Gamifying a PhD taught module: A Journey to Phobos and Deimos

Gamification is the incorporation of game mechanics into a non-gaming environment such as business, health and education. In 2013 the author taught an Internet based semester module on Information Technology. The participants in that module were in full-time employment and often also had family commitments. During that semester nearly 80% of the homework was returned late. In 2014 the author taught the same semester module to a similar group of participants; however, the author included eight different game mechanics in the module. These eight mechanics were over-arching story, short term goals, points, leaderboards, badges, levelling, onboarding and engagement loops. This paper describes how these eight mechanics were introduced into the module and the positive results which were obtained.