Data literacy and serious games: Can the gamification of open data provide a solution to its disuse?

Abstract

Problems arise in communities that are sometimes either not easily addressable, while other times the issue is not always as evident and transparent as we would tend to believe. Open data can help in this matter by providing data about a number of dimensions that, when analyzed, can produce insight into what the problem is and how to cater to it. But open data is not always as readily usable by the general public, who could potentially use it for the betterment of societies. Thus, the main objective here is to explore whether providing open data in a more palatable and enjoyable manner in the form of a serious game would help the average citizen to interact with it and potentially become data literate. Additional questions involve whether the implementation of different strategies in serious games prompt different responses from individuals, and whether the various players having different psychological preferences would react differently to the serious games. The theoretical section sheds light upon the various topics under consideration, and then upon the gamified interface to open data, collected from an initiative called Sensei, created for the research. It also explains the survey used to gather responses from the users about their playing preferences and about their experience with the application. The results show that serious games can indeed help support the fight for data literacy, but with a number of considerations. It shows that certain types of information may be inherently uninteresting to some people despite however much it is well incorporated. The study also delivers a set of considerations that can thereby act as solid foundation for further research.