At the University of Huddersfield, we are exploring the benefits of using a business simulation game to embed enterprise education in teaching and learning. SimVenture is now available and ready to use across campus as part of a strategic teaching and learning project proposed by Dr. Kelly Smith, Head of Enterprise, and supported by the Teaching and Learning Institute.
It is available to all staff and students – just take a look in your Quicklinks folder on the Desktop.
Increasingly, enterprise and entrepreneurial skills are being seen as having wider relevance than simply business start-up with a separation of enterprise education and entrepreneurship education, and recommendations that both are contextualised and adapted to the needs of individual subjects through embedding in the subject-specific experience, rather than offered as generic ‘one size fits all’ modules (e.g. QAA 2012[1], Wilson 2012[2]).
SimVenture is a business simulation game launched in 2006 and used in over 150 HEIs all over the world. It is also used in schools, FE, and in communities including in several African countries with strong Government support.
As part of this project we are keen to research how SimVenture has been used at other Universities and aim to develop case studies based on the findings to provide inspiration or examples of practice for lecturers to use or adapt for their own needs. From an initial literature review we have identified a number of academics who has used or is using SimVenture with students and we are in the process of conducting interviews.
The project team also designed a survey on the use of computer based business simulation which is currently live. If you can contribute to the survey please click the link: https://www.survey.bris.ac.uk/hud/bsimulation
The outcomes and case studies will be made available to the sector. More details can be found at: http://www.hud.ac.uk/tali/projects/sp_enterprise/
References:
[1] http://www.qaa.ac.uk/Publications/InformationAndGuidance/Documents/enterprise-guidance.pdf
[2] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/business-university-collaboration-the-wilson-review
Posted by Kathrine Jensen (@kshjensen)
Using online games, especialy business simulations as, for example, http://virtonomics.com/ (this one is my favourite) is proved by time and realy efficient one way to develop practical management skills.