Abstract

The Procurement Fraud Indicators game was designed to serve as an experiential learning game for acquisition professionals. The game immediately follows a two-hour online learning module about procurement fraud indicators made available by the Defense Acquisition University. The procurement fraud indicators course was selected to be enhanced by a game because it represented a content area filled with ethical and shades of grey types of decision making. The game was designed to provide learners an opportunity to practice the skills they learned during the preceding module by presenting them with varied situations and scenarios in which they are tasked with identifying and categorizing procurement fraud indicators.

Introduction

In 2007, the Defense Acquisition University (DAU), a U.S. Department of Defense Corporate University, launched three distinct games initiatives as it moved toward a performance-based learning framework. The first initiative involved DAU’s two hundred formal resident and online courses. Each of DAU’s courses is part of a certification requirement that the entire Acquisition Technology & Logistics (AT&L) workforce must complete to remain certified. DAU quickly realized that games within this initiative would be very specific to the context and content and would require custom development with a focus on ensuring a learner could perform the tasks related to the content presented with each course. DAU’s second games initiative was on the opposite end of the spectrum. It involved core competencies related to acquisition, but so generic that context might be less important. Games within this second initiative would be casual games – small, easy to play games that anyone in any AT&L career field could be successful playing.