National Leadership Grant from IMLS to make an ARG toolkit

Scott Nicholson from the School of Information Studies at Syracuse University is the PI for a recently awarded grant designed to make an alternate reality game toolkit for academic libraries.   Dr. Nicholson, director of the Because Play Matters game lab, will be working with The Education Arcade from MIT and Jenny Levine from the American Library Association on the project over the next 18 months.

Here's the offical award announcement:

Syracuse University, School of Information Studies - Syracuse, NY
Congressional District: NY_25
Award Amount: $150,000; Matching Amount: $51,895
Category: Demonstration

Contact: Scott Nicholson
(315)443-1640; srnichol@syr.edu

Syracuse University’s School of Information Studies will partner with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Education Arcade and the American Library Association to plan, develop, and test an Alternate Reality Game Toolkit that could be used by libraries to create engaging game-based learning exercises. The toolkit’s framework will permit libraries to insert their own local content and resources and customize the game experience and learning objectives to meet their own local needs without having to build the entire educational game from the ground up. The project will focus initially on academic libraries and functionality that best supports educators and students at the college undergraduate level, but future work may extend to other types of libraries and target audiences.