Grand Text Auto

Tiltfactor’s director gave day one’s closing keynote at Connected Life 2016: Collective Action and the Internet, a two day-long conference, held at the University of Oxford on 20th and 21st June 2016. The conference is dedicated to igniting multidisciplinary exchanges on internet research across information studies, digital humanities, psychology, engineering, business, health, and computer science. This is an excellent gathering focused on emerging research that brims with promise for the further of tech scholarship. @OxConnectedLife

On the 14th of May 2016, Tiltfactor’s director, Mary Flanagan, received an Honorary Doctorate in Design from the Illinois Institute of Technology. She was honored with an honorary degree with Ray Kurzweil, inventor, and Chris Gladwin, entrepreneur.

The degree recognized, among other significant contributions, the innovative focus human values in design, and research into gender in computing, in her work.

Mary Flanagan (Center) with President Cramb (Left), Ray Kurzweil, and Provost Frances Bronet (Right)

Tiltfactor Lab Open House

April 27 (Wednesday)
3:30 – 6:00pm
Room 245 in the Black Family Visual Arts Center (VAC)

Enjoy Thai appetizers and beverages while playing video games developed at Dartmouth’s very own Tiltfactor lab, including the award-winning Smorball, as well as top secret games still in development, and board and card games. Meet and chat about games and game design with Professor Mary Flanagan and the Tiltfactor team.

March is a time of many talks! Tiltfactor director Mary Flanagan spoke at the History and Theory of New Media Lecture Series at the University of California Berkeley. The audience represented those interested in art, dance, post colonial studies, gender studies, game design, and even peace studies. It was fantastic to meet you all!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Media contact: Amy D. Olson | Amy.D.Olson@dartmouth.edu | 603-646-3274

Dartmouth’s Tiltfactor Launches Games to Improve Access to Biodiversity Heritage Library Content

Smorball and Beanstalk Allow Players to Transcribe Texts through Play

HANOVER, N.H. – June 9, 2015 – Today, Dartmouth College’s Tiltfactor, an interdisciplinary studio that designs and studies games for social impact, announced the launch of two new crowdsourcing games, Smorball (smorballgame.org) and Beanstalk (beanstalkgame.org). The games have been created to improve access to books and journals online in the Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) collection by verifying the accuracy of text previously encoded by optical character recognition software.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Media contact: Amy D. Olson | Amy.D.Olson@dartmouth.edu | 603-646-3274

Dartmouth’s Tiltfactor Launches Games to Improve Access to Biodiversity Heritage Library Content

Smorball and Beanstalk Allow Players to Transcribe Texts through Play

HANOVER, N.H. – June 9, 2015 – Today, Dartmouth College’s Tiltfactor, an interdisciplinary studio that designs and studies games for social impact, announced the launch of two new crowdsourcing games, Smorball (smorballgame.org) and Beanstalk (beanstalkgame.org). The games have been created to improve access to books and journals online in the Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) collection by verifying the accuracy of text previously encoded by optical character recognition software.

Dartmouth College, in collaboration with the University of Maryland, has received an award for a cooperative agreement from the NEH’s Office of Digital Humanities to fund a workshop, “Engaging the Public: Best Practices for Crowdsourcing Across the Disciplines.”

This project will explore how “crowdsourcing” can encourage wide audiences to engage in humanities projects by participating in and contributing to research. The workshop is tentatively scheduled for May 2015; check the Crowdsourcing Consortium for Libraries and Archives’s website, crowdconsortium.org, for updates.

NEH Press Release
@NEH_ODH

Tiltfactor and the University of Edinburgh, Library and University Collections are excited to announce the addition of over 3,300 images from the University of Edinburgh to Metadata Games. This collection, a miscellaneous “gallimaufry” (a confused jumble or medley) of digitized items from Special Collections, displays the sheer variety and breadth of material held by the Centre for Research Collections.

Metadata Games is a free and open source (FOSS) crowdsourcing gaming platform that entices players to visit archives and explore humanities content while contributing to vital records. The suite enables archivists to gather and analyze information for digital media archives in novel and exciting ways. Metadata Games contains tens of thousands of media items from over 40 collections represented by 10 institutions.

On December 11, 2014 at 12pm EST, the Crowdsourcing Consortium for Libraries and Archives (CCLA) will hold its second 1-hour webinar titled, “Scoping and Funding Crowdsourcing Projects.” This webinar, hosted in conjunction with the OCLC, will explore how researchers, as well as libraries, museums and archives, interested in studying or using crowdsourcing techniques can seek funding for their ideas.

Crowdsourcing in the humanities is an emerging new area for museums, libraries, and archives. The CCLA was formed with the goal to unite leading-edge technology groups in libraries and archives as well as humanities scholars and scholars from the sciences in a conversation about best practices, shared toolsets, and strategies for using crowdsourcing.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Institute of Museum and Library Services-Funded
Crowdsourcing Consortium for Libraries and Archives
to Host Inaugural 2014 Open Webinar

Crowdsourcing 101: Fundamentals and Case Studies” Webinar
on October 29, 12pm EDT.

HANOVER, N.H. – October 20, 2014 –The Crowdsourcing Consortium for Libraries and Archives (CCLA) announced the first in a series of international webinars, titled ‘Crowdsourcing 101: Fundamentals and Case Studies,’ scheduled for October 29 at 12 pm EDT. Crowdsourcing in the humanities is an emerging new area for museums, libraries, and archives. The CCLA was formed earlier this year with an Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) award, with the goal to unite leading-edge technology groups in libraries and archives as well as humanities scholars and scholars from the sciences in a conversation about best practices, shared toolsets, and strategies for using crowdsourcing.

We are excited to announce Tiltfactor’s newest partnership with the American Antiquarian Society (AAS), which houses the largest and most accessible collection of printed materials from the United States, the West Indies, and parts of Canada pre-1876.

(political cartoon in 1836, from American Antiquarian Society collection)

Tiltfactor researcher Geoff recently represented the lab (and the Metadata Games project in particular) at the 2014 Human Computation Roadmap Summit, held at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, DC, from June 18-20. This 2.5 day workshop, which brought together a diverse array of scholars, researchers, and industry representatives from the field of human computation, focused on identifying key success stories and laying out potential future research directions concerning the use of various facets of human computation (including systems such as crowdsourcing platforms, social networks, and online games) for the betterment of society. In addition to utilizing a number of unique and creative approaches to trigger thought and discussion (e.g., an illuminating conversation with scientist and author David Brin centering on the value of science fiction in highlighting future horizons for human computation), the summit gave participants the opportunity to form smaller working groups to devise and iteratively refine a set of detailed research roadmaps for the potential employment of human computation to address a particular social cause or issue.

Earlier this month Tiltfactor game designer Max Seidman represented the lab at the annual Games for Health conference in Boston. The conference is exactly what it sounds like: a place where game experts, health professionals, and health stakeholders come together to share innovations in improving health and health care through games, as well as to be inspired to make further breakthroughs!

For Immediate Release

Tiltfactor is proud to announce a new collaboration with the British Library! To celebrate, Tiltfactor’s Metadata Games project will launch the new tagging game Ships Tag as part of a tag event called May Day! May Day! starting midnight on May 1st.

Come see Geoff and Max talk about the Metadata Games project this Friday at DPLAfest in Boston to get a first-hand look at the project’s newest games!

DPLAfest 2013 is a two-day series of DPLA-related workshops, discussions, and other hands-on activities that are free and open to the public celebrating the April 2013 launch of The Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) – a platform that aggregates and disseminates “the riches of America’s libraries, archives, and museums.”

Members of the Tiltfactor team are heading to Gen Con (August 15-18th in Indianapolis) next week to run a booth featuring our games! This year, our booth will have even more gaming fun! In addition to unveiling two card games at the convention, we’re bringing back big Buffalo, our favorite name dropping card game, with a twist. JOIN THE CONTEST AND WIN PRIZES!

Here’s how to play:

1. Follow our Twitter or Facebook to find out the latest pair of big Buffalo cards we’ve released. We’re going to tweet out a new pair at noon and 3:00PM everyday!
2. Bring a person who matches the description on both cards to the booth. If you’re the first to complete the challenge, then you both WIN AMAZON GIFT CARDS!

This past Friday was the second annual Dartmouth at Play event and it was a blast!

