TECHNICAL COMMUNICATION ELEMENTS EMBEDDED IN BUSINESS SIMULATIONS. CASE STUDY TOPSIM GENERAL MANAGEMENT

The paper intends to analyse the technical communication elements embedded in a very successful serious game - the Topsim General Management simulation game. This simulation has been successfully implanted in education within the domain industrial engineering and management even before the pandemic context and proved its success also in the online teaching context. Thus, the paper looks at the user experience elements of technical communication embedded within the Topsim General Management simulation game and describes the possible effects on the learners and their motivation in the context of prolonged online teaching and learning. In the pandemic context this is of great relevance, as in March 2020 we began a period of online education that proved to last one whole year and we still don’t know when it will end. Professors as well as students had to find ways to keep both teaching and learning motivation at a level as high as possible even though their direct contact was either not possible at all or very limited – the predominant or even exclusive form of contact taking place via online communication instruments and online platforms. Relying on the case study method the research has an exploratory nature. It describes the user experience elements embedded within the business simulation game Topsim General Management – a business simulation game highly rated by students regarding both the learning motivation as well as the acquired competencies. These elements consist of the Handbook, the scenarios of each game period as well as the business reports after each game period.