Client case: ‘Hogeschool van Amsterdam’

Today we present the client case Hogeschool van Amsterdam, a higher education training center that focuses on an applied science approach.

With the end of summer, school starts again and with that hundreds of students are facing a new school year full of challenges and new people. For this reason, UP Digital wanted to do its part and create a game so that the new students could get to know each other in a relaxed and fun way.

How do you get to know each other as well as the location?

We are approached for more and more diverse questions. One of them was to develop a game as part of the introduction for new first-year students at the Commercial Economics program of the Hogeschool van Amsterdam (HvA).

A request we could sink our teeth into. With success, because the game has been used for several years now! We asked Jeroen Prent, education manager at HvA, how he experienced both the cooperation and the reactions of students.

What was the goal?

We wanted the students to get to know each other and our location in a casual way through an interactive component including fun and competitive elements.

What did the game look like?

The Introduction Game, as we called it, is an interactive campus tour supported by an app on your phone. In teams, students went out to learn all about the area, the campus and the program. They discovered important places, such as the library and cafeteria, and also learned all kinds of fun facts and trivia about the school. Game progress and results were live and visible after the game. The team with the most points won the game.

The game ran extremely well, was completely in our house style and we got a lot of enthusiastic feedback from the students. It was very casual and informal. Exactly what we want to give the students during such an introduction week.

Although some also just dove into the pub, but we think that is also a sign of socialization and that was ultimately the purpose of the game. We will definitely use it again next year. The nice thing is that the game in its modified version can also be played online. This is very handy if circumstances make it more sensible.

How did the collaboration go?

It was excellent. We met a few times. First at your location and then at ours. We coordinated mutual expectations and possibilities and then we started the process very quickly. That was an intensive process, because to put together a game of this magnitude requires quite a bit in a large organization like ours. But we were well supported until the last moment. You ensured that everything was always taken care of, even though we sometimes did not meet our deadline with the delivery of input. The result is this beautiful game.

What could be (even) better next time?

If you want to get the most out of such a game and make it truly customized, this means that as an organization you have to put in the effort yourself, because the content has to come from us. We made a bit of a mistake here, because it involves many links within the organization.

In a subsequent application, we would allocate more time for this. You cannot be blamed for this, but it was a point of improvement for us. For the next introductory year we are therefore going to take a closer look at the content. Your technology is otherwise completely ready.