e-SIM's

e-SIM's, or online role play spaces are an interesting way to design learning, particularly at graduate level.

There is a great example, in the Mekong e-SIM (McClaughlan and Kirkpatrick: //Online roleplay: design for active learning//, Euro. J Enginerering Education, 29,4, pp477-490).

We are in the process of designing an e-SIM, based on a more stripped down version, within Sustainable Development (see: http://sim4asialink.wikispaces.com/). It wil include the following:

The outline for the role-play is simple, and it should be kept that way.
 * Outline**

It is also, in the first instance, a role-play for students interested in the UK environmental and regulatory context. Once we have developed this game as a resource, it would be both interesting and useful to re-version the game for other country contexts, and then also re-version it for an international version of the game. But first things first, we need to develop version #1, and run it and see how it works. It could be useful to run it as a CPD course as well.

Five roles are involved, each of which is a ‘stakeholder’ in the process. These have to be specified on the basis of what the subject experts would suggest, but a guesstimate might yield a list like: > **Course Teams** > · The course participants are divided into 5 teams, one for each stakeholder, or role (the maximum should be about 8 in each team). > · Each team gets to present through their (one) stakeholder, in conferences, presentations, applications, emails, etc. > · Each team uses a real organisation, to build up a detailed corporate and individual persona for their spokesperson. These ‘real’ stakeholders should have a rich online presence, which can be ‘mined’ as the primary resource for building up the stakeholder presence by each course team. > **Role Play Master Team** > A team of academics manage the online simulation through a ‘role play master team’, and also document their own interactions on the process. > **The Role Play** > Each of the six teams (five Course teams and the Master team) document their interaction and their research as much as possible as they proceed. This is all private to each team during phase one. > The role play is focused on a particular facility that needs to be built. Specifications for the facility, and a ‘virtual geography’ of the surrounding environment are supplied to all at the start of the game.
 * Players**
 * 1) CEO of company planning to build a processing facility of some sort.
 * 2) Consultant/contractor, wanting to secure the contract for this facility.
 * 3) The State Environmental Regulator
 * 4) An Environmental lobby group: e.g. Greenpeace
 * 5) Town/ regional council with jurisdiction on planning permission.