What is the Mekong e-Sim?

The Mekong e-Sim is an online roleplay simulation set in the Mekong region of South-East Asia which seeks to inform participants of the issues faced in the Mekong region and involve them in the hypothetical management of some of these conflicts.

Multimedia presentations

Why the Mekong e-Sim?	What is the Mekong e-Sim all about?	What does the Mekong e-Sim look like?	How can I and my students get involved in the Mekong e-Sim?

 

What happens?

Participants assume the role of various stakeholders concerned with development activities in the Mekong region. They are divided into groups and a role is assigned to each group. From here, groups interact in the roleplay in relation to proposed development issues in the Mekong area. A sustainable economy for the Mekong region is still developing so many conflicts regarding development of the Mekong River Basin are brought to the fore in discussions. These include social, political, economic, scientific and conservation based conflicts.

The e-Sim culminates in each group presenting their position on the development issues to a Public Inquiry. The aim is to achieve an outcome in keeping with the objectives and responsibilities of their role.

 

Publications on the Mekong e-Sim

Maier H.R., Baron J. and McLaughlan R.G. (2007) Using online roleplay simulations for teaching sustainability principles to engineering students. International Journal of Engineering Education, 23(6), 1162-1171.

Maier H.R. (2007) Meeting the challenges of engineering education via online roleplay simulations. Australasian Journal of Engineering Education, 13(1), 31-39.

Baron J. and Maier H.R. (2005) The challenge of maintaining the momentum. Conference of the Australasian Society for Computers in Learning in Tertiary Education (ASCILITE 2005), Brisbane, Australia, December 4-7, pp.57-66. (http://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/brisbane05/blogs/proceedings/07_Baron.pdf)

Maier H.R. (2005) The Mekong e-Sim: an online roleplay simulation for developing engineering graduate attributes. ASEE/AaeE 4th Global Colloquium on Engineering Education Pre-Colloquium Event; 2nd Environmental Engineering Academics’ Workshop: The Future for Environmental Engineering, Sydney, September 26. (Invited Paper)

Maier H.R. and Baron J. (2005) Developing online roleplay simulations for preparing engineering students for multidisciplinary and international practice. Proceedings of the 2005 ASEE/AaeE 4th Global Colloquium on Engineering Education, Australasian Association for Engineering Education. Sydney, Australia, September 26-30.

McLaughlan R.G. and Kirkpatrick D. (2004) Online roleplay: design for active learning. European Journal of Engineering Education, 29(4), pp.477-490.

Baron J. and Maier H.R. (2004) A community of inquiry evaluation of Mekong e-Sim: An online collaborative simulation. Proceedings of the International Conference on Educational Technology (ICET2004), Singapore, September 9-10.

Kirkpatrick D., McLaughlan R.G., Maier H.R., Hirsch P. (2002) Developing scholarship through collaboration in an online roleplay-simulation: Mekong eSim, a case study. Proceedings of the Scholarly Inquiry in Flexible Science Teaching and Learning Symposium, UniServe Science, The University of Sydney, pp.13-18. (Invited Paper). (http://science.uniserve.edu.au/pubs/procs/wshop7/schws001.pdf)

McLaughlan R.G., Kirkpatrick D., Hirsh, P. and Maier H.R. (2001) Using online roleplay/simulations for creating learning experiences. CAL-laborate, 7, October, pp.23-25. (http://science.uniserve.edu.au/pubs/callab/vol7/mclaugh.html)

McLaughlan R.G., Kirkpatrick D., Maier H.R. and Hirsch P. (2001) Academic and institutional issues related to the planning and implementation of a multi-disciplinary roleplay-simulation involving collaboration across institutions. In G.Kennedy, M.Keppell, C. McNaught and T. Petrovic (Eds.), Meeting at the Crossroads. Proceedings of the 18th Annual Conference of the Australian Society for Computers in Learning in Teritiary Education. pp. 407-415. Melbourne: Biomedical Multimedia Unit, The University of Melbourne. (http://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/melbourne01/pdf/papers/mclaughlanr.pdf)

