Simulation business games have recently become a suitable tool that gives students an understanding of how companies and their markets function, as well as the interaction of the components necessary to build a business. Interpreting business processes and business models is a key competency for future graduates in information systems, which is hard to teach without dealing with real-world problems. Simulation games are one of the possible approaches for teaching business processes to information systems students. This paper presents a description of the development of two web modules: for the administration of simulation games and the interface of the business game itself. After collecting data, requirements for the prototypes of Admin-Cockpit, and the simulation game itself, which were conducted in focus groups, the implementation phase began. The main requirements for the applications were successfully implemented in the prototypes and afterward were evaluated. In the output, we have a working prototype of the business game module and the Admin-Cockpit module for configuration. In summary, our contribution is a planned and implemented redesign of the game, positively affecting students’ engagement and interest. Additionally, was developed an improved and expanded version of Admin-Cockpit for game management, giving configuration options and statistics collection. Thus, we can conclude that this work has a positive contribution to the development of simulation game design and development, which was also confirmed by the results of the surveys.

Educators have recently been searching for new teaching methods other than traditional frontal lectures, and the ongoing pandemic has drastically boosted this process. Information systems (IS) education is no exception, since, in addition to the challenges of virtual learning, some IS concepts, like Digital Transformation or Business Process Management, lead to better mastering of the learning objectives when taught with some hands-on experience. One method of providing such an experience is the adoption of simulation business games. However, while the learning effect of the existing games is proven to be positive, their user interfaces (UI) are often criticized, which is also reflected in the research. Thus, taking one such game as an example, we propose a way to improve its UI by analyzing non-educational games with simulation aspects with a focus on requirements definition for the game UI in the educational context. Afterward, we implement the ten gathered requirements into a UI prototype by utilizing the SCRUM method, and finally, we evaluate our UI with an expert interview as well as by showcasing it to our target audience and gathering their opinion using the System Usability Scale (SUS) questionnaire. Our research leads to a drastic improvement of the SUS score, compared to the previous version, thus paving the way to implementing further scenarios for teaching business process digitalization.

It has been scientifically proven that physical activity can have a positive impact on cognitive functions and that it can support the learning process. Although there already exist methods in education that aim at combining both areas in the classroom there has not been developed a digital game in this area, yet. For this reason, the goal of this paper is to report on a developed game that combines physical activity and learning. By applying the Design Thinking Method and conducting expert interviews with teachers, athletes, and game researchers an application is developed for school children, called “HealthyPets@TUM” that consists of walking steps and solving calculation exercises. With the help of this method, the most important features are developed and then tested in a school class. The game can be seen as a successful first approach for combining educational content with physical activity. However, further research over a longer period and with a bigger study group is necessary to assess the impact of physical activity on the cognitive development by applying a game-based learning approach.

With a growing demand for green products and services, entrepreneurs find themselves with the possibility to capitalize on this demand for environmental business solutions. Hence, skills for shaping ecologically sustainable businesses are needed. By teaching business concepts in an engaging and applicable manner using a serious gaming approach, students can be prepared to become tomorrow's entrepreneurs. Learning objectives were determined by using Bloom's revised taxonomy and implemented in the serious game Bikorama@TUM. In Bikorama@TUM, students manage their own bike rental through the three business phases: survival, growth and expansion. 151 upper vocational students took part in the evaluation focusing on the growth stage. They assessed their knowledge with a pre- and post-test as well as rated the implementation as a whole. The results indicate a substantial improvement in students' knowledge and abilities related to entrepreneurship. Therefore, the serious gaming approach is confirmed as a viable teaching tool.

Business models and business processes are key terms for information systems education. While business models describe in an abstract way how a company functions, business processes represent concrete activities. Besides, both concepts are affecting each other directly. The goal of this research is to analyze the state of the art on the relationship between both topics from an educational perspective. Towards this end, we conduct a systematic literature review analyzing teaching concepts, including the didactic and content-based perspectives. Additionally, we introduce a set of twelve learning objectives for teaching the relationship between business models and business processes. We derive the learning objectives from the synthesized literature and use the revised Bloom's taxonomy for their formulation. Our results could provide a starting point for further research. Especially the use of a business game seems to be a promising solution to convey our learning objectives. This study contributes to research on the relationship between business models and business processes by analyzing the current state of the art from an educational perspective.

Businesses in every industry are affected by progressing globalization and intensifying competition. Firms' leaders need skills to find new ways to create revenue and to evolve their business models continuously. Students should therefore be prepared to become tomorrow's firm leaders with education on business concepts in business transformation. This paper aims to analyze the effectiveness of introducing high school students to the concept of servitization with the serious game SwipeBike@TUM. SwipeBike@TUM was developed to apply business transformations in a game atmosphere while still be appealing at the same time. Within the game, the player takes up the role of C-Level Management to transform a bicycle manufacturer into a service provider through several business stages. The overall learning process is described by learning objectives and covers theoretical and practical parts. The evaluation with 29 students showed that SwipeBike@TUM improved their knowledge and self-evaluation of business models and transformation. For research, we contribute by demonstrating that serious gaming is a suitable teaching approach.

