Events & Announcements

• We attended the first field exercise of our EU project eNOTICE-2 project, which was organized at Dortmund, Germany, between the dates of 18-20 April 2024 – 21.04.2024.
• I attended the Stanford University’s University Innovation Fellows Meet Up as a UIF Faculty Champion, and the event will be held at University of Twente’s Design Lab between the dates of 10-15 April 2024 – 15.04.2024.
• I gave a seminar titled “A Brief Introduction to Game Research: Persona Building, Serious Games, and Extended Reality Applications” at METU ROMER Talks – 03.04.2024.
• Our new European Commission Horizon Europe project has been accepted on March 20, and has been officially announced by TÜBİTAK on March 29, 2024. Many thanks to TÜBİTAK for their support and heartfelt congratulations to our university – 30.03.2024.
• Our new journal paper titled “Benchmarking kinship estimation tools for ancient genomes using pedigree simulations” has been accepted to the Molecular Ecology Resources journal – 29.03.2024.
• I attended the 6th CBRNe Research and Innovation international conference in Strasbourg, France (19-21 March). I gave a presentation titled “Future directions for extended reality applications and serious games on CBRNe”, and presented our new EU project eNOTICE-2 in two different workshops – 21.03.2024.
• My book chapter “Recent Advancements and Use Cases on Co-Creation, Procedural Content Generation, And Computational Creativity in Video Games” will be published at the book “Artificial Intelligence, Co-Creation, and Creativity: The New Frontier for Innovation”, which will be published by Routledge Taylor & Francis Group in August 2024 – 18.03.2024.
• I was a guest lecturer at BA 100 Career Planning course, and gave a presentation titled “Introduction to Entrepreneurship and Opportunities at the METU Ecosystem” – 13.03.2024.
• As part of the Alliance of Guangzhou International Sister-City Universities (GISU) Digital and Entrepreneurship Academy Program 2024, I gave a seminar titled “Digital Globalization of Gaming and Extended Reality Industries.” – 12.03.2024.
ENRICH TOGETHER – Are you currently in your final stages of completing your Ph.D. degree or have already completed your Ph.D. degree and looking for a 12-to-24-month post-doctoral Research Opportunity in Türkiye? As Middle East Technical University we are delighted to inform you that the first ENRICH-TOGETHER call for 10 highly-motivated and excellent post-doctoral researchers to be coupled with one of 60+ accomplished academics working in the field of Green and Blue Transition is now open till April 16, 2024 – 09.03.2024.
• Happy International Women’s Day and please visit our university’s unique collage here, which was held as an exhibition as well – 08.03.2024.
• Dear METU Students, on behalf of the British Council Turkey-funded Global Graduates for Global Careers project led by METU, the University of Bradford’s School of Management delivers an online Career Booster Spring 2024 Programme – 09.02.2024.
• Our new preprint titled “BioNet-XR: Biological Network Visualization Framework for Virtual Reality and Mixed Reality Environments” with Büşra Şenderin and Assoc. Prof. Nurcan Tuncbag is just out and available on arXiv – 08.02.2024.
• We, as GIMER, attended the Global Game Jam ATOM – 19.01.2024.
• Our new EU project eNOTICE-2, funded by the DG ECHO Union Civil Protection Knowledge Network, has officially started in January 2024. Our kick-off meeting was held between the dates of 15-17 January 2024 in Brussels, Belgium – 18.01.2024.
• I am starting a new position as Associate Director at METU Graduate School of Informatics – 15.01.2024.
• Our new journal paper titled “Developing a Framework for Heterotopias as Discursive Playgrounds: A Comparative Analysis of Non-Immersive and Immersive Technologies” (E. H. Korkut and E. Surer) has been published at the Virtual Reality journal – 13.01.2024.
• Our new journal paper titled “A Modular Serious Game Development Framework for Virtual Laboratory Courses” (F. Yucel, H. Unal, E. Surer, N. Huvaj) has been published at the IEEE Transactions on Learning Technologies journal – 04.01.2024.
• We, as GIMER, attended the ADIMODTU event – 22.12.2023.
• We, as GIMER, attended the opening ceremony of the interdisciplinary project between METU and ASBU – 11.12.2023.
• Our study got the Best Poster award at METU Graduate School of Informatics Open Research Day – 08.12.2023.
• We are happy to announce that recent entrepreneurial activities of ODTÜ TEKNOKENT and METU Entrepreneurship Research Center are published at the latest issue of the Change Forward Journal, an annual publication that features work by University Innovation Fellows programme of Stanford University and their Faculty Champions. You can read the publication titled “Empowering Universities as Strong Communities and Change Catalyzers” co-authored by METU UIF Faculty Champions, Serdar Alemdar and Elif Surer here – 20.11.2023.
• Our new paper, “Distribution Aware Testing Framework for Deep Neural Networks” (Demet Demir, Aysu Betin-Can, Elif Surer), has been accepted for publication in the IEEE Access journal and is published online – 26.10.2023.
• We attended the EAI – European Alliance for Innovation EAI GOODTECHS 2023 – 9th EAI International Conference on Smart Objects and Technologies for Social Good in Polytechnic of Leiria, Portugal with our student Ozan Yetkin, and presented three proceedings from our interdisciplinary collaborations and our joint works with our thesis students – 20.10.2023.
