“Gamification” is the free online course offered by the University of Pennsylvania with collaboration to Coursera. Gamification is about absorbing the fun elements in a game, its mechanics or game techniques into real-world applications. It is the application of digital game design techniques to non-game problems, such as business and social impact challenges.

The course is specially designed for the students who are interested in gamification or games. In this course students will learn about the mechanisms of gamification, about its tremendous potential and its effective use.

In today’s era video games is the liking of all the age groups and they are the best source of entertainment. From the past two years gamification as a business practice has explored the market. Many organizations are using gamification in their business activities like marketing, human resources, productivity enhancement, sustainability, training, health and wellness, innovation and customer engagement.

Duration of the course

This course will start from 27^th January 2014 for the duration of 10 weeks. Candidates have to spend 4-8 hours/week on this course.

Eligibility

This course is an introduction to gamification as a business practice and for this course no particular technical knowledge or coursework is required. Anyone interested in gamification or games can be the part of this course.

Course Syllabus

The course is divided into 12 units. 1-2 of them will be covered each week. The division of units is as follows:
1. What is Gamification?
2. Games
3. Game Thinking
4. Game Elements
5. Psychology and Motivation (I)
6. Psychology and Motivation (II)
7. Gamification Design Framework
8. Design Choices
9. Enterprise Gamification
10. Social Good and Behavior Change
11. Critiques and Risks
12. Beyond the Basics

Course Format

The class will consist of video lectures of 7 to 12 minutes in length with quiz questions. All the video lectures will be available in English, Russian and in Turkish language. 1-2 units of lectures will be posted each week for the convenient study of the students. There are also multiple-choice homework assignments for most of the weeks, three short peer-graded written assignments and a multiple-choice final exam.

Statement of Accomplishment

After successfully completing the course students will receive a Statement of Accomplishment signed by the instructor.

About the Instructor

Kevin Werbach will be the instructor of the course. He is an Associate Professor of Legal Studies at The Wharton School of University of Pennsylvania. He is an expert on the legal, business and public policy aspects of the Network Age. He is a leader in the field of gamification and the co-organizer of the first-ever business school gamification course.