It's Not All Fun and Games: A Games-Based Learning Project with Interdisciplinary Teams

This chapter explores the design and development process for the iLOOK game, a grant-funded educational game about information literacy at a large public university. This case is presented through the eyes of Leslie Anderson, a young librarian who is passionate about the subject matter but lacks the technical skills and managerial experience to implement her vision. It describes the challenges and successes of coordinating the project across departments with varying cultures. The key players include: a library content team, a computer science programming lab group, a humanities undergraduate research group, and an expert on educational games. Enthusiastic about the potential of games to enhance undergraduate students’ ability to access, evaluate, and use information, the partners began working on the grant with campus-wide support. However, they quickly ran into issues. ORGANIZATION BACKGROUND Morrill University is a large land grant institution created to serve the public with an emphasis on engineering and agriculture. The university is home to five libraries charged with meeting the academic needs of the students and faculty while promoting information literacy. The libraries are spread throughout the campus; among them the Peterson Library serves the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (CLAS), which is integral to supporting general education across all disciplines at Morrill. In this capacity, the library provides meeting spaces, reference services, classes, computer access, remote services and a wide variety of databases, books, journals, and other media. The Peterson Library enjoys a great deal of traffic, both on campus and online, as it serves a large proportion of students coming from the undergraduates and graduates in liberal arts and Hope Kelly University of Florida, USA Margeaux Johnson University of Florida, USA