• I gave a presentation titled “Extended Reality Applications and Serious Games in the CBRNe Domain: Opportunities, Challenges and Future Perspectives” at the Third Edition of the SICC Series – CBRNe Conference on the virtual reality and mixed reality serious games that we have developed at the H2020 eNOTICE project, and on the exciting future ahead. We also had a poster on Tuesday titled “Development of a Methodology for Pooling Resources and Optimising Investments in the Field of CBRN Training and Capacity Building”, and lots of exciting discussions and opportunities for collaboration – 29.09.2023.
• Our paper, “Playtesting: What is Beyond Personas” (Sinan Arıyürek, Elif Surer, Aysu Betin-Can) has been published in the September issue of the IEEE Transactions on Games – 15.09.2023.
• We are very happy and excited to attend the IEEE Conference on Games‘ Best of ToG session with our selected IEEE Transactions on Games journal paper, which was published in 2021! Many thanks to the organizers for this session and it is a great honour and joy to be among these amazing journal papers. IEEE Conference on Games’ full program is available here – 23.08.2023.
• We, as GIMER, met with Ilkay Can-Standard and Fethiye Yildiz from GENx Design & Technology; we are looking forward to our future collaborations – 29.07.2023.
• Our new European Commission project, funded by the DG ECHO Union Civil Protection Knowledge Network, has been accepted. Heartfelt congratulations to our university – 23.06.2023.
• My reference entry on the Panda3D game engine has been published online in Springer’s Encyclopedia of Computer Graphics and Games – 18.06.2023.
• Our study with Servet Gürer and Assoc. Prof. Mustafa Erkayaoğlu, “MINING-VIRTUAL: A comprehensive virtual reality-based serious game for occupational health and safety training in underground mines”, is published in the Safety Science journal – 17.06.2023.
• I attended the final conference of the eNOTICE, Proactive, and PANDEM-2 projects, which has been held in Brussels, Belgium between the dates of 13-15 June 2023 – 16.06.2023.
• I have participated to the METU CENG Demoday 2023 as jury – 06.06.2023.
• Our new preprint is just out: “Egocentric Activity Recognition Using Two-Stage Decision Fusion” (Mehmet Ali Arabaci, Elif Surer, Alptekin Temizel) is available on Research Square – 05.06.2023.
• I attended the Campus Vesta Joint Activity of the eNOTICE project, which has been held in Ranst, Belgium between the dates of 10-13 May 2023. I also attended the eFAIR and made a presentation titled “Serious Games and Virtual Reality in CBRNe” at Campus Vesta, Ranst, Belgium – 14.05.2023.
• As GIMER, we were a part of the FireUp Creator Bootcamp, an online education program aiming to expand university students’ vision of micro-enterprises, which took place between 22 February-5 May, 2023 – 04.05.2023.
• We would like to thank GGT for including GIMER in the “E-YES ON BUSINESS” magazine published specially for the 20th Anniversary of the METU Young Entrepreneurs Society and congratulate everyone who contributed to the GGT team for the full content of the magazine – 03.05.2023.
• We as GIMER were delighted to take part in the Kristal Ağaç 2023 award ceremony organized by the METU Young Entrepreneurs Society. Thanks to everyone who contributed to the organization and many thanks to Assoc. Dr. Behçet Yalın Özkara for their participation – 26.04.2023.
• Congratulations to our students (Diba Asadi, Ege Yiğit Şen, Berk Baris Ozbek, Bahar Salman, and Sıla Uzun) for successfully completing the University Innovation Fellows program and becoming Fellows! – 13.04.2023.
• Our new dataset, EOAD (Egocentric Outdoor Activity Dataset) (Mehmet Ali Arabaci, Elif Surer, Alptekin Temizel) is available at Zenodo – 16.03.2023.
• I attended the WSU Joint Activity of the eNOTICE project, which has been held in Warsaw, Poland between the dates of 07-09 March 2023 – 10.03.2023.
Global Game Jam ATOM 2023 has been held at METU Teknokent CoZone between the dates of 03-05 February 2023; many thanks to all that contributed to this wonderful event – 05.02.2023.
• Mixed Reality Application for Improving Mine Safety Culture in Underground Mining – MR4MS project has been completed successfully – 23.01.2023.
• Our new preprint is just out: “Developing a Framework for Heterotopias as Discursive Playgrounds: A Comparative Analysis of Non-Immersive and Immersive Technologies” (Elif Hilal Korkut and Elif Surer) is available on arXiv – 20.01.2023.
Fire Up Creator Bootcamp powered by Komunite is about to start, please do not forget to register – 18.01.2023.
• Our study, “Visualization in virtual reality: a systematic review”, is published online in the Virtual Reality journal – 17.01.2023.
Five METU students have been named University Innovation Fellows, which is a program run by Stanford University as a result of the Fire Up 2022 training program. The six-week-long program was collaboratively organized by METU GİMER (Entrepreneurship Research Center), İTÜ GİNOVA and Boğaziçi University BRIGHT entrepreneurship centers, and sponsored by METU TEKNOKENT – 11.01.2023.
Kristal Agac Awards event poll, organized by METU Young Entrepreneurs Society (METU YES), has started – 04.01.2023.
• I participated in the METU Strategic Plan 2023-2027 as part of the Strategic Plan Field Committee on International Collaborations – 03.01.2023.
• METU Performance Awards 2021 have been announced, and I am honored to be listed among the award recipients – 30.12.2022.
• We, as GIMER, participated in the TTGV Day event; we would like to thank TTGV for this fantastic organization and for their kind invitation – 22.12.2022.
