Tagged / College of Policing

BU alumni working on serious gaming project

Joshua (Josh) Cook graduated in 2016  with a first in BSc Games Programming.  He is currently working on an innovation project being led by Professor Wen Tang. ” PLUS”   is a gamified training application funded by HEIF,  in collaboration with the Dorset, Devon and Cornwall (Strategic Alliance) Police forces in order to provide a virtual learning environment that teaches trainees in a more engaging manner than traditional paper based learning.

As a project team member Wen commented “Josh has been a pro-active and key member of the project team working with both academics , the College of Policing and police forces around the UK to develop this training application.”

Key areas of focus for Josh have included:

  • Making the system more generic, so that the project can later be expanded to multiple areas and more situations with ease
  • Improve the visual environment (of the game) with shaders and animations
  • Include data analytics in order to obtain an understanding as to how trainees are using the game, how long they take, how many mistakes they make etc

Josh didn’t take a placement year during University, so aside from a summer position in a local games position he  did not have much work experience. On being given this opportuntity to work on the projetc Josh commented ” The PLUS project seemed like an interesting project to work on, and when I found out a position was open to work on it I applied. I’ve learned some useful things on this project, such as working from and improving upon an existing code base, what it’s like working directly with clients, implementing and using data analytics, and I’m sure I’ll learn more throughout the duration of my employment.”

This project has received funding from August 2015 with the funding ending in July 2017. (HEIF 5+1 and HEIF 5+1+1)

Read more about this project in full: Serious Games for Police Training. 

College of Policing Research Map

Are you involved in a research project related to policing or crime reduction.. read on !

Magnifying-Glass

If you’re involved in a research project related to policing or crime reduction, you can share your work on the College of Policing website. (You will need to make sure that you have permission from your project/ research collaborators/ partners are aware of your intention and you have their agreement. )

The College of Policing website has a research tool that enables you to share  research using  the Policing and Crime Reduction Research Map. Criteria for use includes:

  • relevant to policing and crime reduction
  • of Masters degree level or above (and can include work/professional based project work)
  • ongoing and not completed can be included ( aswell as completed projects).

This tool has been trialled as part of the Higher Education Innovation Funded projects (HEIF 5+1 that were funded from August 2015 – July 2017) that were relevant to this sector. Check out these projects here:

Dr Sarah Bate: The identification of superior face recognition skills. Sarah’s research was also included on the website’s news pages.

Professor Wen Tang: Police training using gamification technology

This is a great tool to promote your research and develop opportunities for further collaboration and networking there-by extending the reach and potential impact. Both Sarah and Wen have very quickly received enquiries from members of the police force (from other parts of the UK), external collaborators and other institutions.

The map can be found here and information on how to add details of the research can be found using this link.