Brian McDonald

Senior Lecturer Digital Games

Brian McDonald is a senior lecturer on the BA(Hons) Game Development and BSc(Hons) Computing for Games, where he'll be teaching Games Programming and Graphics Programming. He'll also supervise student projects at stages 1, 2 and 3.

Brian has been a Lecturer in Video Games Development for over 12 years, focusing on teaching Computer Graphics and Gameplay Programming. In his previous positions, he was a Programmer Leader of the Games Software Development Programme for 4 years and also oversaw the successful redevelopment of the Games Programmes at Glasgow Caledonian University in 2014.

Brian is a keen advocate for the Games Development Community. He was elected to serve on the board of IGDA Scotland from 2013 - 2016. In this role he helped bring together the Game Developers from around Scotland by organising monthly meetings and developer talks. In this role and as an Academic, he provided written evidence to the Scottish Parliament’s Economy, Energy and Tourism Committee inquiry into the economic contribution of the creative industries in 2015. Brian has been a local, regional and global organiser with Global Game Jam since its inception in 2009.

Contact details

Telephone 01326 254204
Email Brian.McDonald@falmouth.ac.uk
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    Qualifications

    Qualifications

    Year Qualification Awarding body
    2005 PgD Games Technology Glasgow Caledonian University
    2004 BSc Computing Glasgow Caledonian University

    Research Interests

    Research interests and expertise

    Creative Hubs
    Game Jam and Hackathons
    Computer Science Education

    Research Topics

    • Computing
    • Digital Games Design
    • Education

    Research Outputs

    Publications and research outputs

    • Gilbert, Cole

      Scott, Michael, (2024), Exploring the Relationship between Debugging Self-Efficacy and CASE Tools for Novice Troubleshooting, In: UKICER '24: Proceedings of the 2024 Conference on United Kingdom & Ireland Computing Education Research, ACM, UK, ISBN: not known

    • Scott, Michael

      Lewis, Gareth and Powley, Edward, (2019), Nurturing Collaboration in an Undergraduate Computing Course with Robot-themed Team Training and Team Building, In: CEP '19: Proceedings of the 3rd Conference on Computing Education Practice, ACM Press, New York, pp. 5, ISBN: 9781450366311, ISSN: Unknown

    • McDonald, Brian and Moffat, David

      (2016), Using Sentiment Analysis to track reaction to the Global Game Jam Theme published in Proceedings of the International Conference on Game Jams, Hackathons, and Game Creation Events, In: GJH&GC '16, March 13 2016, San Francisco, CA, USA, ACM, USA, pp. 50-53, ISBN: 978-1-4503-4083-0

    • Mitchell, Alexander

      Scott, Michael, (2023), Peer Evaluation in Group Projects: Insight into Effective Student Critique and Feedback, In: AdvanceHE Assessment and Feedback Symposium, 7th November 2023, Reading, UK, (Submitted)

    • McDonald, Brian

      Brown, Douglas, (2022), The Kerdroya Postmortem: Navigating the Labyrinth of Co-creative Design and Collective Vision, Athens, Greece

    • Wearn, Nia and McDonald, Brian

      (2016), Ethos of location and its implication to the motivators of Global Games Jam participants, San Francisco, USA

    • McDonald, Brian and Law, Robert

      (2014), Game Jams: How can they influence Software Development Curricula?, In: Workshop Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games, California, USA, pp. 1-4

    • Shaprio, Angela, McDonald, Brian and Johnson, Aidan

      (2013), Gathering the Voices: Disseminating the Message of the Holocaust for the Digital Generation, Nice, France

    • McDonald, Brian

      Summerley, Rory, (2024), Perceived Foolishness: How Does the Saltybet Community Construct AI vs AI Spectatorship?, In: Games and Culture, SAGE Publications, Online, 0 (0), ISSN: 1555-4139

    • Shapiro, Angela, McDonald, Brian and Johnston, Aidan

      (2014), Gathering the voices : disseminating the message of the Holocaust for the digital generation by applying an interdisciplinary approach, In: Social Sciences, Special Issue, New Media and Social Learning, MDPI, Bael, Switzerland, 3 (3), pp. 499-513, ISSN: 2076-0760

    Teaching

    Areas of teaching

    • Digital Games

    Courses taught

    • Digital Games BA(Hons)
    • Computing for Games BSc(Hons)