Awards

2001
Australasian Society for Computers in Learning in Tertiary Education (ASCILITE) Award for Exemplary Use of Electronic Technologies in Teaching and Learning in Tertiary Education: Best Web Based Project, 2001 (http://www.ascilite.org.au/index.php/Awards#ascilite_Awards_2001)

The Pearson Education UniServe Science Teaching Award, 2001 (http://science.uniserve.edu.au/about/award/press01.pdf)
“Your submission was outstanding. Your project was very innovative, in the sense of being a new way of teaching using information technology. It was based on sound educational principles and backed by evaluation that was sensible, thorough and convincing”

2002
Awarded the Commonwealth of Learning Excellence in Distance Education Award in Materials Development, (http://www.col.org/edea/edea2/edea2_citations.htm)

...there is clear identification of learning outcomes, assessment procedures and opportunities for feedback for learners. There is evidence in this programme of very astute usage of delivery technology with optimum opportunities for learners to communicate from a distance – asynchronously as well as synchronously

2005
High Commendation, the Australasian Association for Engineering Education Excellence in Engineering Education Award, Excellence in a Curriculum Team Project in Engineering Education Category. (http://www.aaee.com.au/award/Citations2005.htm)

The Mekong e-Sim was designed to facilitate students’ awareness of the political, social, economic and scientific dimensions of decision-making in situations requiring the management of conflict associated with resource development. This is a unique teaching and learning activity... [that] has had a significant impact on progressing the pedagogy associated with internet mediated role-play simulation by the dissemination of e-Sim knowledge to other disciplines and to the literature.

 

Newspaper articles

2006 Merging modes of learning. Campus Review, v.16, no.34, 2006 Aug. 30. (www.camrev.com.au)

2005 High Praise for Online Learning. Adelaidean, v.14, no.9, November 2005. (http://www.adelaide.edu.au/adelaidean/issues/7901/news7908.html)

2004 Trial by fire for online disaster simulation. Adelaidean, v.13, no.10, November 2004. (http://www.adelaide.edu.au/adelaidean/2004/issue10/issue10_nov04.pdf)

2002 Online role-playing course gives students a taste for the Mekong. Adelaidean, v.11, no.5, June 2002, p.9. (http://www.adelaide.edu.au/adelaidean/archive/Jun02.pdf)

 

Listing of Mekong e-Sim as an exemplar

Project EnRoLE

Learning Designs: Exemplars. (2003). Hosted on the University of Wollongong website.

ELI Innovations & Implementations - Mekong e-Sim: A Cross-Disciplinary Online Role-Play Simulation. EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (2006).

EdGames

Problem Based Learning: Online Resources, Central Queensland University.

 

Research articles that refer to the Mekong e-Sim

Lloyd, K. and Butcher, M. (2006) Reusing learning designs: Role play adaptations of the
Mekong and Ha Long Bay e-Sim. In L. Markauskaite, P. Goodyear, & P. Reimann (Eds.) Proceedings of the 23rd Annual Conference of the Australasian Society for Computers in Learning in Tertiary Education: Who’s Learning? Whose Technology? (pp. 465–468). Sydney: Sydney University Press. (http://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/sydney06/proceeding/pdf_papers/p170.pdf)

Golja, T. (2003). Generating professional knowledge based on e-learning research and development. In G.Crisp, D.Thiele, I.Scholten, S.Barker and J.Baron (Eds), Interact, Integrate, Impact: Proceedings of the 20th Annual Conference of the Australasian Society for Computers in Learning in Tertiary Education. Adelaide, 7-10 December 2003. pp. 203-214. (http://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/adelaide03/docs/pdf/203.pdf)

 

Other e-Sims developed based on the Mekong e-Sim

Disaster Down Under e-Sim, Burns Unit, Discipline of Clinical Nursing, University of Adelaide.

Ha Long Bay e-Sim, Macquarie University

Big Paper b-Sim, University of New South Wales

 

Additional information

Download information sheet

Contact Professor Holger Maier
email: hmaier@civeng.ecms.adelaide.edu.au
home page: http://www.ecms.adelaide.edu.au/civeng/staff/hmaier01.html