• We, as GIMER, had the chance to meet Prof. Akbat Adhiutama, Prof. Nur Budi Mulyono, and Yunita Piga Kanata from Institut Teknologi Bandung’s School of Business Management and we are looking forward to our future collaborations – 16.12.2022.
• We, as GIMER, participated in the Networking event of YFYI, Turkey’s leading early-stage acceleration programs – 14.12.2022.
• Stanford University’s Hasso Plattner Institute of Design’s University Innovation Fellows Pinning Kit for our university, METU, has arrived – 12.12.2022.
EU H2020 project eNOTICE has organized a Joint Activity in Rieti, Italy between the dates of 15-17 November 2022 – 17.11.2022.
• Our paper focusing on the population history of Upper Mesopotamia in the Neolithic Era by Altınışık et al. is out in Science Advances journal; congratulations to the whole team – 04.11.2022.
• I am supporting #PancreaticCancerAwarenessMonth November 2022. Learn the symptoms, spread the word, and raise awareness so that neither you nor your loved ones suffer from this disease. Although not mentioned here, a new diagnosis of diabetes or existing diabetes that is becoming more challenging to control is also a red flag – 01.11.2022.
• Similar to Sem 2 2021/22, the University of Bradford School of Management opens their unique Career Booster Programme at the School of Management to 50 students at Middle East Technical University – 24.10.2022.
METU Informatics Institute and METU GIMER Seminars begin with the seminar of Dr. David Nugent (Elucidare Ltd, UK) and you are all kindly invited – 24.10.2022.
• Prof. Vishanth Weerakkody (Bradford University), our partner from the GLOBALGC project, visited METU Technopolis and METU Design Factory – 19.10.2022.
METU GIMER visited the University of Bradford School of Management between the dates of 26-29 September for the British Council-funded Connect4Innovation: UK-Turkey Higher Education Institutional Partnerships Fund project GlobalGC “Global Graduates for Global Careers” – 30.09.2022.
METU GIMER attended a meeting with METU Young Entrepreneurs Society (METU YES) regarding the organization of the NASA Space Apps Challenge – 13.09.2022.
• Our joint TUBITAK 1001 project, led by the Department of Computer Engineering in collaboration with METU ROMER (Robotics and Artificial Intelligence Technologies Applications and Research Center), has been funded – 25.07.2022.
• Congratulations to my dear students, Oğuzcan Yıldırım and Şura Genç, for receiving METU Thesis of the Year Awards – 29.06.2022.
Our Institute‘s Open Research Day Award Presentation Ceremony (Best Posters and Special Mention Awards) and METU Graduate Courses Performance Awards Ceremony were held in Ural Akbulut Conference Hall; many congratulations to our student Furkan Yücel – 24.06.2022.
• I gave an online talk titled “A Brief Introduction to Game Research: Serious Games, Extended Reality Applications, and Reinforcement Learning” at the Johannes Kepler University Linz’s Institute of Computer Graphics’ ICG Lab Talk Series – 22.06.2022.
• Our new paper, “Verifying Maze-Like Game Levels With Model Checker SPIN” (Tekik, O., Surer, E., Betin Can, A.), has been published in the IEEE Access journal – 21.06.2022.
• As METU Multimedia Informatics program, we have participated in our Institute‘s Open Research Day – 17.06.2022.
• This semester’s MMI 590 Graduate Seminar course had fascinating speakers, and I would like to thank them for their invaluable contributions: Asst. Prof. Fatma Başak Aydemir (Boğaziçi University Computer Engineering Department), Asst. Prof. Mustafa Mert Ankaralı (METU Electrical & Electronics Engineering), Asst. Prof. Anıl Ufuk Batmaz (Kadir Has University), Assoc. Prof. Sema Alaçam (Istanbul Technical University), Asst. Prof. Hakan Yıldız (METU Computer Engineering), Asst. Prof. Emre Gürsoy (Koç University), Assoc. Prof. Sema Dumanlı Oktar, Asst. Prof. Ayşegül Dündar (Bilkent University), Asst. Prof. Cemil Zalluhoğlu (Hacettepe University), Asst. Prof. Hasan Onur Keleş (Ankara University), Asst. Prof. Anıl Koyuncu (Sabancı University), Assoc. Prof. Gökhan İnce (Istanbul Technical University), and Assoc. Prof. Cihangir Tezcan (METU Informatics Institute) – 16.06.2022.
• We participated to the NEOMATRIX project‘s first meeting at METU – 11.06.2022.
• I am looking for Ph.D. candidates interested in pursuing a Ph.D. in artificial intelligence, video games, and AR/VR/MR at METU Informatics Institute’s Multimedia Informatics within the scope of the university-industry collaboration program – 24.05.2022.
• I attended the H2020 eNOTICE Project‘s Joint Activity—Multidisciplinary Field Exercise organized by Campus Vesta in Ranst, Belgium between the dates of 18-21 May – 21.05.2022.
• I would like to thank the HoloZcan project for sharing my statement in their Stakeholders’ Horizon section. HoloZcan focuses on the Deep Learning Powered Holographic Microscopy for Biothreat Detection – 18.05.2022.
METU GIMER participated in the Think Talk event, organized by METU Young Entrepreneurs Society (METU YES), as a jury – 14.05.2022.
Our interview’s part II, conducted by Onedio Platform on gaming, metaverse, and extended reality, was released today – 11.05.2022.
• I attended the H2020 eNOTICE Project‘s Joint Activity organized by the City of Dortmund Fire Department and the PROActive project in Dortmund, Germany between the dates of 6-7 May – 07.05.2022.
