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We consider the important role of universities in urban development of the cities of the future. The new promising live gaming practices, business communications, and strategy games can help with it. During a few years we have been actively using promising new technologies in a playful way. The purpose of the games is to identify the leaders of future changes, to involve the public organizations, business communities and city administrations in joint venture. The proposed project activity in a team game combines lightness, creativity, game, logic, expert knowledge and communication. On the basis of real city cases, a space is created for open and trusting cross-social communication between representatives of government, business, public associations, and active citizens. Through solving the cases, the participants analyze the role of various communities in the economy, law, politics and social sphere. They also exchange methods of studying the communities’ functioning and how to assess these community’s impact on the development processes of institutions and territories. Game practices are accessible to everyone through the disciplines of educational programs, additional training and socially significant events of urban communities. Thus, forming an active civic life position, games involve active citizens and young people in resolving issues of urban development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

“If I am really making a game for players, and not in order to improve the number of site visitors, or conversion rate, or productivity, etc., what shall I do”? – is the key question for a game developer. What shall I do to make a game that is interesting for players, and reflects certain issues or demands. After experiencing games as add-ons for traditional education, the authors decided to implement their own ideas and projects of educational games. Several gaming sessions were performed with people from different age groups with different requests and preferences concerning the games. Results include recommendations on organizing games for a large number of people, and methods for presenting data to players in condensed format to facilitate gaming process and make it transparent. The experience will be used to improve methods authors used to run educational games, correct revealed shortcomings, and gain additional support for new learning techniques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Project management office was organized as a tool designed to facilitate collaboration in mixed teams including undergraduate and graduate students, with postgraduate students and industry representatives, train students using real industry cases, and achieve student acquaintance with academic and industrial projects. In order to introduce students to project activities and teamwork, game-based methods were implemented. The paper describes experience and issues encountered while designing tools for improving student involvement and interest in project technologies. First negative experience of participating in an international project competition is described, along with lessons learned. It is demonstrated, that achieving early student buy-in through collaborative game-based activities improves team cohesion, level of student satisfaction, academic grades and overall learning results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper describes results of using a design approach, which combines gamification and electronic learning (elearning) for teaching management students in engineering disciplines. The focus of the research was to determine, which combination of approaches and methods would provide the most effective from the students' perspective. A sample of students (n = 170) was randomized and divided into a reference group and two test groups. The reference group was taught using the traditional face-to-face learning approach of Ural Federal University. Test group 1 was selected for teaching by elearning, and test group 2 was taught using a combined traditional and distant learning approach. The total sample of students was pretested at the beginning of the course to establish a baseline for comparison purposes. On completion of the study at the end of the course all the students took a standardized test in order to assess learning results. Self-reported levels of student satisfaction were encouragingly good and the paper presents test statistics along with a discussion on the results of the student feedback. The efficiency of the three methods is explored with suggestions for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper covers the experience of organizing and running the elective named "Game-Based management" in the 2016-2017 in the Ural Federal University. The course included fundamentals of gaming, game-based management and the main gamification tactics that can be used in management. Different approaches to course organization were tried in order to compare their efficiency, including traditional form, an online course, using the LMS-platform, and a mixed approach using online simulation tools. Academic achievements of the students were assessed using common tests. Results of the assessment demonstrate, that students that took the online version of the course demonstrated better theoretical knowledge, but their level of competences with regard to teamwork was lower. Recommendations on further improvement of the means and methods of conducting the course were formulated based upon observations, and student feedback. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]