From traces to indicators for serious games: case study concerning a new way to introduce product lifecycle management

Our research work deals with the development of new learning environments, particularly game-based learning environments. We have developed our own environment in which we apply the metaphor of exploring a virtual 3D world, where each student embarks on a quest in order to collect knowledge related to a learning activity. In this article, we explain how this work has been applied to the industrial domain in order to deal with 'change management'. Although the users appreciate this approach, there is an obvious need for information about learners' skills, especially for the teacher. For that purpose, we have equipped the different tools belonging to the learning environment to allow tracing facilities. We can thus update the learners' model when particular events occur, by using data collected from traces resulting from the collaborative learning activity. Several real experiments have been carried out at our university in the PLM domain.