• We organized a workshop on CBRNe Training, where we shared our results and experiences from the eNOTICE project’s serious games, virtual and mixed reality-based joint activities, at the 5th CBRNE International Conference (3-6 May 2022) in Lille, France – 05.05.2022.
NEOGENE project‘s Synthesis Workshop was held at METU – 20.04.2022.
Week 6 of the Fire Up 2022 program has been completed successfully– 20.04.2022.
• I gave a lecture on Persona Building at METU Design Factory – 15.04.2022.
Our interview’s part I, conducted by Onedio Platform on gaming, was released today – 14.04.2022.
• I was a guest lecturer on the fourth week of the Fire Up 2022 program – 06.04.2022.
• Third week of the Fire Up 2022 program has been completed successfully – 30.03.2022.
• Second week of the Fire Up 2022 program has been completed successfully – 23.03.2022.
• Our new preprint is just out: “Visualization in virtual reality: a systematic review” (Elif Hilal Korkut and Elif Surer) is available on arXiv – 16.03.2022.
• My interview on Virtual Reality and Metaverse is available on the webpage and Youtube channel of the digital science magazine of The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK), TÜBİTAK Bilim Genç, in Turkish – 28.02.2022.
İstanbul Technical University Entrepreneurship and Innovation Center (İTU GINOVA), Bogaziçi University Entrepreneurship Center (BRIGHT) and Middle East Technical University Entrepreneurship Research Center (METU GIMER) teamed up to build a student-led community to create change on campus, focusing on fostering entrepreneurship and social innovation capabilities of the students. Registration is here.
Information about the Stanford University Innovation Fellowship program can be found here – 21.02.2022.
• Our new preprint from the EU Quantum Flagship pilot project, Quantum Technologies Education for Everyone (QuTE4E), is just out: “Quantum Games and Interactive Tools for Quantum Technologies Outreach and Education: A Review and Experiences from the Field” is available on arXiv – 15.02.2022.
• Dear METU Students, on behalf of the British Council Turkey-funded Global Graduates for Global Careers project led by METU, the University of Bradford’s School of Management delivers an online Career Booster Spring 2022 Programme; check for the details – 14.02.2022.
EU H2020 project eNOTICE has launched a survey for the Training Centers; check for the details – 11.02.2022.
METU Design Factory‘s Gala Event’s team presentations were successful; congratulations to all who contributed – 04.02.2022.
• Our new preprint is just out: “A genomic snapshot of demographic and cultural dynamism in Upper Mesopotamia during the Neolithic Transition” is available on bioRxiv – 01.02.2022.
• We, as GIMER, participated in the Kristal Agac Awards event – 22.01.2022.
• I was a guest of Assoc. Prof. Emek Kepenek at the Game Talks in the Circle webinar series, and we talked about the Serious Games and Extended Reality. You can watch the video of the event on Youtube – 21.01.2022.
• I gave a seminar titled “The Use of Serious Games, Extended Reality and 3D Visualization in Healthcare: Applications on Cerebral Palsy, Degenerative Lumbosacral Stenosis, Stroke, and Hemispatial Neglect” for the NÖROM Seminars – 18.01.2022.
• We, as GIMER, met with METU Young Entrepreneurs Society (METU YES) and planned future collaborations – 05.01.2022.
• METU Performance Awards 2020 have been announced, and I am honored to be listed among the award recipients – 29.12.2021.
• I participated in the MieS MarkeTech event and gave a seminar on Extended Reality – 24.12.2021.
• We, as GIMER, participated in the TTGV Day event; we would like to thank TTGV for this fantastic organization and for their kind invitation – 23.12.2021.
• We, as GIMER, participated in the Networking event of YFYI, Turkey’s leading early stage acceleration program – 17.12.2021.
• I attended the “Inspiring Women” podcast series organized by SistersLab, and you can watch the video of the event here – 12.12.2021.
• I attended the “The Journey of Being” digital art exhibition via Zoom, and gave a presentation titled “Current Research on Game Technologies” – 11.12.2021.
• Applications to the Kristal Piksel Video Game Awards have been extended to December 15, 2021 – 07.12.2021.
A collection of seminars, interviews and talks given by me on virtual reality, serious games and game research are available on my Youtube channel – 05.12.2021.
• I got my Associate Professorship degree from the Turkish Interuniversity Board – 03.12.2021.
• My radio interview on virtual reality, mixed reality, and metaverse was on the TRT-1’s radio program – 02.12.2021.
• I gave a seminar titled “Serious Games, Reinforcement Learning Agents, and Extended Reality: A Brief Introduction to Game Research” at Boğaziçi University’s Computer Engineering Department’s CmpE 579/700 course – 30.11.2021.
• I attended the H2020 eNOTICE Project’s Joint Activity—the CBRN Consequences management course by the Joint CBRN Defence Centre of Excellence in Vyskov, Czech Republic – 26.11.2021.
• I attended the H2020 eNOTICE Project’s Joint Activity—a civ-mil CBRNe exercise organized by War Studies University in L’Oreal’s Warsaw Plant in Warsaw, Poland – 19.11.2021.
• Our study, “Archaeogenetic analysis of Neolithic sheep from Anatolia suggests a complex demographic history since domestication,” is published in the Communications Biology journal – 12.11.2021.
• Our student Onur Tekik from the Department of Information Systems, advised by Assoc. Prof. Aysu Betin-Can and co-advised by me, successfully defended his Master’s thesis – 05.11.2021.
