COMPARING THE INTEGRATION OF A SERIOUS GAME IN A MASSIVE OPEN ONLINE COURSE AND IN A REGULAR UNDERGRADUATE COURSE

In our previous papers (Nunes et al., 2016; Oliveira et al., 2017), we have explored the 4 mini-games of Deborah Game and the use of technology in teaching Accounting History, focusing on the game about the Modern Accounting History, respectively. We also had the opportunity to explore the use of Design Thinking method in the development of the game about the Medieval Accounting History (Nunes et al., 2014). In addition, Nunes (2016) approached Deborah Game aiming at investigating the position of students regarding the myth of Accounting neutrality in a quasi-experiment which associated students perception and their Accounting History knowledge.

In this present paper, we intend to focus on the integration of Deborah Game in two different learning environments: a MOOC on Accounting History and a regular undergraduate Accounting course. The MOOC was offered in the Coursera platform in two editions in 2015. The regular course was offered at University of Sao Paulo (Brazil), in four classes in 2015 and 2016, under Professor Cornacchione's responsibility, who was honored with the 2016 Innovation in Accounting History Education Award, by The Academy of Accounting Historians (United States), which stated that “The course that you offer, Accounting History, which includes the integration of your unique Deborah Game is a prime example of the type of education innovation that the Academy encourages”.

Some challenges we have faced: (i) the progressive discontinuance of browsers supporting the webplayer of the development tool we have used, the game engine Unity 3D; (ii) as it was the first game offered in the Coursera platform, there was no previous experience from their support team to share (although they offered help and encouraged us to do it).

We intend to offer subsidies for those interested in using serious games in MOOCs or regular courses, so that they can prevent some difficulties we have found in the process, making the integration easier.