The impact of digital transformation (DT) on the business processes within the context of education is an issue that should be addressed when preparing the future workforce. It is necessary to emphasize the effects of digital technologies on business processes so that students can come prepared for their future working places. Simulation games are proven to be a valid method of teaching these concepts. On the other hand, topics like sustainability or environmental friendliness are also gaining more attention during last years. These factors are even considered among the DT drivers. However, the existing games, aimed at teaching DT, often bypass these concepts with their attention. Our paper aims at closing this gap by extending a game that simulates the manufacturing process of a bike producer, undergoing servitization, by integrating, sustainability, regionality, and ecological factor into its simulation model. By taking the role of the process manager, players guide their company through various process steps in several rounds and compete against other teams. At the end of each round teams are compared based on their financial success, with balancing out the ecological factor being an essential part of the strategy. Evaluation of our game shows that this approach contributes to a better understanding of both effective process management under DT as well as sustainability, regionality, and environmental friendliness concepts by the target audience.

Digital tools have become more essential in education and business areas these days and it is important to start in the early stages of education, e.g. already in the preschool stage. This paper describes the development and pilot testing of an Android based serious gaming App for mobile devices called Pic2Program. The App aims to teach children the basics of Computational Thinking (CT) in a playful way. The gameplay expects the young children to steer successfully their in-game character with the help of an intuitive symbol language through a set of increasingly complex mazes. The children may even draw sets of symbols by hand thus develop a basic program. Pic2Programs image recognition module will then process these symbols by first photographing them with an Android device and then using a neural network to map the photos to program instructions. The effectivity of Pic2Program on learning CT has been evaluated by a designed course for 9th, graders. The results show that students find the App well-structured and help them to understand the basics of programming.

With the increased responsibilities in preparing students for the competitive job market and affecting success of their universities in the rankings of world-class universities, lecturers in higher education play an essential role. As one of the academic professional development methods, Train-the-Trainer (TTT) programs presented by SAP University Competence Center (UCC) at the Technical University of Munich offer an extensive knowledge and skills gain for the lecturers. Adopting the guided-learning methodology in its curriculum, TTT programs focus on teaching business processes through case studies. Considering lecturers' background and different learning styles, TTT programs might show a gap in improving any of these three knowledge domains: technology, pedagogy and content. Aiming to design an ideal modularized curriculum, the authors identify the state-of-the-art teaching methods that can improve technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK) level of educators based on insights from literature review. Then they evaluate the TPACK level of thirty-two lecturers working in higher education both quantitatively and qualitatively. Finally, aiming to create a blended learning environment together with face-to-face trainings, the authors present the design of a modularized curriculum. This research study sheds light on the measurement of TPACK level of trainees in higher education, extends the knowledge base and facilitates the ground to improve SAP UCC trainings and the curriculum.

Engineering education has dealt with a broad range of different research topics. New challenges of innovation in information systems have attracted an increasing amount of interest. However, an overview to understand better the interplay and challenges in the field of engineering education research has yet to be adequately developed. This paper focuses on the challenges of engineering education beyond 2030 with an in-depth, explorative analysis of the top conferences in education. In addition, the topics of engineering education are combined with a literature review in the field of information systems. We identified four dimensions in engineering education and discuss these from an information systems perspective, especially on the design and outcome of learning resulting in a concept matrix. The results illustrate claims in four thematic areas, including knowledge, environment, cognition, and time. Examples include the administrative overhead for teachers or longitudinal considerations from K-12 to life long learning, the impact of digitalization on the learning environment with respect to communication, learning methods such as gamification, and thematic areas, such as globalization and accessibility.

Business Process Change (BPC), aiming at improving the core competencies of a company, is a highly relevant topic in a rapidly changing business environment. Trends such as the digital transformation require companies to transform their business processes and may even lead to complete changes in how they operate. To prepare students for their future working environment, teaching BPC is an important topic for education in Information Systems, Computer Science, and Engineering. For this, simulation games provide a useful approach to provide students with more practical experience. To increase the learning outcomes of such games, different teaching methods can be used as part of them. However, previous research is lacking concrete insights which effects the different methods have when using them with simulation games. Therefore, the goal of this paper is to analyze different teaching methods for simulation games and to evaluate their effectiveness on the example of a game for learning BPC. First, we conduct a literature review on teaching methods and investigate whether they are suitable for teaching BPC. Afterwards, we develop a teaching concept for the simulation game using different methods such as experiential or case-based learning. Finally, we evaluate our teaching concept with 36 students from an upper vocational school and show the effectiveness of different methods when used as part of simulation games. Thereby, we contribute to the theory of teaching methods for simulation games and to practice by providing guidelines for teaching the topic of BPC using a simulation game.

