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Creating a Virtual Training Environment for Traffic Accident

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Creating a Virtual Training Environment for Traffic Accident Creating a Virtual Training Environment for Traffic Accident Investigation for the Dubai Police Force Ahmed BinSubaih Doctor of Philosophy Department of Computer Science University of Sheffield October 2007 Abstract This research investigates the use of gaming technology (especially game engines) in developing virtual training environments, and comprises of two main parts. The first part of the thesis investigates the creation of an architecture that allows a virtual training environment (i.e. a 'game') to be portable between different game engines. The second part of the thesis examines the learning effectiveness of a virtual training environment developed for traffic accident investigators in the Dubai police force. The second part also serves to evaluate the scalability of the architecture created in the first part of the thesis. Current game development addresses different aspects of portability, such as porting assets and using middleware for physics. However, the game itself is not so easily portable. The first part of this thesis addresses this by making the three elements that represent the game's brain portable. These are the game logic, the object model, and the game state, which are collectively referred to in this thesis as the game factor, or G-factor. This separation is achieved by using an architecture called game space architecture (GSA), which combines a variant of the model-view-controller (MVC) pattern to separate the G-factor (the model) from the game engine (the view) with on-the-fly scripting to enable communication through an adapter (the controller). This enables multiple views (i.e. game engines) to exist for the same model (i.e. G-factor). The principal findings from the evaluation process reveal that GSA is capable of servicing the same G-factor to multiple game engines and that it supports modifiability. They also reveal that GSA adds little development overhead. The ability of GSA to scale to real world applications is demonstrated by the development of a virtual training environment. The second part of the thesis examines the development of a virtual training environment for traffic accident investigators in the Dubai police force. Their training needs were identified in a field study conducted in the summer of 2004 to assess the current training methods of lectures and on-the-job training. The virtual environment was then developed by combining game design and instructional design to ensure the learning objectives were integral to the gameplay. To evaluate the learning effectiveness of the virtual environment an experiment was conducted in February and March of 2006 for fifty-six police officers from the Dubai police force. They were divided into two groups: novices (0 to 2 years experience) and experienced investigators (with more than 2 years experience). The experiment revealed significant performance improvements in both groups, with the improvement reported in novices significantly higher than the one reported in experienced investigators. i Acknowledgements I would like to thank the Commander-in-Chief of Dubai Police, Lieutenant General Dhahi Khalfan Tamim for his constant encouragement ever since finishing my master's degree to pursue a PhD. I am also grateful to the Dubai police force for sponsoring this work. I would like also to thank my fellow officers in the Dubai police force for their support without which the field study and the experiments would have been very difficult to carry out. They have put up with my constant interruptions and did not mind me following them with a camera. They have gone out of their duty to help this endeavour. The serious game developed as part of this thesis would not have reached its current state without the constant refinement and without the expertise of the subject matter experts especially Brigadier Mohammed Al Zaffin, Lieutenant Colonel Mohammed Al-Ali, Major Khalid Kinsham, Major Omar Ashour, Captain Maher Bin Haider, and many others from the Dubai Traffic Department. During the field study, my first stop was to work at Bur Dubai police station and it was an experience that was made very insightful with the expertise, professionalism, and support of officers there. This list is by no means a comprehensive one. In fact, more than 100 officers contributed in one way or another. This work will always be indebted to you. I am also grateful to my friends in Sheffield who helped test the serious game. These are Khalfan Al Shoaili, Nasser Al Yarubi, Ahmed Al Shokaili, Ayoub Al Awadi, and Ahmed Bin Humaidan. I would like to express my sincere appreciation to my supervisor Dr. Steve Maddock. He was very influential in motivating me to do a PhD and the reason for selecting the University of Sheffield