Aliens have landed on Earth and will destroy our planet unless they are immediately provided with fast internet access. It falls to a network engineer to save the world by installing a series of WiFi transmitters and switches inside the alien craft.

That is the scenario faced by several thousand Cisco-certified engineers, who have completed an online video game designed to teach them the basics of wireless networking.

‘Games are the ideal way to introduce people to new topics and ideas,’ says Nader Nanjiani, marketing programmes manager at Cisco’s Creative Learning Studio, which developed the game.

‘In this case, it meant students knew the basics of constructing a wireless network before they went into a more formal classroom environment.’

The idea of using games to train employees is relatively new in the UK, but early adopters argue that games could help to overcome many of the weaknesses associated with online learning.

‘The problem with elearning applications is that they are dry and static. They don’t take advantage of all the computing power available to us,’ says Ben Sawyer of Serious Games, a grass-roots organisation that promotes research into games-based learning.

‘We just took the same old material and transferred it into a distance-learning environment.’

Games-based learning combines graphics, gameplay and training technologies to create a compelling training experience. The Cisco game, Network Defenders, for example, uses a Space Invaders scenario to teach students the basics of network security. Players need to gather firewalls, intrusion detection systems and antivirus software to defend their planet from alien intruders.

On average, a player scores 2,000 points for every five minutes of play, and players often rack up more than 70,000 points, says Nanjiani. Cisco recently commissioned a study to assess the success of games-based learning, and found that games were the best medium for delivering complex information because they created better engagement and retention.

The experience is mirrored at cosmetics giant L’Oreal, which recently introduced online gaming to train its junior brand managers. The company’s e-Strat game challenges players to build and manage a portfolio of beauty brands using WebEx web conferencing software and a training module developed by StratX.

Since the game was introduced, participation in training among junior brand managers has risen from 25 per cent to 88 per cent, with 99 per cent of eligible employees completing the course.

Gaming is certainly an effective learning tool, but it can be expensive. Some estimates put the cost of games-based learning at £150 per hour of finished product, compared with £20 for conventional online learning.

‘It is not impossible to make a business case, but you do need to be smart,’ says Jon Andrews, lead partner at Accenture Learning.

Cisco spends about $30,000 (£17,150) on each game it uses, but Nanjiani believes the company recoups that expense in reduced overall training costs.

‘People don’t need to spend so much time attending classroom courses,’ he says.

‘There’s another time saving in that people complete the training faster. They are less likely to drag their feet.’

There are also ways to cut the cost of developing games. Andrews, for example, recommends that companies opt for a ‘contentless’ game framework, which can be adapted to different scenarios.

‘You could use a familiar game format like Concentration and put in the words and phrases that you want people to learn,’ he says.

‘This approach can provide a good return on investment because you can keep re-using the game engine and just change the vocabulary sets.’

Sawyer says companies could also consider using commercially available games for training. Some have already been used to teach a range of topics, from driving (Microsoft Midtown Madness), to writing (Myst) and history (Civilisation). Some commercial games were developed as training tools, including Full Spectrum Warrior, which began life as a US Army training programme.

Whatever the approach used, there are four essential ingredients to any successful training game. First, it should have a competitive element both to motivate players and enable managers to monitor performance. Second, the content must be engaging so that players are motivated to play. Third, there should be a reward, in the form of feedback or praise, for completing the game; for example, one US software company awards an iPod to the employee with the highest monthly score in one of its training games.

Finally, games should have content that is relevant to the objective. A simulation or a role-playing game, for example, is a more effective way to teach employees the intricacies of compliance than Space Invaders, says Sawyer.

‘The user needs to see the training game as a more fun way to learn, or it will fail as both a learning tool and as a game,’ he says.

Obviously, some concepts are just not suitable for a game format, and not all employees, or managers, will be delighted by the idea of playing computer games on the job. In these cases, Andrews recommends blending the best of elearning with games-based learning.

‘You can often use elearning to present overall information and then contentless games to reinforce the key facts,’ he says.

‘Rather than simply giving a quiz after a training course, try using a quiz game with scoring. Even though you are still only asking questions, you will get better engagement simply because it’s a game.’

What do you think? Email us at: mailto:feedback@computing.co.uk

Volvo Car Finance

Belying their often shady reputation, many used car salesmen are very highly trained professionals. Take the 600 salesmen working at Volvo used car showrooms: they are all experts in data protection, the consumer credit act and customer service, and have been trained using games-based learning.

‘Training has always been a real challenge because employees are spread out across the country and many of the dealerships are run as franchises,’ says Bob Moore, sales development manager with Volvo Car Finance.

‘But we recognised the need for training to ensure everyone was offering the same level of service and expertise.’

In 2004, Volvo worked with Caspian Learning to develop a training programme that would help employees to learn key financial and regulatory information.

‘We had been using classroom-based training, but we were wasting a lot of time conveying information when we wanted to focus on developing skills,’ says Moore.

‘We knew that distance learning would help people gain knowledge before they set foot in a classroom.’

Caspian Learning developed an online learning game based on a simulated car showroom. Players have to work their way through various levels, solving puzzles and answering the questions of characters they encounter on their way.

Developing the game was no more expensive than developing a conventional online learning application. And Moore believes the games-based system will turn out to be cheaper in the long run.

‘Because it is web-based, it is easy to update and create new courses. And we can change all the elements of the game, right down to the posters on the walls of the virtual showroom,’ he says.

‘With elearning, every time the legislation changes, your application became redundant.’

The biggest challenge of the project has been dealing with different levels of IT literacy and equipment between the showrooms, says Moore. While some have up-to-date PCs and broadband internet connections, others were still relying on floppy disks and outdated desktops.

‘We did an audit of everyone's technology levels before we built the game and tried to make sure it would run alright for everyone. But inevitably, there were still some teething problems,’ says Moore.