StudyNow
DE

Research and history

StudyNow was created in 2015 at Paderborn University as a research project on “lean gamification”. This page covers the project, publications, press coverage and team.

StudyNow was created in 2015 at Paderborn University – as a research project on the question of how students can be motivated throughout the whole semester without lecturers having to prepare content of their own for it. The following information dates from this project phase and has been left in its original form.

The app has changed fundamentally since then: from version 3 onwards it works entirely without a server or account, and all entries stay on the device. Leaderboards and comparisons with others are gone; they have been replaced by look-backs, rings and goals you set yourself. Since version 6 (2026), StudyNow has also been available for school.

The research project

Making Gamification Easy for the Professor through "Lean Gamification": Theoretical Foundation and Empirical Evidence

Many university students struggle with motivational problems, and gamification has the potential to address these problems. However, using gamification currently is rather tedious and time-consuming for instructors because current approaches to gamification require instructors to engage in the time-consuming preparation of course contents (e.g., for quizzes or mini-games). In reply to this issue, we propose a “lean” approach to gamification, which relies on gamifying learning activities rather than learning contents. The learning activities that are gamified in the lean approach can typically be drawn from existing course syllabi (e.g., attend certain lectures, hand in assignments, read book chapters and articles). Hence, compared to existing approaches, lean gamification substantially lowers the time requirements posed on instructors for gamifying a given course. In this project, we seek to establish the theoretical foundation of the lean gamification approach and obtain empirical evidence for the potential merits of the approach.

Milestones

Summer Term 2015

  • Initial idea created at the Start-up Weekend Paderborn

Winter Term 2015/16

  • Grant: Förderpreis für Innovation und Qualität in der Lehre 2015 der Universität Paderborn

Summer Term 2016

  • First prototype available for Android and iOS

Winter Term 2016/17

  • Pilot studies at Paderborn University: Methoden der IT-Investitionsbewertung (Prof. Dennis Kundisch), Forschungsmethoden in der Wirtschaftsinformatik (Dr. Thomas John), Empirische Managementforschung (Dr. Behnud Mir Djawadi)
  • Main improvements: No registration required, status levels of learning activities extended from “no tick”/”tick” to traffic light (“red”/”yellow”/”green”)

Summer Term 2017

  • Pilot studies at Paderborn University: Grundlagen der Corporate Governance (Prof. René Fahr), Organisation und Unternehmensführung (Prof. Bernd Frick)
  • Main improvements: Additional screen “task overview”, change from ionic 2 to ionic 3 framework, A/B testing functionality, design overhaul, anonymous ranking

Winter Term 2017/18

Since then

  • Version 3: StudyNow works only locally on the device – without a server, without an account, without usage analytics.
  • Version 6 (2026): StudyNow for school, years 5–10 and upper secondary level; Home Screen widget; syncing between your own devices.

Publications and talks

  • John, T. 2018. StudyNow - Eine mobile Plattform zur Verstetigung der Lernmotivation von Studierenden mittels Gamification (talk), Marketing zwischen Theorie und Praxis (MTP), Paderborn, Germany.
  • John, T. 2018. StudyNow - Eine mobile Plattform zur Verstetigung der Lernmotivation von Studierenden mittels Gamification (talk), Jahrgangstreffen des "Fellowship für Innovationen in der digitalen Hochschullehre" des Stifterverbands und des Wissenschaftsministeriums, Bonn, Germany.
  • John, T. 2018. StudyNow - Eine mobile Plattform zur Verstetigung der Lernmotivation von Studierenden mittels Gamification (talk), "Tag der Lehre" der Stabsstelle Bildungsinnovationen und Hochschuldidaktik der Universität Paderborn, Paderborn, Germany.
  • Klingsieck, K., Bomm, A., Djawadi, B., Fahr, R., Feldotto, M., John, T., Kundisch, D., Skopalik, A. 2017. Study? Now! - Evaluation einer gamifizierten App zur Überwindung von akademischer Prokrastination Gemeinsame Tagung der Fachgruppen Entwicklungspsychologie und Pädagogische Psychologie (PAEPSY), Münster, Germany.
  • John, T. 2017. StudyNow - Eine mobile Plattform zur Verstetigung der Lernmotivation von Studierenden mittels Gamification (talk), lernPause der Stabsstelle Bildungsinnovationen und Hochschuldidaktik der Universität Paderborn, Paderborn, Germany.
  • John, T., Feldotto, M., Hemsen, P., Klingsieck, K., Kundisch, D., Langendorf, M. 2017. Towards a Lean Approach to Gamifying Education. In: Proceedings of the Twenty-Fourth European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS), Research-in-Progress, Guimarães, Portugal.
  • Feldotto, M., John, T., Kundisch, D., Hemsen, P., Klingsieck, K., Skopalik, A. 2017. Making Gamification Easy for the Professor: Decoupling Game and Content with the StudyNow Mobile App. In: Proceedings of the Twelfth International Conference on Design Science Research in Information Systems and Technology (DESRIST), Karlsruhe, Germany.
  • Djawadi, B., Hemsen, P., John, T. 2017. StudyNow - Eine mobile Plattform zur Verstetigung der Lernmotivation von Studierenden mittels Gamification (poster presentation), "Tag der Lehre" der Stabsstelle Bildungsinnovationen und Hochschuldidaktik der Universität Paderborn, Paderborn, Germany.
  • John, T. 2016. StudyNow - Eine mobile Plattform zur Verstetigung der Lernmotivation von Studierenden mittels Gamification (talk), lernPause der Stabsstelle Bildungsinnovationen und Hochschuldidaktik der Universität Paderborn, Paderborn, Germany.
  • Djawadi B., John, T. 2016. StudyNow - Eine mobile Plattform zur Verstetigung der Lernmotivation von Studierenden mittels Gamification (talk), Workshop "Topics in Economics and Management", Paderborn, Germany.

Press

Funding and awards

Theses

  • Essink, J. 2018. Motivationsfördernde Push-Nachrichten als Mittel zur Kundenbindung: Ein Literaturüberblick, Bachelor's thesis, Universität Paderborn
  • Olschewski, M. 2018. Motivieren durch Ranglisten: Ein Literaturüberblick, Bachelor's thesis, Universität Paderborn
  • Hanxleden, R. 2018. Gamification und Lernmanagement-Systeme: Ein klassifizierender Überblick über Anwendungen in der Praxis, Bachelor's thesis, Universität Paderborn
  • Cawalla, J. 2017. Gamification in Smartphone-Apps: Analyse von Verbreitung und Wirksamkeit am Beispiel von Apps zur Motivationssteigerung, Bachelor's thesis, Universität Paderborn
  • Maciejok, M. 2016. Authentifizierungsverfahren einer mobilen eLearning Plattform aus Nutzer- und Anbietersicht, Bachelor's thesis, Universität Paderborn

Team

Dominik Niehus, Dr. Harald Selke, Alina Elrich, Bartosz Piesik, Dennis Kundisch, Hannes Post, Jérôme Kempf, Katrin Klingsieck, Lea Grotegut, Liana Bomm, Lukas Filges, Michael Whittaker, René Fahr, Simon Malberg, Thomas John, Alexander Skopalik, Behnud Djawadi, Jan Berhörster, Matthias Feldotto, Max Hahn, Mike Langendorf, Paul Hemsen, Tanja Tornede