• My thesis student Elif Hilal Korkut attended the 20th International Federation for Information Processing – International Conference on Entertainment Computing (IFIP-ICEC 2021) and presented our work “Sketch Recognition for Interactive Game Experiences Using Neural Networks” – 05.11.2021.
• I am supporting #PancreaticCancerAwarenessMonth November 2021. Learn the symptoms, spread the word, and raise awareness so that neither you nor your loved ones suffer from this disease. Although not mentioned here, a new diagnosis of diabetes or existing diabetes that is becoming more challenging to control is also a red flag – 01.11.2021.
• I attended the “Materials Technology Management” class as a guest lecturer and presented “Persona Creation in Design Process.” I would like to thank Asst. Prof. Bilge Imer for her kind invitation – 27.10.2021.
• I attended to the Zero Gravity – METU LabsOut Special Edition training organized by METU Technopolis – 23.10.2021.
• We celebrated the 25th year anniversary of our Institute with a fantastic line of speakers, and you can watch the seminars on our Institute’s Youtube channel – 22.10.2021.
CHIPLAY 2021 was held online on October 18-21, 2021 and being a social media co-chair has been a fruitful experience – 21.10.2021.
METU Entrepreneurship Research Center’s (METU GIMER) 2021 year’s opening ceremony was held at the METU Z-Garage – 15.10.2021.
• My TEDxMETUAnkara talk “Transformational Games, Transformational Mentors” is available on the TEDxTalks’ Youtube channel – 05.10.2021.
• I was one of the invited speakers of the Transtun Final Conference jointly organized by EU H2020 TRANSTUN, EU H2020 eNOTICE and EU H2020 PROACTIVE projects, held in Brussels, Belgium. I gave a talk titled “Developing Serious Games for Virtual Reality and Mixed Reality Environments in CBRNe Training: Use Case of the eNOTICE METU Joint Activity 2020”, which was based on our eNOTICE METU JA – 30.09.2021.
• We organized an online European Researchers’ Night panel for the Quantum Flagship project QuTE4E – Quantum Technologies Education For Everyone, and you can watch the Youtube videos of the event here – 23.09.2021.
• Our paper, “Proposing a Novel Mixed-Reality Framework for Basic Design and Its Hybrid Evaluation Using Linkography and Interviews” (Cindioglu, H. C., Gursel Dino, I., Surer, E.), is accepted to the International Journal of Technology and Design Education – 15.09.2021.
• Our study “Human inbreeding has decreased in time through the Holocene” is published in the Current Biology journal – 13.09.2021.
• Graduate School of Informatics’ Graduation Ceremony was held online. You can watch my speech addressing our Multimedia Informatics graduates, and access the whole programme on Youtube. Congratulations to our graduates – 11.09.2021.
• It has been a fruitful experience to be a jury member at QOyun’2021 Hackathon. I would like to thank QTurkey for their successful organization – 05.09.2021.
• Congratulations to our dear student Büşra Şenderin for successfully defending her Master’s thesis. We want to thank her, with her co-advisor, dear Assoc. Prof. Nurcan Tunçbağ, for her great efforts during her thesis process. This has been a fruitful summer with four new graduates; I wish them all the best – 31.08.2021.
• Congratulations to our dear student Şura Genç for successfully defending her Master’s thesis titled “Turkish Clickbait Detection in Social Media via Machine Learning algorithms.” We want to thank her, with her co-advisor, dear Asst. Prof. Murat Perit Çakır, for her great efforts during her thesis process. Publications on this thesis are as follows:

Genç, Ş. and Surer, E. (2021) “ClickbaitTR: Dataset for Clickbait Detection from Turkish News Sites and Social Media with a Comparative Analysis via Machine Learning Algorithms”, Journal of Information Science.
Genç, Ş. and Surer, E. (2019) “Detecting “Clickbait” News on Social Media Using Machine Learning Algorithms”, 27th IEEE Signal Processing and Communication Application Conference (SIU), IEEE, 2019 – 26.08.2021.
• Our submission “Sketch Recognition for Interactive Game Experiences Using Neural Networks” (Korkut, E. H. and Surer, E.) is accepted to the 20th IFIP International Conference on Entertainment Computing (IFIP-ICEC 2021) as a Work in Progress paper – 09.08.2021.
• Our paper “Automated Game Mechanics and Aesthetics Generation Using Neural Style Transfer in 2D Video Games” (Şen, D., Küçükkaykı, H. T. and Sürer, E.) is published at the Journal of Information Technologies – 31.07.2021.
• Two of my students, Burak Altan and Faruk Küçüksubaşı, have successfully defended their Master’s theses today; congratulations to them both. Faruk’s thesis work on relational reinforcement learning was recently published as a journal paper at the Turkish Journal of Electrical Engineering & Computer Sciences. Burak has been a part of eNTERFACE’19 and eNOTICE teams and contributed to to our journal paper on developing a scenario-based video game generation framework for computer and virtual reality environments and the abstract to the 2nd Scientific International Conference on CBRNe SICC Series 2020 (SICC Series) – 29.07.2021.
• Our new preprint, “Playtesting: What is Beyond Personas” (S. Ariyurek, E. Surer, A. Betin-Can) is available on arXiv. This study proposes a goal-based and dynamic persona model (Developing Persona) for automated playtesting and a new methodology, Alternative Path Finder, for reinforcement learning agents to generate distinct trajectories as human playtesters do – 26.07.2021.
