Designing a Game-Inspired Learning Management System

Through the experience of implementing game-inspired grading systems in undergraduate courses at a large university, we found ourselves pushing the boundaries of what was functionally possible in current Learning Management Systems. Simultaneously, students reported difficulty understanding the core requirements of the course ‘game’, recognizing the various pathways available for them to succeed, and assessing their course performance. In response to these articulated needs (and using the classic videogame user dashboard as inspiration) we developed a custom learning management system to better support game-inspired courses and foreground the affordances of gameful course design.