Request for Proposal
The CyGaMEs solicitation is now closed. Proposal deadline was January 16, 2009, COB EST.
Serious game developers, educators, researchers, policy-makers, and funding agencies: CyGaMEs may be your opportunity to help develop, implement, or study a videogame that may ultimately transform how students learn and teachers teach.
The National Science Foundation (NSF) has funded the
CyGaMEs project through a grant to the Center for Educational Technologies® (CET) at Wheeling Jesuit University. CyGaMEs means
Cyberlearning through
GaME-based
Metaphor
Enhanced Learning Object
s. CyGaMEs studies the role of videogames in science education. Part of the grant is designated to the continued development of
Selene: A Lunar Construction GaME. In addition to refining the existing game, the awardee will design and develop new game components. In
Selene, whose original game concept and proof-of-concept were created by internationally recognized game designer Ian Bogost and his team of graduate students at Georgia Tech, players learn how Earth's Moon was formed as they create their own moon and then pepper it with impact craters and flood it with lava flows.
Selene is a cross-platform, online, single-player, casual game.
Selene will collect and post all gameplay data to an SQL database for analysis.
Thank you for your interest in this transformational project. If you would like to know more about Selene and the CyGAMEs project, please visit our
website.
Background
NSF awarded funding for CyGaMEs because the research program is potentially transformative. According to the NSF, "Transformative research describes a range of endeavors that promise extraordinary outcomes, such as revolutionizing entire disciplines, creating entirely new fields or disrupting accepted theories and perspective. It is research that has the potential to change the way we address STEM [science, technology, engineering and mathematics] challenges."
The grant continues research first funded by NASA at the Center for Educational Technologies in 2006. NASA had asked researchers to study how videogames could be used to disseminate NASA science and to assess how well students learn while playing the games. That effort resulted in the creation of
Selene.
Dates
| RFP available for distribution |
November 15, 2008 |
CyGaMEs Office Closed |
November 24-28, 2008 |
| Deadline for receipt of questions |
December 18, 2008 |
CyGaMEs Office Closed |
December 19, 2008 - January 2, 2009 |
| Deadline for receipt of proposal |
January 16, 2009 |
| Notification of finalists |
January 30, 2009, COB |
| Finalist proposal presentation at WJU |
February 5, 2009 |
| Projected award date |
February 20, 2009* † |
| Projected NSF approval of Awardee Budget |
March 20, 2009 |
| Projected contract start date |
March. 24, 2009 |
* Contingent upon NSF approval of winning proposer.
† Contingent upon NSF approval of contractor’s budget. The first two years of contractor funding are allocated, the remaining two years are contingent upon continued federal funding.
About Us
The Erma Ora Byrd Center for Educational Technologies (
www.cet.edu) houses cutting-edge educational technology in its 48,000-square foot facility on the campus of Wheeling Jesuit University. It is home to the NASA-sponsored Classroom of the Future, the space agency's principal research and development center for educational technologies, and the Challenger Learning Center®, one of 47 worldwide established by the Challenger Center for Space Science in memory of the space shuttle Challenger.
The youngest of 28 Jesuit colleges and universities in the United States, Wheeling Jesuit University offers students a high-quality private education. Since 1995 U.S. News & World Report has ranked Wheeling Jesuit University among the top institutions in its "Best Master's Universities in the South" category. The campus is also home to the Robert C. Byrd National Technology Transfer Center and the Clifford M. Lewis Appalachian Institute. For complete information about WJU, please visit
www.wju.edu or call 1 (800) 873-7665.
