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.

Digital learning assets (DLA), like documents or system accesses, and scientific papers are omnipresent within the academic world. Therefore, academic communities of lecturers centered around Education-as-a-Service (EaaS) providers need a platform to upload or link their assets in one place. In our paper, we design, implement, and evaluate a new learning management system (LMS) specifically for lecturers following a design science research approach to perform a proof of concept and to assess the acceptance within the community. We gather the requirements for this LMS by performing a literature review, and afterward, we build a web application as an artefact prototype and evaluate it in an exploratory focus group. The developed LMS covers basic functionalities, user control, and collaboration tools to support communication between lecturers. Other features include the upload and management of courses and their contents. An innovative aspect of this work is individualized content provision based on the learning asset’s metadata. Currently, the underlying algorithm takes the chosen keywords into account, but additional meta-fields can already be gathered for further development. The prototype evaluation resulted in a system usability score of 63, which can be considered good, and the product received a positive acceptance among the evaluation participants. With our work, we contribute to both theory and practice, by providing a requirement framework for an LMS for lecturers and by implementing a knowledge sharing fostering prototype for an academic community centered around a German Education-as-a-Service provider.

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.

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.

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.