title: Teaching formal methods lite via testing

authors: Utting, Mark

subjects: computer science

abstract: A new style of formal methods course is described, based on a pragmatic approach that emphasizes testing. The course introduces students to formal specification using Z, and shows how formal specification and testing can benefit each other, in both the validation and verification phases. It uses a tools-based approach, with practical work that reinforces formal specification techniques as well as traditional software engineering skills, such as unit and system testing, inspection and defensive programming with assertions. The two main results are to identify several practical uses of formal specifications that are not widely practised or taught and to demonstrate that teaching them results in a more interesting and relevant formal methods course.

text: Teaching formal methods lite via testing A new style of formal methods course is described, based on a pragmatic approach that emphasizes testing. The course introduces students to formal specification using Z, and shows how formal specification and testing can benefit each other, in both the validation and verification phases. It uses a tools-based approach, with practical work that reinforces formal specification techniques as well as traditional software engineering skills, such as unit and system testing, inspection and defensive programming with assertions. The two main results are to identify several practical uses of formal specifications that are not widely practised or taught and to demonstrate that teaching them results in a more interesting and relevant formal methods course.

year: 2001

title: History in multimodal gameplay: A new language and model for constructing, experiencing, and studying the past

authors: Redder, Ben Dorrington

subjects: Historical Games

abstract: This doctoral study examines how historical gameplay constructs and provides ways of experiencing history within (historical) video games. Historical gameplay is examined and defined as an expression of history within historical games as it is the primary medium of representing or experiencing the past based on the interactions between the player and the various intricacies and components of the historical game. This thesis identifies, interprets, and illustrates several modalities of histories that emerge from and are characterised by particular modes and sequences of gameplay, with the aim of discerning and demonstrating what kind of experiences and knowledge of history are being conveyed. The undertaking of gameplay research in this thesis produced case studies of two contemporary Medieval games: A Plague Tale: Innocence (Asobo Studio, 2019) and Kingdom Come: Deliverance (Warhorse Studios, 2018). These texts were analysed via recorded footage of the author’s gameplay activity, while in-person interviews with several members of the game studios responsible for developing both these historical games provided insights into the research and game development processes required to produce historical games. In spite of the growing recognition of, and scholarship on historical video games, there are no current works from the discipline of history that thoroughly explore gameplay as a different yet innovative medium for disseminating and understanding history. This thesis fills that gap. Studying gameplay from the development and release of recent Medieval historical games has the potential to provide historians with new insights and opportunities regarding gameplay as catalysts for studying, discussing, and critiquing history.

text: History in multimodal gameplay: A new language and model for constructing, experiencing, and studying the past This doctoral study examines how historical gameplay constructs and provides ways of experiencing history within (historical) video games. Historical gameplay is examined and defined as an expression of history within historical games as it is the primary medium of representing or experiencing the past based on the interactions between the player and the various intricacies and components of the historical game. This thesis identifies, interprets, and illustrates several modalities of histories that emerge from and are characterised by particular modes and sequences of gameplay, with the aim of discerning and demonstrating what kind of experiences and knowledge of history are being conveyed. The undertaking of gameplay research in this thesis produced case studies of two contemporary Medieval games: A Plague Tale: Innocence (Asobo Studio, 2019) and Kingdom Come: Deliverance (Warhorse Studios, 2018). These texts were analysed via recorded footage of the author’s gameplay activity, while in-person interviews with several members of the game studios responsible for developing both these historical games provided insights into the research and game development processes required to produce historical games. In spite of the growing recognition of, and scholarship on historical video games, there are no current works from the discipline of history that thoroughly explore gameplay as a different yet innovative medium for disseminating and understanding history. This thesis fills that gap. Studying gameplay from the development and release of recent Medieval historical games has the potential to provide historians with new insights and opportunities regarding gameplay as catalysts for studying, discussing, and critiquing history.

year: 2022

title: “Papatuanuku/papa:” Some thoughts on the oppositional grounds of the doctoral experience

authors: Mika, Carl Te Hira

subjects: Kaupapa

abstract: There are significant challenges that face Māori students and supervisors as a “doctoral team.” Perhaps the most fundamental of these is that there is a metaphysics at work in writing and talking that Māori are encouraged to speculate on and reclaim. One term for this metaphysics, “Papatūānuku” (often abbreviated to “Papa”), signifies an active entity that rejects strict definition but influences both doctoral text and team. This article proposes that student and supervisor must simultaneously glance towards the conventions of academic writing and recollect Papatūānuku as potential being in the doctoral process.

text: “Papatuanuku/papa:” Some thoughts on the oppositional grounds of the doctoral experience There are significant challenges that face Māori students and supervisors as a “doctoral team.” Perhaps the most fundamental of these is that there is a metaphysics at work in writing and talking that Māori are encouraged to speculate on and reclaim. One term for this metaphysics, “Papatūānuku” (often abbreviated to “Papa”), signifies an active entity that rejects strict definition but influences both doctoral text and team. This article proposes that student and supervisor must simultaneously glance towards the conventions of academic writing and recollect Papatūānuku as potential being in the doctoral process.

year: 2016