Marketplace Community Newsletter

Vol. 1, No. 1, Spring 2005

Improvements to the Instructor/Game Design Site

The Web Marketplace Instructor and Game Design Sites Have Gone through Exciting Changes

What’s new? The game monitoring and game design tools are now better integrated. We have merged these sites so instructors do not have to sign into each site separately. You will notice that there is now only one "Sign in as instructor" link in the Instructors section at www.marketplace6.com. Signing in will always take you to the game monitoring system with your active games. To design a new game, just click on the "Design Game" icon at the top right of the screen. You will no longer have to re-sign in when switching between the monitoring and game design tools.

The game design system has been overhauled. To streamline the game design process, we have rebuilt this part from the ground up. In most cases, after clicking the "Design Game" icon, you will now only need to complete four easy steps to get your new game ready. Plus, handy help files for many of the design actions are accessible simply by clicking a "?" button to the right of the activity function. With direct access from the main Web Marketplace Instructor screen, designing new games should now take much less of your time.

The game monitoring system is reorganized. In the last couple of years, we added many new features and options to the Web Marketplace Instructor site. Since we did not want to cause confusion by moving things around with each new addition, many of the new features were piling up in the "Other Options" area. We believe this part of the system is now stabilized, so we decided now was the time to group the options in a more intuitive way. While you will see that most of the “critical” options have remained in their old place, here is what is different:

The following options are now in the top menu:

• Student Help (under the"Professor Help" icon after you click on your game name)

• Custom Settings

• Design Game

The following options, accessible when you click on your game name, are now grouped together:

• Stock Setup, Fines & Other Income, Deceptive Advertising Check (click on the "Stock, Fines, Deceptive Advertising, ..." icon)

• Summary of Results, Detailed Results, Useful Graphs, and Release Results (click on the "Results" icon)

We have also added a new option called "Teams Strengths and Weaknesses" to the game monitoring system. Using the performance measures contained within the balanced scorecard, this option will help you to better analyze team performance and advise your students. The tool color-codes the performance measures on the balanced scorecard from strongest to weakest (or vice-versa), making it easier to quickly recognize each team’s high and low points. Each individual performance measure can be “drilled down” into, providing you with detailed data to use when discussing a team’s performance with its members. Weighted performance summaries for each team are also accessible through the "Team Strengths and Weaknesses" option.

Research tools have been added. Marketplace can be a valuable setting for instructors to do research into the pedagogical value of simulations. It can also be a useful microcosm for academic research regarding decision making, strategy, conflict, etc., among teams. In fact, several such research projects are now under way with faculty from a number of business schools.

So to facilitate your research, we have created the following features, which you can find in the "Research Tools" area:

Survey research and peer evaluations. It is possible to create online surveys and peer evaluations and administer them to all participants in your simulation. Templates are available that supply commonly asked questions, but you can also design your own, unique questionnaires. The questions can range from simple “yes-no” queries to multi-part, variably weighted questions, such as those that ask for the relative strength of the response (e.g., “strongly agree-strongly disagree” type of answers). The surveys and evaluations can contain as many questions divided into as many sections as you choose. Results can be obtained in an Excel file literally within a week of the start of the survey. This feature is still in beta-test form, so please expect to see further refinements to it. We also encourage your comments and suggestions on how to improve the survey and peer evaluation tool.

Activity & performance analysis. This feature was formerly found under the title Diagnostic Coaching System. It includes functions from the Team Strengths and Weaknesses option, as well as capabilities that allow you to evaluate individual student performance or correlate activities and performance among several teams. The performance and activity measures can be used to identify trends in individual or team performances. The data can be used as either independent or dependent variables.

We hope that you find these upgrades useful. If you have any suggestions on how we can further make our system better and your life easier, we would love to hear from you. And, as always, if you need any help getting used to the new upgrades, don’t hesitate to call our support staff at 865-522-1946 or email us.

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Marketplace Community Newsletter, issued quarterly.