There were great discussions happening all afternoon, and it was enlightening and inspiring to hear alumni panelists talk about games and game design. Topics ranged from the fun, with questions such as, “Tell us of your biggest career success and your biggest failure,” to the serious, “Do games promote violence, or are they unfairly targeted? Has media desensitized the public?” to the practical, “How do you interest players with diverse play styles?”

This week is the Digital Arts Exhibition at Dartmouth! All week long FAB(rication) Lab has been going on in the Hopkins center with students and visitors learning about programming, animation,  and many other subjects that combine art and technology!

Tomorrow (Thursday, May 9th) from 7pm to 10pm in the Black Family Visual Arts Center will be the Digital Arts Exhibition with interactive installations, games to play, and student artwork! There will be food from Salt Hill Pub. There will be a student animation showing at 7:30pm and student live action showing at 9:00pm.

Dear Tiltfactor Fans,

Thanks to all who attended our open house yesterday exploring the possibilities of Persuasive Games! You made the open house a success! The Tilt team had a great time catching up with long-time fans and new faces over buffalo, ZOMBIEPOX, Alum Tag and many more games!

Nick and Gregorio Amaro chat at the open house

A special appreciation to those who participated in Geoff’s study – we had over 20 spontaneous participants in 2 hours! Look for new updates on our continued studies in the Upper Valley and beyond, our RePlay Health Initiative, and new metadata research and game development as we move into 2013. And as always, come by and playtest with the Tiltfactor team!

Postdoctoral researcher Geoff recently represented Tiltfactor at the International Academic Conference on Meaningful Play, held at Michigan State University. The conference brought together over 250 attendees representing more than 10 countries, all joined in the quest of designing and studying games that aim to enlighten, educate, inform, or persuade players in significant ways. During the three-day event, Geoff attended a number of inspiring keynote talks from the likes of Kurt Squire, Constance Steinkuehler, John Ferrara, Donald Brinkman, and Michael John, and panel discussions on topics ranging from “games for health” to “games and gender.” In addition, Geoff presented the Tiltfactor games Awkward Moment, buffalo, and POX for iPad at the conference reception and game exhibition, and delivered two well-received talks: one highlighting the completed games and initial research findings from the lab’s National Science Foundation-funded project to design games to reduce gender stereotypes in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM), and the second presenting the lab’s Metadata Games project as part of a panel exploring the interface between games and data. Special thanks to Carrie Heeter, Brian Winn, and the conference co-chairs, as well as Carrie Cole and the Michigan State graduate students, for organizing such a fantastic and inspiring conference!

If you’re at IndieCade this weekend, you’re in for a special Tiltfactor treat: sets are available of our latest game, the riotously fun party card game buffalo. Stop by the Gamer gardens booth behind the registration tent and see what it’s about!

Games for Health was awesome! Two weeks ago I gave a talk and demo at Ludica Medica II: Medical Modeling, Simulation, Learning & Training with Videogames & Videogame Technologies, an all-day event as part of the Games for Health Conference week in Boston. The day was filled with combination of larger discussions and game-specific talks, including my talk on the development and subsequent studies on POX: SAVE THE PEOPLE (available both as a board game and for iPad). Concurrently with the Ludica Medica session, the Out & About III: Mobile Serious Games Day was running as was Enabled Play: The Fourth Annual Games Accessibility Day. With all of these events happening at the same time, I jumped in and out of many great presentations and discussions covering such topics as exergaming apps, a program that helped families of military veterans with PSTD, and subversive game design. Below are some of my observations and quotes heard from the day:

(PDF version here)

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact:
cont…@tiltfactor.org
603.646.1007

Tiltfactor Laboratory is pleased to announce that ZOMBIEPOX™ has been selected for the IndieCade showcase at the 2012 annual Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) trade show at the Los Angeles Convention Center from June 5th to June 7th. E3 is presented by the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) and is the world’s premier trade show for video game and related industries, with last year’s attendance peaking at 46,800.
http://www.e3expo.com/

(PDF version here)

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact:
cont…@tiltfactor.org
603.646.1007

Dr. Mary Flanagan, director of Tiltfactor Laboratory and Sherman Fairchild Distinguished Professor in Digital Humanities at Dartmouth College, will deliver several talks this summer and fall on such topics as critical play, games as an art form, and games as a medium for social change. Scheduled venues include the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, the Games for Change Festival, and the IndieCade Conference.