VIDEOGAMES-BASED LEARNING IN MEDICAL STUDIES: EDUCATIONAL NEEDS AND FORMALIZATION OF TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS

Traditionally in Spain, the medical studies, despite having a six academic years, have devoted little space to the study of other disciplines outside the strict field of medicine, and have introduced at very slow rate as in other disciplines, teaching innovations and new techniques and computational resources to support teaching. The new degrees of medicine under the European Higher Education Area (EHEA), have included new matters such as biomedical research and Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). However, generalized teaching strategies and methodologies applied to the own medical subjects is still lacking.

Clear examples of new technological resources that could be applied in medicine are learning in virtual reality, augmented reality, wearable devices (i.e.: smart glasses, watches, bracelets, rings and necklaces); having a whole range of information systems infrastructures and communication networks (3G, 4G, Wi-Fi, etc.). Other ICT alternatives are video games called "serious games", because they have been designed for education or professional training by means of tools to promote a more "entertaining" learning in formal practices and disciplines. Many serious games are training simulators on highly specific tasks in risk clinical applications, such as surgery or emergency. But there are only a few set of games that address high theoretical level academic subjects and practices as in the first years of the Degree of Medicine. In the case of the Universitat Jaume I (UJI), it is applied a systemic implementation of the integrated curriculum model (each core subject integrates various approaches to studying the human body as a set of subsystems). The complexity of coordination and the systemic approach constitute a new challenge in the application of serious gaming in medicine for learning the human body subsystems.

On the other hand, video games are ICT, with a combined effort in artistic design and ergonomics (including cultural, linguistic and accessibility needs to develop ready multimedia products to meet multilingual environments and ensure gaming experience, whatever the language and place is used) plus a very deep technical and professional work in engineering and software development. Therefore it is necessary to study the feasibility of developing new type of video games, and how to systematically collect the teachers’ educational support needs and transform them into formal requirements.

Thus, the present work aims to tackle the requirement analysis of serious games in medicine studies, as the Degree of Medicine at UJI, especially on the human body subsystems. As the game development process is a peculiar software systems development, software requirements and development methodologies can be applied. We chose Rational Unified Process methodology with the Unified Modeling Language (UML-RUP) modeling language, than allows analysis requirements of virtually all types (data, functional; preferences, hardware; software, and security). It also allows collecting both static aspects (structure of information and non-functional requirements) and dynamic aspects (behavioral and functional requirements) of a video game. Moreover, this approach also allows the integration of video game design techniques, taking into account the specific approaches that develop the use of game design elements in non-leisure contexts, generically called "gamification".