The goal of this paper is to discuss and evaluate the approach of applying simulation games as a tool for teaching and learning business processes in the context of the digital transformation. For this purpose, we defined learning objectives and based on them, developed two separate simulation games with a different scenario for the digital transformation of business processes. While one game is based on automation in the automotive sector, the other one focuses on the digital transformation in the online retail sector. Both games were applied in class and evaluated afterwards. Thereby, this paper offers concrete examples of simulation games for teaching business processes in the context of the digital transformation and discusses characteristics and scenarios that are important in this context. Furthermore, the paper serves as basis for future research in the area of simulation games and therefore provides a novel contribution to this topic of education.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a best practice procedure model for conducting a capstone course consisting of eight phases and to share first experiences with it. The model is geared to teaching new and innovative industry-related topics by using a project-based learning approach including elements of experiential learning and role-play teaching. It also focuses on providing hands-on experience with newly released technology or software. Based on insights from literature, we planned and conducted a practical course for teaching topics of SAP Leonardo and SAP HANA by adapting our suggested procedure model. We further collected feedback from students. During designing the practical course, we found that the model is easy and fast to apply, flexible and adaptable to different circumstances due to its modularity. It can be used beyond teaching emerging technologies and topics as a template for practical courses as well. This paper shows lecturers how to involve industrial partners in teaching and instructs them in conducting a project-based course by means of a concrete example.

Programming has become a vital skill in today's society and economy. Therefore, it is important to teach programming in early stages of the education. Since learning how to program differs from other, more traditional courses in schools, an application oriented approach to teaching and learning is required. The playful approach, as a part of self-regulated personalized learning strategies, offers the possibility to engage students, and teach students how to program hands-on. In this paper, we investigate the success factors that need to be satisfied for an efficient course of teaching how to program with a playful approach. We conducted a literature review, evaluating and analyzing the academic contributions to this relatively new topic of edutainment in the last 10 years. Based on the literature review we were able to identify the success factors for teaching how to program with a playful approach: the motivation, the integration and involvement in class, the audience-centered focus, giving feedback and enhancing interaction, and the fluent integration of the educational content into the gameplay. The identification of these success factors allow educators in the future to structure and carry out a lecture, based on the playful learning technique.

Study skills summarize activities of self-regulated personalized learning and working that are important for successfully completing a study degree e.g. time management or teamwork. Since one of the main reasons for dropping out of university is the lack of proper study skills in students, German universities offer various support programs to help building up study skills at the beginning of the studies or even before entering university. The tools and methods, used in these programs differ according to the students' age, gender, and proficiency level. In this paper, we investigate ten different university programs for improving students' study skills. For this purpose, we conduct interviews with representatives of the universities and analyze the offerings in detail. Based on the success rate and promoted skills, we suggest a best practice program for promoting study skills. The results of this work give a first overview of different programs by analyzing how they can be used for building up study skills. Further, they can be used as a recommendation from various universities while developing their own programs.

Digitalization* proves to be more and more a worldwide trend transforming the way societies and economies function. Digitalization has changed the demands on the qualifications of the employees, and thus poses new challenges to our education system. Solving complex problems, software engineering, programming, and being able to familiarize oneself with other fields of science have become key skills in order to succeed in the job market. Being able to solve problems in a structured way and the art of computer programming are valued skills for various jobs, such as IT workers, data analysts, designers, engineers, and scientists - or games engineers.

Companies are currently calling for more and more graduates with good management and planning skills. But, studies show that rising student numbers lead to a high dropout rate. Thus, strengthening the study skills of the students plays a key role in reducing this dropout rate and should be a key objective of every education system. In particular, universities have the power to improve the study skills of pupils at an early stage through the designed programs and measures. With the Pupils' Academy Serious Gaming, the Department of Computer Science at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) has introduced an instrument to promote the study skills. This initiative aimed primarily at pupils of upper vocational schools (UVS). In addition to the study skills, thus the ability of more application-oriented knowledge transfer objectives and playful introduction to an important enterprise software can be achieved. This paper presents the Pupils' Academy based on the online SAP ERP Simulation Game ERPsim as an example of how the enterprise software SAP ERP is successfully applied to strengthen study skills. In addition, the pupils learn how to deal with the SAP platform and train skills like decision making, analysis, strategy development, data processing and presentation. The positive impact on study skills is evidenced with the help of a self-assessment by means of an IT-based survey carried out by the participating students. These examinations include the activities related to the two study skills time management and teamwork.

For five years now we have been inviting highly talented students from the upper vocational schools of Bavaria to the `Technische Universität München' TUM to participate in the Pupils' Academy of Serious Gaming. The pedagogical approach of upper vocational schools is the practical application of sciences. Based on this approach we enable the participants to change their learning perspective from `school student' to `university student': For two days they take part in a regular course at TUM based on our in-house business game Go4C. The goal is to learn how to self-assess and develop important aspects of their personal ability to study. This paper presents the Pupils' Academy and Go4C as a tool to enhance the ability to study at an early stage before leaving school.

In this paper a new hierarchical method for the adaptation of mask layout of CMOS ICS is presented.This method uses the new Adaptation-Sequence-Control and Border-Scan-Line algorithms to calculate the sequence in which the individual cells have to be adapted according to their mutual interactions.This new method preserves the hierarchical structure of the layout.