Free Online Course: Gamification by Kevin Werbach via Coursera

Free Coursera Course: Gamification

This free online course from Coursera is taught by Kevin Werbach, an Associate Professor of Legal Studies and Business Ethics at the Wharton School of Business of the University of Pennsylvania.

After hearing about the class online I decided to sign up myself! Although I've downloaded a few class lectures from iTunes, I haven't yet registered for a Coursera class, so this one was my first class.

There's a video introduction for the class from Kevin Werbach himself and quite a few other resources I put together below. If you're new to Gamification, the following graphic provides a basic introduction to the concept, but I've also posted an introduction here on the blog that's a quick read.

Join me for this free class and learn how to take advantage of Gamification for whatever kind of business you are managing. Sign up for the free class blog about it yourself! If you leave your blog link in the comments, I'll be sure to share your links on the posts I'm going to be writing as I complete the coursework.

Kevin Werbach recorded an introduction to the class and posted the video on YouTube, so if you're curious but not sure exactly what Gamification is or why you might want to use it for growing your business, just watch the video below:

According to the Coursera website, "The course examines the mechanism's of gamification and provides an understanding of its effective use."

I watched the initial video after registering online and I am so excited I'm not only taking the class, but I'm going to blog the experience here and see if I can find any other students who are doing the same to join me and share our experiences together!

There are a couple of Suggested Readings for the free online class - For the Win: How Game Thinking Can Revolutionize Your Business, Wharton Digital Press (October 30, 2012) which was written by Kevin Werbach.

I've read it before based on a suggestion from Sam a while back and that was one of the reasons I was interested in taking the class in the first place.

It's a good read and provides a really accessible introduction to Gamification for anyone looking to explore the topic. I'm not surprised it was chosen, of course, but it is a valuable additional resource.

The Coursera listing confirms that this is an update from the previous Gamification course they offered.

Kevin Werbach at Supernova 2010

It does, however, appear that some concepts covered in this class were also covered in the two previous classes Kevin Werbach taught at the Wharton School of Business of the University of Pennsylvania.

I've been able to locate the previous course listings online and found these:

LGST240 - Gamification for Business

Gamification means using the techniques of digital game design to serve business and social impact objectives. The video game industry is now bigger than Hollywood because well-designed games take advantage of both technology and psychology.

Gamification takes the elements of games and applies them to real-world environments. Major companies and fast-growing startups now use it in marketing, human resources, innovation processes, healthand wellness, education, and customer engagement.

This course examines the mechanisms of gamification their effective use in business or other contexts. No particular technical skills or game knowledge are required. The focus is on gamification as a design practice, which it rootin research on human motivation and implemented through online systems and social media.

To illustrate these concepts, the course itself will be gamified.

The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania

LGST640 - Digital Game Design Techniques for Business: Rules, Incentives, Applications

Why can't work be fun? And just what is fun, anyway? Leading firms are answering that question through a new business practice called gamification. They are using the techniques of digital game designers to serve objectives as varied as marketing, human resources management, innovation, health and wellness, education, and customer engagement. This course, the first of its kind, examines the mechanisms of gamification and provides an understanding of their effective use.

The Course Wiki is publically available, although you do have to sign up for a free Coursera account, but hey you're taking this class with me, right, so no big deal, right?

I've gone through the classes and taken the syllabus and grouped the sections by calendar week below:

Infographic Courtesy gamificationcommunity.com

Syllabus & Weekly Class Summary

04/01/2013

1. What is Gamification?

2. Games

04/08/2013

3. Game Thinking

4. Game Elements

04/15/2013

5. Psychology and Motivation (I)

6. Psychology and Motivation (II)

04/22/2013

7. Gamification Design Framework

8. Design Choices

04/29/2013

9. Enterprise Gamification

10. Social Good and Behavior Change

05/06/2013

11. Critiques and Risks

12. Beyond the Basics

They also have a Video Office Hours Session every other week.

They hold the session via Google Hangout, the most recent being held Tuesday April 16, 2013. The next one is Tuesday, April 23, at 2:00pm Eastern Time (GMT -0400).

It will be streamed live and also archived on YouTube, like the most recent session.

If you want to participate in the discussion, it's open to everyone, just submit a proposed question on the Video Office Hours forum before 12:00pm ET (GMT -0400) on Thursday April 18, 2013.

Some Optional Materials shared from the first course:

Sebastian Deterding, et al, From Game Design Elements to Gamefulness: Defining “Gamification”, Proceedings of the 15th International Academic MindTrek Conference, 2011 (Academic paper offering a straightforward definition of gamification. I use a chart from this article in one of the lectures.)

Jesse Schell, Design Outside the Box, 2010 DICE conference presentation video. (Hilarious and provocative talk about the potential of gamification, which jumpstarted interest in the concept. A clip appears in one of the lectures.)