The Creative Fuse team at the University of Sunderland have been busy!
Here’s a summary of their recently published papers in 2021-22.
1) Hall, L., Paracha, S., Flint, T., MacFarlane, K., Stewart, F., Hagan-Green, G., and Watson, D. (2022). Still looking for new ways to play and learn… Expert perspectives and expectations for interactive toys. International Journal of Child-Computer Interaction, Vol 31, Elsevier. p. 100361. ISSN 2212-8689.
URI: http://sure.sunderland.ac.uk/id/eprint/13778
Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijcci.2021.100361
This paper gathered expert opinion about interactive toys for play and learning. In-depth interviews with 15 experts from technology corporates, stakeholder organizations and academia using a semi-structured interview protocol were conducted. This study demonstrates that for experts’ interactive toys have higher perceived educational value than traditional toys or other forms of play although this is an intuition or an insight rather than based on direct evidence to support this view. Apart from the educational value, experts also spoke about the benefits of interactive toys in entertaining the children of busy parents, privacy, security and integrative features of smart toys. Based on analysis and interpretation a series of recommendations and directions have been provided.
2) Hall, l., Paracha, S., and Hagan-Green, G. (2022). Start with human, technology comes later: Values for the digital transformation of peacekeeping. Interacting with Computers Journal. Oxford Academic.
Official URL: https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/iwc?URL_MASK=d669d9f622cd4e2984f7627367178217
Using the value sensitive design approach to technology design, the paper extends its application to peacekeeping by integrating the human values and the values instantiated in existing or imagined technical designs. These values were distilled out of a mixed methods study carried out at a peace mission deployed in Africa. Analysis identified 4 horizontal themes (positive UX, integration, connectivity and privacy) across 3 use contexts (workplace productivity, personal physical safety and wellbeing). Core values were being safe, family connection, doing work well and being cared for by their organization. Such human—centered technological interventions will enhance the needed capabilities for the peacekeeping forces to win when they need to and safely enforce lasting peace in a dominant but non-violent fashion as much as possible.
3) Hall, L., Paracha, S., Mitsche, N., Flint, T., Stewart, F., MacFarlane, K., & Hagan-Green, G., and Dixon-Todd, Y. (2022). When will Immersive Virtual Reality have its day? Challenges to IVR adoption in the home as exposed in studies with teenagers, parents and experts. PRESENCE: Virtual and Augmented Reality 28: 169–201.MIT Press Direct.
Official URL: https://doi.org/10.1162/pres_a_00347
This paper reports a multi-method approach adopted to explore VR adoption in homes in a post- COVID world. The multi-method approach outlined in this paper garnered a significant amount of data, representing very different voices for the adoption of VR. The results of our multi- methods – gathering review, evidence and data from the literature, experts, teenagers and parents confirmed that, on the face of it, IVR adoption in the home looks unlikely. MIT Press PRESENCE is a 5-star longest-established academic journal that is devoted to research into teleoperation and virtual environments.
4) Paracha, S., Hall, L., & Shah, N. H. (2021). Leveraging Virtual Reality for Bullying Sensitization. International Journal of Virtual and Augmented Reality, 5(1), 1-16, IGI-Global.
Official URL: http://doi.org/10.4018/IJVAR.290045
In this article, we propose an ethically notable game as one that provides sensitization opportunities, through both design and gameplay, for encouraging ethical reasoning and reflection in children. To measure success, we present the results of two participatory design workshops with children and a user study carried out at Japanese elementary schools. The results underline the effectiveness of game-based learning to raise awareness of children on bullying victimization and eventually producing bystander intervention behaviour.
5) Hall, l., Paracha, S., and Hagan-Green, G. (2021). Appropriate Value-based ICTs in support of Frontline Peacekeepers. Proceedings of the 33rd British Human Computer Interaction Conference, London, UK.
Official URL: https://hci2021.bcs.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/BCS-HCI-2021-PrePub-Day-12.pdf
This paper reports a mixed methods study that was carried at the UN-MINUSMA to explore values in relation to effective peacekeeping and ICTs. Analysis identified 4 horizontal themes (positive UX, integration, connectivity and privacy) across 3 use contexts (workplace productivity, personal physical safety and wellbeing). Core values were being safe, family connection, doing work well and being cared for by their organization.