for another educational journey after already having done my undergraduate studies here. His endless support, encouragement, and invaluable guidance have made it all possible. I would also like to thank my second supervisor Dr. Daniela Romano for her motivation and her useful suggestions and feedback. Also thanks to my original second supervisor Dr. Gordon Manson and the panel for their comments and constructive criticism. This work is also shaped by comments from reviewers during the publication of the material in conferences, in a journal, and in a book chapter whose names remain unknown. Thank you all so much. Many thanks to all the members of the graphics group (past and present) for their help along the way. They have made the journey more tolerable and knowledgeable. Thanks to now Dr. Mike Meredith for his technical support and participating in the exchanges of jibes often about our social life or lack of it. Thanks to now Dr. James Edge for discussing my ideas, proof reading, and encouraging me to publish. Thanks to now Dr. Manuel Sanchez for sharing his knowledge about game development. Many thanks also to Dr. Alan Watt for keeping an eye on me when in fact someone needs to keep an eye on him! Many thanks also to the Sheffield Academy of ii Martial Arts where it was nice to get rid of all the frustration even though it sometimes meant being used as a punching bag. It was all worth it to teach me to keep my guards up and persevere. Many thanks to Sifu Graham Abdulla, his brother Adrian, and others at the academy for making me part of the Lau Gar Kung Fu family. What I have learned from you guys will always stay with me. This thesis would not have been possible without the endless support from my family and friends. I would specially like to thank my family for being patient despite the long gaps between visits. What made this even more difficult for me was missing on my nephews and nieces growing up. Also thank you for putting up with me forgetting sometimes how to behave in a conservative culture. This is partly to be blamed on the English Sitcom (Dad's Army, Steptoe and Son, Only Fools and Horses, Hancock's Half Hour, On the Buses, Till Death Us Do Part, Love Thy Neighbour, etc) and partly for spending 11 years in the UK. The journey started from learning English in 1994 in Torquay to this day with few years in between spent working in the Dubai police force. When I go back home I probably need a crash course (or a serious game) on culture. iii Research Publications Refereed Publications 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). BinSubaih, A., and Maddock, S. (2008). Game Portability Using a Service-Oriented Approach. International Journal of Computer Games Technology (IJCGT) (In press). BinSubaih, A., and Maddock, S. (2007). G-factor portability in game development using game engines. In Proceedings of 3rd International Conference on Games Research and Development 2007 (CyberGames 2007), pages 163-170. BinSubaih, A., Maddock, S., and Romano, D. (2006). A serious game for traffic accident investigators. Special Issue of International Journal of Interactive Technology and Smart Education on "Computer Game-based Learning.", 3(4):329-346. BinSubaih, A., and Maddock, S. (2006). 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 . BinSubaih, A., Maddock, S., and Romano, D. (2006). An architecture for portable serious games. Doctoral Symposium, hosted at the 20th European Conference on Object-Oriented Programming ECOOP 2006 . BinSubaih, A., Maddock, S., and Romano, D. (2005). Comparing the use of a tabletop and a collaborative desktop virtual environment for training police officers to deal with traffic accidents: Case study. In Proceedings of International Conference on Engineering Education , 2:94-100. BinSubaih, A., Maddock, S., and Romano, D. (2005). Game logic portability. In Proceedings of ACM SIGCHI International Conference on Advances in Computer Entertainment Technology ACE 2005 , Computer Games Technology session , pages 458-461. BinSubaih, A., Maddock, S., and Romano, D. (2005). OntRAT: ontology-based rules acquisition tool. In Proceedings of m-ICTE2005, 3rd International Conference on multimedia and Information & Communication Technologies in Education , pages 978-983. BinSubaih, A., Maddock, S., Romano D.M. (2005). Tabletop vs CVE Police Training (Poster). PRESENCE 2005, In Proceedings of 8th Annual International Workshop on Presence , London, England, September 21-23, 2005. BinSubaih, A., Maddock, S., and Romano, D. (2004). A collaborative virtual training architecture for investigating the aftermath of vehicle accidents. In Proceedings of Middle Eastern Simulation and Modelling Conference , pages 170-178. BinSubaih, A., Maddock, S., and Romano, D. (2004). A domain-independent multiplayer architecture for training. In Proceedings of International Workshop in Computer Game Design and Technology , pages 144-151.
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