• Our new study, “Human inbreeding has decreased in time through the Holocene” (Ceballos et al.) is published online in the Current Biology journal – 02.07.2021.
• Our paper “Automated Game Mechanics and Aesthetics Generation Using Neural Style Transfer in 2D Video Games” (Şen, D., Küçükkaykı, H. T. and Sürer, E.) is accepted to the Journal of Information Technologies – 02.07.2021.
• I have participated to the METU CENG Demoday 2021 as jury – 23.06.2021.
• This semester’s MMI 590 Graduate Seminar course had fascinating speakers, and I would like to thank them for their invaluable contributions: Asst. Prof. Zümra Kavafoğlu (Hacettepe University), Asst. Prof. Burkay Genç (Hacettepe University), Asst. Prof. Eray Tüzün (Bilkent University), Assoc. Prof. Erdem Akagündüz (Middle East Technical University), Dr. Sinem Aslan (Ege University), Asst. Prof. Güven Çatak (Bahçeşehir University), Assoc. Prof. Ozlem Durmaz İncel (Galatasaray University), Asst. Prof. H. Birkan Yılmaz (Boğaziçi University), Asst. Prof. Fatma Güney (Koç University), and Asst. Prof. Reyhan Aydoğan (Ozyeğin University) – 16.06.2021.
• Our joint webinar on the potential of Virtual Reality for CBRN training organized by EU H2020 SHOTPROS and EU H2020 eNOTICE is now online – 14.06.2021.
• The kick-off meeting of the EuropeAid/162207/ID/ACT/TR project Mixed Reality Application for Improving Mine Safety Culture in Underground Mining (MR4MS) has been held today – 09.06.2021.
• Our study “Variable kinship patterns in Neolithic Anatolia revealed by ancient genomes” is published in the Current Biology journal – 07.06.2021.
• Entertainment Computing and Interactive Systems Laboratory – ECISLab’s projects are updated – 07.06.2021.
• As GIMER Entrepreneurship Research Center board, we will aim to pursue cutting-edge research and enhance the entrepreneurship culture in Turkey – 04.06.2021.
• I was one of invited speakers of the webinar jointly organized by EU H2020 SHOTPROS and EU H2020 eNOTICE projects. I gave a talk on virtual reality and CBRNe – 02.06.2021.
• We participated to the Zoom Webinar on METU Graduate School of Informatics’ graduate programs and answered the questions of the candidates – 01.06.2021.
• Our paper, “Developing Adaptive Serious Games for Children With Specific Learning Difficulties: A Two-phase Usability and Technology Acceptance Study,” (O. Yildirim and E. Surer) is published at the leading journal on our field, JMIR Serious Games. We want to thank Dislev Türkiye Disleksili Çocuklar Vakfı (Dislev Turkish Association of Children with Dyslexia) for their tremendous help during data acquisition – 31.05.2021.
• We participated to the Indieway’s panel on game research and academic perspectives on the games with Assoc. Prof. Sema Alaçam (ITU) and Asst. Prof. Güven Çatak (BAU) – 29.05.2021.
• I gave a seminar titled “An Introduction to Game Research: Serious Games, Reinforcement Agents, and Extended Reality Applications” on May 28th Friday for the METU ImageLab Seminars. I would like to thank the ImageLab team for their kind invitation – 28.05.2021.
• I participated to the joint webinar titled “Communication in Crisis: Recommendations on Management, Approaches, and Tools for Effective Communication” organized by the EU H2020 project PROACTIVE and EU H2020 project NO-FEAR – 20.05.2021.
• I participated to the International e-Conference CBRNE – Research & Innovation – 18.05.2021.
• Our paper “ClickbaitTR: Dataset for clickbait detection from Turkish news sites and social media with a comparative analysis via machine learning algorithms” with my student Şura Genç is published online in the Journal of Information Science. The dataset and the code are available on our Github page – 13.04.2021.
• Thrilled to be on the “Researchers Active in Technical Games Research” list, which involves game researchers who publish in the Computer Science-oriented venues of the game research community – 12.04.2021.
• Pleased to inform you that the Call for Papers for the 20th IFIP International Conference on Entertainment Computing (IFIP ICEC 2021) is open. This year I am a co-chair of the workshops; so we are waiting for your workshop proposals till June 7, 2021 – 30.03.2021.
• I gave a seminar titled “Game Research as a Multi-Purpose Domain: Reinforcement Learning Agents, Serious Games, and Extended Reality” on March 26th Friday for the MA-CSSL Seminar Series. I would like to thank dear Dr. Merih Angin, MA-CSSL, and GLODEM Center for this kind invitation and nice organization – 26.03.2021.
• Our paper, “ClickbaitTR: Dataset for Clickbait Detection from Turkish News Sites and Social Media with a Comparative Analysis via Machine Learning Algorithms,” is accepted to the Journal of Information Science; congratulations to my dear student, Sura Genc – 16.03.2021.
• The Editorial titled “Behavior and usability analysis for multimodal user interfaces” that we wrote for Journal on Multimodal User Interfaces is available online – 16.03.2021.
• My TEDxMETUAnkara talk will be available online on March 28, 2021. You can register here to watch the event – 14.03.2021.
• We participated in the EURLO-UNICA (EU Research Liaison Officers – Network of Universities from the Capitals of Europe) event on “Remote and Virtual Labs”. You can check the details of the event here – 03.03.2021.
• I participated in the “Future Education. Imagining the University of Tomorrow” workshop series organized by Falling Walls and Hochschulforum Digitalisierun – 25.02.2021.
