Award Winning Experiential Training Programs Since 1970
Welcome to Simulation Training Systems. We design, produce, deliver and sell experiential training programs (simulations). For more than 34 years, thousands of companies, organizations, universities and charities worldwide have used our award winning simulations to help them create profoundly memorable learning experiences. We have products for two different audiences, please choose one below, and let us show you why our customers value our simulations so highly.
http://www.stsintl.com/

Articles Related to the Simulation Industry
Presentation Before The American Water Works Association - By Garry Shirts, Ph.D. with Mr. Jack Markel, American Water Works

Pumping the Colors was originally developed for a group of Ford Aerospace engineers. They were having problems working together and they asked us to develop a simulation that would help them solve this problem. That was in 1988. Since then, we’ve greatly improved the process as we’ve run it with many different groups and individuals...

Ten "Mistakes" Commonly Made by Persons Designing Educational Simulations and Games - By R. Garry Shirts

(Reprinted by permission of Society for Academic Gaming and Simulation in Education and Training Journal, October, 1975).

If someone were to ask me to identify the mistakes most often made by game designers, including myself, I would, after assuring myself that the questioner understands that game design is a very personal activity and that there are no right answers, reply in the following dogmatic manner...

Philosophy of Science, What Is a Game? - by Bernard Suits, University of Waterloo

Prompted by the current interest of social and behavioral scientists in games and encouraged by the modest belief that it is not demonstrably impossible for philosophers to say something of interest to scientists, I propose to formulate a definition of game playing.

Barbara Steinwachs describes BaFá BaFá

Note: Garry Shirts sent out a request for facilitators for BaFá BaFá to the NASAGA (North American Simulation and Games Association) news list. In reponse to that request one of the NASAGA members asked, "What is BaFá BaFá?" This is Barbara Steinwachs answer. Reprinted by permission of Barbara Steinwachs.

Ten Secrets of Successful Simulations

This article by Garry Shirts originally appeared in the October 1992 issue of Training magazine. It presents 10 suggestions for developing effective simulations. It is based on Garry Shirts' experience in designing more than 40 simulations and experiential programs.

Ten Secrets of Successful Simulations in PDF format.

Inventory of Hunches About Simulation Games

Hall Sprague of the Western Behavioral Sciences Institute wrote this article at the end of a research project conducted by Project Simile. The project was designed to investigate the effectiveness of simulations in education. Simulation Training Systems grew out of Project Simile in the late 60's.

Taxonomy of Simulation Related Activities

This article by Garry Shirts presents a taxonomy for classifying different types of "simulation" activities. It's original purpose was to clarify the confusion created by indiscriminate use of the words "simulation" "games" and "contests."

http://www.stsintl.com/articles/

Title - Hotels Simulation Software
Keywords - Groupwork, eLearning
Name - Crispin Farbrother
School / Department - School of Services Management
Institution - Bournemouth University
Group - Year 4 Tourism and Leisure students studying a Hospitality
Management
option
Activity - Students prepare a business plan for a 3* hotel. They then operate
the hotel over a 2, 3 or even 5-year trading period, making strategic and
operational decisions.
They participate as a small management team, taking on the position of
different members of the management team, including Human Resources,
Finance, Marketing and General Management.
Aim - Students are expected to operate the hotel in order to make a profit. In
order to carry this out successfully students will be expected to apply their
interpersonal skills and apply theoretical concepts from Human Resources
Management, Marketing, Finance, Operations Management and Strategic
Management.
Assessment for undergraduates was through a presentation of their
success/failure and the case was to be referred to in some questions in the
end of year examination.
Context / Background - It is a three star hotel in a UK seaside town. It has
not been trading that well recently and is due for some refurbishment. The
case clearly shows the competition and the management team must decide
on their positioning strategy against the competitors. There are hotels both
above and below the three star one with regards to quality and price.
The management team can diversify into weddings and conferences, as well
as add a whole variety of support services for both leisure and business
guests. They can, of course just carry on with their present market if they so
wish.
The case can be used to assess the feasibility of the business plan, allow
students to reflect on their decisions and react to seasons, competition and
changing environments.
Example
The students are given an extensive amount of information about the
hotel and its environment. In addition to this, they are given a support
pack that explains how the software package works. This was given in
advance of operating the software. They are then asked to discuss a
number of issues about the hotel and consider how the hotel should
position itself.
Students are asked to take on the role of management team and
prepare a business plan within which they should develop how they
would devise and implement an effective strategy.
The students are then introduced to the software. They are given an
hour to find their way around the system, under tutorlage.
Suggested Procedure
*Allocate teams and let them choose roles - many are reluctant to
appoint a General Manager.
* Allow time to read the case, prepare roles and look at the software.
* The decision making process should be carried out next to the PC
and all decisions should be recorded, with the reasoning. This should
be carried out in a formal manner. Each decision-making session
should last about one hour.
* After the teams have had time to make their decision, the clock
moves on a week or month and the software generates the new trading
position. Each management team should review the decisions made.
Pressure is then on to make the next set of decisions.
The presentations as assessment require the students to reflect on
their decision-making, analyse reality as opposed to their plan and
conclude with what they could have done better.
Results / Feedback - Operating the exercise (game) over 7 weeks through
one hour seminars was fairly exhaustive for the tutor but did enable the
groups to make decisions and then get their results immediately. They could
then go away and reflect on their decisions over the next week before more
decisions had to be made.
Decisions were made on a monthly basis. Initially three decisions were made
in an hour. This increased to six in an hour before the final week. Students, by
this stage were comfortable with the software and their strategies were being
implemented.
Of the 20-credit level 3 (H) unit the first half of the year 10 weeks was spent
on strategy and the following 10 weeks were to focus on operational
management. The weekly seminar of hotel simulation decision-making was
carried out in the second set of 10 weeks. This process of decision-making
was supported by weekly lectures that tended to focus on operational
management issues.
Whilst the academic and industrial underpinning appeared in the
presentations and examinations, the students failed to really maximise the
amount of financial information that was available for them to use.
Student feedback was very positive from both a learning perspective and from
a social perspective. The word 'fun' appeared more than once in the unit
feedback questionnaire.
All of the teams, of which there were eight, managed to make a profit over a
three year trading period. This varied from £8,000 net profit to £60,000 net
profit. A considerable variance!
Comments - We are looking to use the HOTS simulation package in the core
units within the Hospitality Management programmes at year two.
Further Information - The HOTS Simulation software is available from the
Orange Simulation Company

说实话，这个点很适合。。。。。。。。。。。（后面就略去了）

希望更多学友推荐更好的外文资料，毕竟现代化是以英文世界为主体，小日本基本上也是移植过来。迫切需要！

引用:

原帖由 huanglu0797 于 2007-10-12 08:32 AM 发表
希望更多学友推荐更好的外文资料，毕竟现代化是以英文世界为主体，小日本基本上也是移植过来。迫切需要！

呵呵，移植是好事。
但水土不服就是问题了。
防止水土不服的前提是，要有自知之明。
但我们做得还相当不够。

1、美国是一个相当重视实用性的国家。
这不一定是好事。

2、用社会学的观点来解剖游戏与展开相应的社会应用。
这是好事。
但对体育哲学研究来说，也太狭隘了一点。

中华亦当实分之实用的民族，最大的论据即是 哲学与科学精神的超级匮乏