Computer Arts and Games

Welcome to the Computer Arts and Games subject page.  This guides highlights the key resources for your subject area, and services and facilities available from the Library.

Getting started

All required reading for your modules should be available from your online reading lists. In addition to prescribed reading, when doing your own research ‘beyond your reading list’, LibrarySearch is a quick and easy way to simultaneously search for academic content across a number of different sources. If you get stuck, contact your Academic Librarian.

The key resources for your subject area are:

• IEEE Xplore
  Access to more than 4 million full-text documents from some of the world’s most highly cited publications in electrical engineering, computer science and electronics.  It contains more than 30% of the world’s technical literature.
• O’Reilly for Higher Education Learning Platform
  Essential technology  and business resources in a modern digital learning ecosystem.  Content includes access to more than 46,000 ebooks; 30,000 hours of video; learning paths; case studies and expert curated playlists.
  Topic highlights: Software Development - including Game Development.  Programming Languages - including .NET, C, C++, Go, Java, Perl, Python, and more. Data - including machine learning and AI. Career Development and Project Management.
• ACM Digital Library 
  Computing and engineering conference papers and journal articles. Includes the complete archive of each of ACM's Special Interest Groups covering virtually every major area of computing, from Artificial Intelligence to Virtual Reality. Publications include newsletters, conference and workshop proceedings and supporting multimedia materials.
• Statista
  A comprehensive statistics platform with access to over 1.5 million data sets and revenue forecasts from 2015 to 2020 on over 400 industries. Includes access to the Global Consumer Survey database. Includes data on the video game and gaming industry with statistics on the output and consumption of games. For more information and a search tutorial, check this guide.
• Game Studies: The International Journal of Computer Game Research 
  Game Studies is an open access, crossdisciplinary journal dedicated to games and gaming research and the aesthetic, cultural and communicative aspects of computer games. Additional open access journals can be found using the Open Access Journals section at the bottom of the page.
• Springer Link ebooks 
  Over 23,000 e-books on computer science.
• Wiley Online Library 
  Access to nearly 1,500 peer-review journals including Computer Animation and Virtual Worlds and Computer Graphics Forum. 
• Taylor & Francis Online 
  Access to over 1100 social sciences and humanities journals including Journal of Game Tools and Digital Creativity.

GDC Vault Login Link

GDC Vault is a collection of in-depth design, technical and inspirational talks, and slides from the influencers of the game development industry, taken from over 20 years of the worldwide Game Developers Conferences.

The Abertay subscription provides you with thousands of hours including over 12,000 videos, audio files, and synced presentations from speakers and panels carefully selected by the GDC advisory board. GDC Vault content includes a broad spectrum of talks about video game development across over 200 tracks that is easily filtered using categories, upgraded search, and recommended videos.

Note: you can only access the members only content by accessing GDC Vault via the Abertay authenticated link above

Login details

Click the ‘Login’ link at the top right of the screen.  A pop-up will appear with a yellow Abertay Institutional login button.  You must click this login option to be recognised as being from Abertay; giving you access to the subscribed content.  Login with your network credentials if prompted (you will be signed in automatically when you click the button if you have a current authentication session open)

You will know you are logged in correctly, when the ‘Welcome, Abertay University’ message displays at the top right of the screen.  You now have access to the members only content.

Please note that this resource has a limited number of licenses.  If the license number has been reached, you will have to try again later. 

Logout details

*Please ensure that you click the ‘Logout’ button from the top menu when you’ve finished using GDC Vault.  Simply closing your browser session or tab will not log you out.  The system will keep your session open, and this may stop someone else from being able to login.

Websites

Freely available peer-reviewed journals include:

• Animation Studies is the Society for Animation Studies’ peer-reviewed online journal.  One cumulative volume per year is published although articles are added irregularly throughout the year.
• Eludamos:  Journal for Computer Game Culture is an international, multi-disciplinary open access journal.  Peer-reviewed articles that deal with digital games are published bi-annually.
• Hindawi International Journal of Computer Games Technology is a peer-reviewed, open access journal for research and development aspects of games technology covering a range of entertainment computing and interactive digital media.
• Journal for Artistic Research is an international, open access and peer-reviewed journal for the identification, publication and dissemination of artistic research and its methodologies, from all arts disciplines.
• Journal of Games Criticism is a peer-reviewed, open-access journal which is multidisciplinary in nature and focuses on video games criticism.
• Loading … Journal of the Canadian Games Studies Association is an interdisciplinary Canadian journal publishing research in the field of digital games studies. 
• Transactions of the Digital Games Research Association is a quarterly, multidisciplinary open access journal for research on and practice in all aspects of games.

Remember, when deciding which resources to use for your research, ask yourself the following questions:

• Am I using the right type of resource? ie too many books could make your research quite general - have you used any journal articles? are you using too many websites? 
• Are your resources current? Depending on your subject area, you made need to use only the most up-to-date of literature.
• Is what you're using reliable? ie if it was found on the internet: is it a reliable source? when was the website last updated?

Academic Librarian

Your Librarian is Sinéad McGhee. Sinéad can help you find the resources you need for your research, and advise you on how best to reference them.

Email: library@abertay.ac.uk

Tel: 01382 308867

Follow the Library on Twitter @AbertayLibrary

Other resources and support