SAMPLE

DATA PLAN
DATA PLAN FOR NITROGEN CYCLE CARD GAME

OVERVIEW

This plan describes how materials generated in the development and assessment of The N Game (an educational
card game about the Nitrogen Cycle) will be managed, archived, and shared with various audiences. Coordinated
management of digital and physical materials generated in the project will allow us to curate the game design
process itself. It will enable collaboration between members of the project team design during the design and
development processes and facilitate dissemination of the completed game and community-building among
educators using the game at their institutions.

DATA AND METADATA DESCRIPTION

The types of data and metadata that will be produced are shown in the table below.

Data type
Game Design
and
Development

Game Assets

Game
Assessment

Description of data
Card and game board images in JPG
format

Google spreadsheets containing card
text and filenames of images in CSV
formats

Description of metadata
Embedded metadata in JPG files specifying Author, Date,
Copyright, Game Version, and Keywords

No metadata standards for game cards exist, to our
knowledge. Therefore, we will create a metadata
document (to be included with game design and
development files) that details how data are merged to
create cards and board. It will list dimensions and field
names of cards and board and include diagrams
demonstrating how fields are arranged in cards/board.
Printable files to produce cards, game - Version designation in file names
board, rules, and Instructors Guide in - Metadata embedded in PDF files, including Author,
PDF version 1.3
Date, Title, Subject, and Keywords
- Creative Commons license in the footer of PDF files
Results from pre/post-test results and A metadata document describing each dataset will be
student questionnaires. Data will be
prepared using the DDI 3.1 specification. This document
coded, all identifying information will will be retained in folders with assessment data.
be removed, and files will be retained
in SPSS format.
Videos and photos of students during - Embedded metadata in JPG files specifying Author,
playtest sessions in MPEG-4 and JPG
Date, Copyright, Game Version, and Keywords
formats
- Embedded metadata in MPEG-4 files specifying, Date,
Game Version, Location, Copyright, and Keywords
Archives of Wiki forum discussions by - XML files of the Wiki postings
instructors at other institutions
- Embedded metadata specifying Date, Name, Game
Version

DATA RETENTION, ACCESS, AND SHARING

N Game Design
Game design and development data will be retained with in our project space in UW-Google Apps for 2-5 years.
The UW-Madison has an agreement with Google which protects our intellectual property rights. This protection
does not extend to our off-campus collaborators, however. Therefore, we will share these files with external

SAMPLE DATA PLAN

collaborators using MyWebSpace (UW-Madisons file-sharing enterprise tool integrated with identity
management systems).

In addition, we plan to share our design process with researchers in the educational games field who are
interested in ways in which game designers, instructional designers, and disciplinary experts can collaborate to
produce effective but fun learning materials. We will present an analysis of our game design process, including
data from collaborative online tools used in this project at the Games, Learning, and Society, or other
appropriate conference.

N Game Assets
When the game development is complete, PDF files containing the game components, metadata documents,
and the instructors guide will be shared with the public on the project Wiki
(https://wiki.doit.wisc.edu/confluence/display/bacteriagame/N-Cycle+Game). We will also provide information
about online commercial printing services that can produce quality game components (cards, board) from the
PDF files at a reasonable cost. A goal of our project is to facilitate construction of games about other biological
cycles by other instructors. Therefore, we will distribute game design and development data files on the project
Wiki to enable these instructors to use our game design as a template for their own games. All game asset and
design files will be distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution license to encourage other educators to
create derivative works.

The Wiki will also include forums for educators to discuss curricular integration of the N Game and its impact on
their students learning. It will be maintained for a period of 5 years following completion of the project. We will
archive postings to the Wiki. We will disseminate the results of game design discussions and collaborations in
this virtual community of instructors in publications we produce that describe the impact of our game and any
spin-off games on learning and instruction.

N Game Assessment
While we are preparing articles describing the impact of the N Game on learning, data from our own student
assessments and play-testing will be stripped of identifiers and stored in a directory in MyWebSpace that can
only be accessed by project members, including off-campus collaborators. Data submitted with published
articles will be available to the public as downloadable CSV files, hosted on our departmental server. The entire
collection of assessment data will be permanently (10-20 yrs) archived on the same server, accessible only by
the PI and designated colleagues.

To contribute to a body of research on documenting educational games and the emergent gameplay of learners
in virtual worlds, we plan to submit artifacts of the N Game to Archiving Virtual Worlds
(http://www.archive.org/details/virtual_worlds) for long-term archiving. Research on preserving educational
games and their impacts on learners is accelerating and will likely result in additional disciplinary repositories in
this field, possibly as an outcome of the Preserving Virtual Worlds initiative at the Library of Congress. Therefore,
we will track progress in this area and submit game artifacts and metadata to these, as appropriate. We will also
submit N Game materials to more general, traditional educational sharing sites, such as MERLOT
(http://www.merlot.org/merlot/index.htm).

Derivative Games
Games developed by other members of the instructional community using the N Game as a template will be
documented and submitted to the Archiving Virtual Worlds repository. The FRBR (Functional Requirements for
Bibliographic Records) data model will be used to specify entity relationships, expressions, and manifestations of
each derivative work, based on differences in content and physical forms.