• I participated in the Royal Academy of EngineeringFrontiers of Engineering for Development’s interdisciplinary symposium on Smart Communities, organized by the Royal Academy of Engineering and Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) – 17.02.2021.
• Congratulations to our student Servet Gürer (METU Mining Engineering) for successfully defending his thesis on using virtual reality in mining safety. The thesis was advised by Asst. Prof. Mustafa Erkayaoğlu, and co-advised by me; looking forward to our future collaborations – 15.02.2021.
• I am delighted to be listed among the women researchers of METU that I deeply admire; it has been such a fantastic motivation. I hope to inspire my students the way my advisors, colleagues, and friends did and open new paths for them in science. I want to thank my university METU and GISAM for this beautiful surprise – 11.02.2021.
• The kick-off meeting of the project “Establishing Creative Industries Design and Training Center and Developing Digital Game Industry Capacity in Ankara” was live on Youtube; looking forward to being a part of this exciting team – 03.02.2021.
• I gave a seminar titled “Serious Game Research: Applications, Opportunities and Challenges” at Boğaziçi Biotech Conference – 17.01.2021.
• I gave a seminar titled “Serious Game Research” at Demir Export’s Seminar Series – 17.01.2021.
• Humbled to be a part of a select group of around 60 emerging UK and global engineers and researchers to participate in the Royal Academy of EngineeringFrontiers of Engineering for Development’s interdisciplinary symposium on Smart Communities, organized by the Royal Academy of Engineering and Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF). Besides establishing new networks and tackling fundamental problems, the symposium provides an opportunity to apply for seed funding. For more information, please visit here – 11.01.2021.
• Our paper “Developing a Space Syntax-Based Evaluation Method for Procedurally Generated Game Levels” (Bıyık, E. A. and Sürer, E.) is published at the Mugla Journal of Science and Technology (TR-Dizin/TR Index) – 31.12.2020.
• Our paper “Implementation of a Generic Framework on Crowd Simulation: A New Environment to Model Crowd Behavior and Design Video Games” (Yücel, F. and Sürer, E.) is published at the Mugla Journal of Science and Technology (TR-Dizin/TR Index) – 31.12.2020.
• It has been a fruitful experience to be a jury member at QOyun’2020 Hackathon. I would like to thank QTurkey for their successful organization – 27.12.2020.
• Our book chapter “Ancient genomics in Neolithic Central Anatolia and Çatalhöyük” (Yaka et al.) will soon be in the book “Peopling the Landscape of Çatalhöyük: Reports from the 2009–2017 Seasons” (Editor: Ian Hodder, Publisher: British Institute at Ankara) – 21.12.2020.
• Our paper, “Developing a Space Syntax-Based Evaluation Method for Procedurally Generated Game Levels”, is accepted to the Mugla Journal of Science and Technology journal – 20.12.2020.
• I gave a seminar titled “A Brief Introduction to the Design Process — Perspectives and Applications in Video Game Design” at METU Computer Engineering department – 17.12.2020.
• We are pleased to announce that the EU-funded H2020 project European Network of Training Centers (eNOTICE) and the serious games that we developed for the METU Joint Activity, which was held in February 2020, were listed among METU’s Research and Development projects focusing on social impact in Turkish Time Magazine’s 2019 R&D 250/R&D STUDIES TO SHAPE THE FUTURE issue. We would like to thank METU Office of Sponsored Projects (ODTÜ PDO) for their tremendous help and support – 12.12.2020.
• I presented our study titled “Serious Game Development for CBRNe Training: A Comparative Analysis in Virtual Reality and Computer-Based Environments” at the 2nd Scientific International Conference on CBRNe – SICC Series 2020. You can reach the conference programme here. We shared the initial results of our eNOTICE-METU Joint Activity, which was held between 25-28 February 2020 in Ankara and Eskişehir – 11.12.2020.
• I presented two of our recently published papers, “An immersive performative architectural design tool with daylighting simulations: a building information modeling-based approach” and “Developing a Scenario-Based Video Game Generation Framework for Computer and Virtual Reality Environments: A Comparative Usability Study” at the Eurasia Graphics Conference’s Computer Graphics Panel; I would like to thank all the organizers and the participants for the fruitful and engaging programme – 07.12.2020.

• I am delighted to announce that I will serve as a social media co-chair of the CHI PLAY 2021 Conference. The call for full papers is available here and the submission deadline is February 17, 2021 – 01.12.2020.
• Our paper, “An immersive performative architectural design tool with daylighting simulations: a building information modeling-based approach” (Akin, S., Ergun, O., Surer, E., Gursel Dino, I.), is published online at the Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management journal – 30.11.2020.
• It has been a great experience to be a jury member at Kristal Piksel Video Game Awards – 20.11.2020.
• I gave a seminar on our recent research, serious games, VR- and MR-based applications in METU HoloArch and H2020 eNOTICE projects at the Department of Computer Engineering, Galatasaray University – 17.11.2020.
• I was a presenter at Euromersive Turkey’s Research Showcase in AltspaceVR and I presented our VR- and MR-based projects – 12.11.2020.
• We are HIRING: EU Twinning NEOMATRIX project is looking for a full-time staff member to work as a project manager with secretarial and organizational responsibilities; please check the details here – 11.11.2020.
• Our paper, “Relational-Grid-World: a novel relational reasoning environment and an agent model for relational information extraction”, is accepted to the Turkish Journal of Electrical Engineering & Computer Sciences journal – 06.11.2020.
