“Putting the Fun in Functional: Entertainment for Serious Applications”
The 18th IFIP International Conference on Entertainment Computing, the oldest and prime scientific conference series in the area of Entertainment Computing, and the Joint Conference on Serious Games (Serious Games Development and Applications and GameDays International Conference on Serious Games), will join together this year in the historical city of Arequipa, Peru.
Arequipa is at 2335 meters above sea level and surrounded by three impressive volcanoes. Arequipa is also known as The White City (Ciudad Blanca) because of its many colonial-era Spanish buildings built of “sillar”, a pearly white volcanic rock. The city is about an hour away by plane from Lima; about 35 minutes away of Cuzco by plane (close to Machu Picchu) , about 8 hours by bus to the Nazca lines (Ica city), and about 2 hours by plane to the Amazon jungle (Iquitos city).
The two conferences solicit cross-disciplinary papers that span the gamut of the study, design, production, ethics and interaction with: interactive digital entertainment; art installations; entertainment robotics; interactive storytelling; entertainment, critical, news, persuasive and serious games; and multimedia.
The conferences aim at presenting high quality scientific results spanning from theory to applications, use cases and experiments. We solicit paper, poster and demonstration submissions, as well as proposals for tutorials and workshops.
A special theme this year will be on designing for entertainment in serious applications. After many years of research on serious games, meta-analyses showed serious games to be effective learning tools, in some cases even more effective than conventional instruction, however their motivating qualities still to be somewhat lacking. The co-hosting of ICEC and JCSG creates a unique venue to publish and learn about the interplay of interactive entertainment, art, design and serious applications with researchers from all fields.
Scientists and practitioners are cordially invited to present their latest research achievements and best-practice results. Submissions are possible in the form of full papers (e.g., new methods and concepts, technologies, tools, evidence based studies and surveys), short papers (e.g. best-practice results or new ideas and concepts, not necessarily empirically assessed with an evaluation study), demo papers (description of interactive experiences, serious games, products/titles and experiential prototypes that you want to present), poster presentations (new ideas, research approaches, work in progress) or workshop and tutorial proposals (half day).
Full and short technical papers are the main media for presenting new research results to the communities of ICEC and JCSG. Submissions should describe novel unpublished work relating to one or more of the topics listed above. All technical papers will be published in the official Springer LNCS proceedings.
Papers must be submitted in the Springer LNCS format (see above). Full Technical Paper submissions have a maximum of 12 pages in length and Short Technical Paper submissions have are maximum of 6 pages. Paper length should reflect the contribution and maturity of the submission and reviewers from the ICEC-JCSG 2019 program committee will be instructed to judge the contribution of a paper relative to its length. For example, typical contributions presenting significant research advances/results should be around 8-12 pages in length (Full Technical Papers) while contributions presenting less-mature, on-going or more focused approaches/results should be around 5-6 pages in length (Short Technical Papers). Papers with exceeding length relative to their contribution will be rejected. Accepted papers will be divided into two categories, long presentations and short presentations. The committee may accept papers conditionally or for a different category. Authors may be asked to either shorten or lengthen their paper accordingly.
Posters provide an interactive forum in which authors can present work to conference attendees during special poster sessions. Posters provide an opportunity to describe new work or work that is still in progress. A poster submission is a maximum of 4 page in Springer LNCS format, describing the research problem, contribution, and value to ICEC-JCSG attendees, submitted as a PDF file. All short poster papers will be included into the official Springer LNCS proceedings.
Peer-reviewed demonstrations, installations and games show early implementations of novel, interesting, and important entertainment computing concepts, systems, installations or games, or can serve to showcase commercial products not previously described in the research literature. Both research and industry is encouraged to send in and showcase demonstrators of novel approaches to entertainment. We particularly encourage demonstrations with which attendees can interact and play. A demonstration, installation or game submission consists of a document with max. four pages: an extended abstract that should be no more than three Springer-format pages in length, plus an extra page with a link to an online video and a list of a) technical requirements including electrical and connectivity needs and b) space requirements including display and footprint needs.
By default, demos and games will have a table, chairs and internet connection available. By their nature, interactive installations are intended for larger, potentially public spaces. We will try to accommodate for the needs of these types of installations, but please include a minimal set-up so that we know the range of requirements that we will need to meet. Successful authors of demonstration/installation submissions will be contacted by the chair to confirm the availability of the requested resources. The abstract, digital video and requirements supplement must be submitted electronically.
We invite proposals for workshops and tutorials that will be held in conjunction with ICEC-JCSG 2019. We invite proposals in all areas of entertainment computing and serious games research (see conference topics listed above) and particularly welcome proposals that will focus on and promote discussion on new and emerging trends in these areas. Workshop or Tutorial proposals should be four pages in length (in the Springer LNCS format) and must include the following information:
The Doctoral Consortium provides an opportunity for doctoral students to explore and develop their research interests in an interdisciplinary workshop, under the guidance of a panel of distinguished researchers in entertainment computing and/or serious games. We invite students who feel they would benefit from this kind of feedback on their dissertation work to apply for this unique opportunity to share their work with students in a similar situation as well as senior researchers in the field. The strongest candidates will be those who have a clear idea and an area, and have made some progress, but who are not so far along that they can no longer make changes. Also, as well as stating how you will gain from acceptance, both you and your advisor should be clear on what you can contribute to the Doctoral Consortium.
The Consortium will provide a supportive setting for feedback on students’ current research and guidance on future research directions. It will also offer each student comments and fresh perspectives on their work from researchers and students outside their own institution and promote the development of a supportive community of scholars and a spirit of collaborative research.
Current graduate students pursuing a PhD project who would benefit from detailed workshop discussions of their doctoral research should submit a single PDF file consisting of a 4-page extended abstract of your thesis work in Springer LNCS format, clearly specifying the originality of the work with respect to current concepts and techniques, the importance of the work with respect to fundamental issues and themes in entertainment computing, results to date and their validity and contribution of the work (expected and/or achieved) to entertainment computing and/or serious games.
Candidates also must send his/her CV, the sponsor name and affiliation and one-paragraph statement of expected benefits of participation for both yourself and the other consortium participants (i.e., what will you contribute as well as gain).
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