Serious Games Graduate Certificate
Our graduate certificate students include Media & Information graduate students, other MSU graduate students including MAET M.A. students, doctoral students at other universities interested in serious games and gamification. Our online graduate certificate students also include game industry professionals, fortune 500 and small business professionals in many different fields, museum designers, corporate trainers, university professors, and K-12 teachers with an interest in serious games and a desire to add additional knowledge and skills in this important domain.
The certificate program is available to students enrolled in any MSU graduate degree program. It is also available to non-MSU students as a stand-alone, 3-course graduate certificate program. Either approach leads to receiving the “Serious Game Design and Research Graduate Certificate,” also nicknamed the Serious Games Graduate Certificate. Visit the MSU course schedule for current offerings.
For questions, please contact Dr. Amanda Cote at acote@msu.edu
MI 830 Foundations of Serious Games description: Rationales, principles, processes, and pedagogies for serious game design. Applications of serious game genres and simulations. Funding and distribution.
MI 831 Theories of Games and Interaction Design description: Theories of interaction in games and other mediated contexts including communication, learning, health, global and local development, and social justice to inform the design of social systems, games and other interactive media products.
MI 841 Understanding Users description: Methods of user-centered research to support game, media and interaction design. Iterative cycles of user and product conceptualization.
Highlighted Game: Loam: The Game of Soil Biodiversity
Click the image for more information about Loam.
Max Helmberger (2022 Ph.D. in Entomology, MSU) completed the SGC during his Ph.D. before successfully launching Loam: The Game of Soil Biodiversity and Pest Quest with Cardboard Revolution.
How to Apply
If you're an MI Graduate Student...
You already have permission to enroll in the Serious Games Graduate Certificate courses! To obtain the certificate after you have completed the courses, contact the director of graduate studies.
Spring: November 15
Click the image for more information on Clearly!
Congratulations to Maura Philippone, Madeline Allen, Jesse Sanderson, and Adam Elfawal! This team of SGC students recently won Bronze at the International Serious Play Awards (Student, Healthcare / Medical Category) for their game CLEARLY! – A Clear/Loud Speech Game for Parkinson’s Disease.
The graduate certificate can be completed as a stand-alone certificate by learners not otherwise enrolled in an MSU degree program, such as game industry professionals already versed in game design who want to expand their knowledge to the domain of serious games, professional educators, and educational technology specialists who want to understand how and why games can be used for learning.
The certificate program exposes students to examples of the current state of the art in the different strands of serious games (games for learning, corporate training, newsgames, games for health, exergames, military games, and games for social change), distribution, and industry structure, theories to inform serious game design, and research methods for understanding players.
To be considered for admission into the graduate certificate in serious game design and research, applicants must have completed a bachelor’s degree.
Required courses for MA Certificate
MI 830 Foundations of Serious Games
(3 credits, spring semesters)
Rationales, principles, processes and pedagogies for serious game design. Applications of serious game genres and simulations. Funding and distribution.
MI 831 Theories of Games and Interaction for Design
(3 credits, fall semesters)
Theories of mediated interaction including communication, learning, health, global and local development, and social justice to inform the design of social systems, games, and media products.
MI 841 Understanding Users
(3 credits, fall semesters)
Research methods used by design teams for asking and answering questions related to digital media arts and technology–before, during, and after design of creative work. The design goals and the design prototype are tested to guide development and evaluate effectiveness.
MSU students who are currently enrolled in a graduate program may propose an alternative graduate research methods course offered in their major in lieu of MI 841 that contributes to their expertise in serious game design and research in their chosen discipline.