimedia and Information & Communication Technologies in Education. June 8-10th 2005, Caceres, Spain.

BinSubaih A., Maddock S., Romano D.M. (2005). "Tabletop vs CVE Police Training" (Poster). PRESENCE 2005, The 8th Annual International Workshop on Presence, London, England, September 21-23, 2005

2004

Bin Subaih, A., S.C.Maddock, D.Romano. (2004c). "A collaborative Virtual Training Architecture for Investigating the Aftermath of Vehicle Accidents", Proc MESM 04 (Philadelphia University, Amman, Jordan) September 14-16, 2004.

Bin Subaih, A., S.C.Maddock, D.Romano. (2004b). "A Domain-Independent Multiplayer Architecture for Training", International Workshop in Computer Game Design and Technology (GDTW 2004), November 15-16th, Liverpool, UK.

Bin Subaih, A., S.C.Maddock, D.Romano. (2004). "An Architecture For Domain-Independent Collaborative Virtual Environments", Proc. GAME-ON 2004, November 25-27th, Ghent, Belgium.

Committees:

Other Projects/Achievements: