The Engagement Lab @ Emerson College (previously the Engagement Lab) is an applied research lab at Emerson College, which develops and studies the effects of games as they apply to civic engagement.
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Hub2
Hub2 is a game and urban planning tool that uses Second Life to create a virtual representation of real physical space in the world, and uses that space to let people discuss and implement ideas to improve the space. would give ideas to what they wanted to put in the world and where, and their ideas would be designed and placed into the virtual world.
Participatory Chinatown
Developed from the research done on Hub2, Participatory Chinatown is a 3-D game designed for use in the master planning process in Boston's Chinatown. It has been officially been recognized as part of the 2010 Chinatown Master Plan.
Participatory Chinatown won the Games For Change award Games for Change in 2011 for Best Direct Impact Game.
Community PlanIt
Community PlanIt is a game for local planning that combines elements of crowdsourcing and social networking to make citizens part of their planning processes. It has been played in Detroit, Philadelphia, Salem, MA, Boston public schools, Quincy, MA, and Malmö, Sweden.
Civic Seed
Civic Seed an online learning game in partnership with Tufts University. Through an RPG interface, the game educates and certifies incoming freshmen to civically engage with the partner communities of Tufts.
Student Involvement
As a lab housed at Emerson College, it is also a resource for graduate and undergraduate students interested in developing games and other playful projects. Students assist in lab projects and contribute self-directed student projects.
Play and Civic Leaning
This initiative looks into the how games can create an informal learning environment for young people and adults. It also focuses on how games can be used with civic learning and participation.
Networked Citizenship
The research for this initiative is gathered from the lab's games and tools, and is focused on exploring the transformation in the definition and qualities of citizens in a digital and networked world. It explores play, connectivity, and attention to civic life in regards to how these qualities affect feelings of trust and efficacy.
Youth and Civic Media
This initiative is a multi-project research effort dedicated to analyzing how games and social media allow youth to be connected to civic engagement in new ways and how much of an impact this engagement makes. Research is gathered from the lab's multiple games across numerous cities.
Design Action Research for Government Project
The Design Action Research for Government Project (DARG) is in partnership with the Mayor's Office of New Urban Mechanics in Boston. Its goal is to advance the capability of local governments to become more involved with technological innovations in regards to civic engagement. Its mission is to create the framework for the public to be more involved with city-level innovations and the creation and study of public life. DARG is a model for collaboration between universities and governments. "Ultimately, DARG aims to transform common practices of government innovation from a model of top-down intervention and evaluation to one of participatory design and research."