Role
Ben is a Lecturer within the School of Computer Science and member of the Lincoln Social Computing (LiSC) Research Centre
Biography
Ben joined the University in June 2006 to lead the research on the Social Gaming thread of the PASION European Integrated Project. PASION (Psychologically Augmented Social Interactions Over Networks) involved 17 partner organisations and universities around Europe and investigated how social interactions take on new forms when communication is mediated by technology. As part of this work, Ben designed, developed and studied a series of social games on mobile, web and Facebook that involved several hundred players.
Before joining the university, Ben worked on a wide range of research projects, including games for sexual health awareness for the Centre for Public Health, Augmented Reality (AR) devices for Astronomy education, Riot control simulations with the help of the Merseyside Police and a range of applications for eLearning and Computer Supported Collaborative Working. In collaboration with the BBC, Ben worked on educational games for BBC Jam; physical games for the BBC Big Screens; Social Television applications for the BBC On-demand TV service (later to become the BBC iPlayer), in addition to IT and new media consulting for small enterprises in deprived areas of Merseyside within the EU Objective One programme.
Qualifications
MSc Computer Games Technology, LJMU 2004
BSc(Hons) Software Engineering, LJMU 2003
Academic Experience
Lecturer, Lincoln school of Computer Science, 2010 - Present.
Research Assistant, PASION Project, Lincoln Social Computing Research Centre, 2006 - 2010
Professional Membership
International Game Developers' Association (IGDA)
Digital Games Research Association (DiGRA)
Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)
Industrial Commercial Experience
Game Design and Development Consultant, International Centre for Digital Content, Liverpool (2004-2006)
Research Interests
Ben's research interests are in the nascent field of Ludology (the study of games and play) and specifically the social aspects of gaming. Ben also has a strong interest in non-electronic gaming and social networking as applied to multiplayer gamers and players of different gaming styles.
Recent Publications
Ben Kirman, Conor Linehan and Shaun Lawson (2012 – In Press) Blowtooth: a
provocative pervasive game for smuggling virtual drugs through real airport
security. To appear in Personal and Ubiquitous Computing, Springer.
Ben Kirman, Francesco Collovŕ, Fabrizio Davide, Eva Ferrari, Jonathan
Freeman, Shaun Lawson, Conor Linehan and Niklas Ravaja (2011) Social
Architecture and the Emergence of Power Laws in Online Social Games, Proceedings
of “Think. Design. Play.”, the 5th DiGRA conference on games and play, Utrecht
Conor Linehan, Ben Kirman, Shaun Lawson and Gill Chan (2011). Practical,
Appropriate, Empirically-Validated Guidelines for Designing Educational Games.
Proceedings of CHI 2011.
Ben Kirman, Conor Linehan and Shaun Lawson (2010) On the Edge of Good Taste: Playful Misconduct and Mischief in Online Games, chapter in “Exploring the Edges of Gaming”