The EDDi Serious Game is a computer-based single-player game created to enable the implementation of an interactive and immersive simulation exercise in a classroom setting (and beyond). Going beyond entertainment, Serious Games combine learning strategies and game elements to teach specific skills, knowledge and attitudes and can be applied in various areas such as education, healthcare, marketing and other fields. The EDDi Serious Game is designed to solve problems of epidemiological investigation and involves challenges and rewards along an outbreak simulation scenario, using various entertainment and engagement components provided when the user is playing games.

Building on a problem-based self-study approach, EDDi participants will be introduced to the principles and practices of infectious disease epidemiology as well as concepts related to the investigation of disease outbreaks, with particular focus on:

1. Describing infectious disease events and evaluating local outbreak scenarios
2. Learning about basic methods of epidemiological outbreak investigation, study designs, and tools of epidemiology (e.g., epidemiological curves, outbreak maps, technical terms)
3. Interpreting and recognizing associations between outbreak events and relevant influencing factors by applying basic techniques of infectious disease epidemiology (especially descriptive methods)
4. Making informed decisions in outbreak investigation based on epidemiological evidence
5. Extra: Getting to know the structure of the German disease surveillance and reporting system as well as background information on the Hanseatic city of Hamburg

Concept and Materials

The Serious Game and all supplementary materials can be downloaded free of charge and under an open licence (also for commercial use) from the multi-disciplinary open repository ZENODO: