Sally and Jennie

From 520Wiki

Contents 1 Document Type 2 Definition 3 Why We Chose Board Games 4 Objectives 4.1 List of User Groups 4.2 General Objectives 4.3 Individual Objectives 5 Conceptual Models 6 Application Profile/Schema 7 Metadata Records 8 Thesaurus 9 Ontology

Document Type

Board Games

Definition

dictionary.com defines a board game as:
1. a game, as checkers or chess, requiring the moving of pieces from one section of a board to another.
2. any game played on a board.

We would like to include games that most people think of as "board game" that do not require a board. This is our definition of a board game: A multi-person game in which players follow a set of predetermined rules and use materials (often including a board) that are purchased packaged together in a box.

Why We Chose Board Games

Board games will make an interesting topic because they have many different characteristics: you can organize them according to physical properties (size/layout of board, players' representation on the board), or by type of skill involved in play (language, drawing, luck, trivia, strategy, manual dexterity).

And they are used by various people for different purposes. The most common use is when families/friends play them, but we must also consider the people who design them and the companies that produce them, collectors, educators who use them as teaching tools, etc.

Objectives

List of User Groups

1. User of board game website - A person who occasionally plays board games and wants to find a game to purchase. This can either be a new game or a game they have played before but do not own.
2. Owner of a board game collection- A person (or organization or store, etc) who owns numerous board games. This person has extensive knowledge of games and may want to find games by particular game authors or using other attributes that would not be relevant for a casual player.
3. Educator - A teacher who wants to find games to use in the classroom to engage students and/or aid in teaching a lesson. May want to use chance games to teach math, games that involve geography, etc. This user group is, in reality, a subset of either of the first two groups, depending on whether they are using an established collection in their classroom/school or searching for a new game to purchase.

General Objectives

1. Finding - To find a known board game using that game's attributes or relationships.
2. Collocating - To find a set of games that share a common attribute. Ex: Board games that require only two players, versions of Monopoly.
3. Identifying - To confirm that a board game is the one the user is looking for, or to distinguish between similar board games.
4. Selecting - To select a game that is appropriate to the user's needs with respect to number of users, skills involved, age range, etc.
5. Acquiring - To locate a copy of a game, either in a store or in their own/their organization's collection.
6. Navigating - To navigate a game collection to find related games. For example, expansions for games, newer versions, similar games.

Individual Objectives

• Educator

1. Finding - No special objective.
2. Collocating - To find a set of games based on specific educational attributes, for example, games that require knowledge of geography.
3. Identifying- No special objective.
4. Selecting- To select a game based on whether it is appropriate for the classroom, for example the level of complexity or inclusion of adult themes.
5. Acquiring- No special objective.
6. Navigating- No special objective.

• User of board game website

1. Finding - No special objective.
2. Collocating - To find board games that are in stock in a given store, or games that cost less than $15.
3. Identifying - To identify at a high level (work?) may be enough for this user. Will not generally need to distinguish between very similar games, for example, the 1998 Monopoly and the 2005 Monopoly. To identify a game through images, for example, if the user remembers what the board looks like, but can't remember the title.
4. Selecting - To select a game based on other users' feedback. For instance, if the website took visitors' comments, a user could read these to help them decide if it is appropriate for their needs.
5. Acquiring - To obtain retailer information in order to purchase the game.
6. Navigating - To receive suggestions for games the user may like based on input they provide, for example, if the user loves Scrabble, what other games might she enjoy?

• Owner of a board game collection

1. Finding - To find a game in the collection based on very specific attributes. Ex - publication date, publisher, language. May also want to specify attributes unique to their copy in order to locate it - Ex - missing box, autographed by author, gift from Eric, etc.
2. Collocating - To find all the board games by specific, personal attributes, such as location. For example, what games are at my beach mansion, so I know what I need to bring with me on vacation. (OMG! What if I can't play D&D while on vacation?)
3. Identifying - To confirm at a very specific level of detail that a board game is the exact version that the user is searching for. For example, some collectors may collect numerous versions of a game (i.e. every edition of Monopoly ever distributed) and want to distinguish between them.
4. Selecting - No specific objective.
5. Acquiring - To find the game within the user's own collection (It's under the bed, at the beach house, on shelf #4).
6. Navigating - To navigate a collection to find all related versions/variations/add-ons of a particular game. For example, a Trivial Pursuit devotee will want to know that in 2001 an expansion pack was released for Genus IV.

Conceptual Models

Table: [| Model Table]

Diagram:

Application Profile/Schema

[| Profile]

Board Game Schema

Metadata Records

Metadata Records

Thesaurus

Hierarchies

SKOS encoded thesaurus
You may browse this SKOS file as an ontology using: http://pellet.owldl.com/ontology-browser/
Paste the contents of the SKOS file into the tool.

Ontology

See OWl file.

Narrative:

A user of a system with this ontology would input a game title, designer or theme into the system. The object properties we included are hasTheme and isDesignedBy (and their inverses). So a user would be able to look for a game based on the theme or designer. For example, a user could find all games with the theme Civil War or all games designed by Marsha Falco. Users could also input "North Carolina" as the theme, and the system would output UNCMonopoly (because Chapel Hill is a subclass of North Carolina).

Theme and Game Inferences -- we created three game classes: EducationalGame, WarGame, and SportsGame. We define EducationalGame as any game with a SchoolSubject as a theme. A WarGame is any game with ModernWarfare (an activity) or any war (a subclass of time period) as its theme. And SportsGame has any Sport as its theme.

Since the system infers all EducationalGames, teachers can access all games with educational themes assigned, or specify a particular school subject to find all games with that specific subject (such as finding the game Set because it has Math as its theme).

Object Property Inverses -- We defined the inverses of our object properties. So the system can infer that
Set isDesignedBy Marsha Falco
is the same as:
MarshaFalco designs Set.