• Our paper, “Developing a Scenario-Based Video Game Generation Framework for Computer and Virtual Reality Environments: A Comparative Usability Study” (Surer, E., Erkayaoğlu, M., Öztürk, Z.N. et al.), is published online at Journal on Multimodal User Interfaces – 31.10.2020.
• I participated to the H2020 project TRANSTUN‘s mid-term conference – 29.10.2020.
• As a member of the Civil Society Advisory Board, I participated to the H2020 project PROACTIVE‘s mid-term conference – 28.10.2020.
• I participated to the H2020 project eNOTICE‘s policy meeting focused on network sustainability – 22.10.2020.
• Our paper, “An Immersive Performative Architectural Design Tool with Daylighting Simulations: A Building Information Modeling-Based Approach”, is accepted to the Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management journal – 09.10.2020.
• Our paper, “Implementation of a Generic Framework on Crowd Simulation: A New Environment to Model Crowd Behavior and Design Video Games”, is accepted to the Mugla Journal of Science and Technology journal – 09.10.2020.
• We presented our work titled “Using Generative Adversarial Nets on Atari Games for Feature Extraction in Deep Reinforcement Learning” (A. Aydin and E. Surer) at the 28th IEEE Conference on Signal Processing and Communications Applications (SIU 2020) conference. You can read the preprint of our study here (in Turkish). It has been a pleasure to host the session as well and participate to the conference – 06.10.2020.
• Our paper, “Developing a Scenario-Based Video Game Generation Framework for Computer and Virtual Reality Environments: A Comparative Usability Study,” is accepted to the Special Issue of the Journal on Multimodal User Interfaces – 01.10.2020.
• Our new preprint is just out: “Human inbreeding has decreased in time through the Holocene” is available on bioRxiv – 24.09.2020.
• Our students Oğuzcan Ergün (Multimedia Informatics) and Ceren Cindioğlu (Department of Architecture) received 2018-2019 METU Thesis Awards: The Influence of Emergent Mixed-Reality Technologies on Design Thinking – Ceren Cindioglu (Advisor: Assoc. Prof. Ipek Gursel Dino, Co-advisor: Asst. Prof. Elif Surer). Developing Building Information Modelling Based Virtual Reality and Mixed Reality Environments for Architectural Design and Improving User Interactions with Serious Games – Oguzcan Ergun (Advisor: Asst. Prof. Elif Surer, Co-advisor: Assoc. Prof. Ipek Gursel Dino) – 23.09.2020.
• We participated to the 6th EAI International Conference on Smart Objects and Technologies for Social Good (EAI GOODTECHS 2020) and you can read our paper here – 14.09.2020.
• My student Oğuzcan Yıldırım has successfully defended his Master’s thesis on using serious games for children with Special Learning Disabilities. We would like to thank Dislev Türkiye Disleksili Çocuklar Vakfı (Dislev Turkish Association of Children with Dyslexia) for their tremendous help during data acquisition. Oguzcan has been my 9th Master’s student who has graduated from the METU Entertainment Computing and Interactive Systems Laboratory (ECISLab) – 10.09.2020.
• It is great to be a member of XR4ALL community. You can visit my biography page here – 08.09.2020.
• We participated to the IEEE Conference on Games (CoG). You can read our paper titled “Enhancing the Monte Carlo Tree Search Algorithm for Video Game Testing” here – 25.08.2020.
• Our abstract “Serious Game Development for CBRNe Training: A Comparative Analysis in Virtual Reality and Computer-Based Environments” is accepted to SICC Series 2020 – 2nd Scientific International Conference on CBRN. This abstract is based on the H2020 project eNOTICE‘s Hospital and Biogarden games, which were tested by the CBRNe experts during the eNOTICE METU Joint Activity in February 2020. We would like to thank our participants and congratulate our eNOTICE team! – 24.07.2020.
• Our new preprint is just out: “Relational-Grid-World: A Novel Relational Reasoning Environment and An Agent Model for Relational Information Extraction” (F. Kucuksubasi and E. Surer) is available on arXiv – 14.07.2020.
• It is great to be a part of METU Design Factory! Please check this beautiful video showcasing the moments from our hybrid semester due to COVID-19 – 07.07.2020.
• [TR] Sevgili Lale Hocam, Herkese Bilim Teknoloji‘nin 222. sayısında ciddi oyun çalışmalarımızdan, ATOM’dan bahsetmiş; kendisine ne kadar teşekkür etsem az – 26.06.2020.
• It has been a pleasure to participate as a jury in METUTECH-ATOM’s project team selection – 19.06.2020.
• I participated to the H2020 project eNOTICE’s Just-in-time-training webinar for practitioners. Read more in our newsletter – 18.06.2020.
• Our submission to EU H2020’s H2020-SC5-2016-2017 call received TÜBİTAK Above-Threshold-Awards – 03.06.2020.
• I have participated to the METU CENG Demoday 2020 as jury – 03.06.2020.
• [TR] Zanaat, Sanat ve Tasarım Dergisi Artisans’ın 14. Sayısında “Sanatın ve Zanaatın İç İçe Geçen Yolculuğu: Video Oyunları” başlıklı yazımla yer alıyorum; keyifli okumalar dilerim – 02.06.2020.
• METU Design Factory’s Spring 2020 presented their final projects today at the METU Design Factory DAY Virtual Edition – 15.05.2020.
• Our paper, “Enhancing the Monte Carlo Tree Search Algorithm for Video Game Testing” (S. Ariyurek, A. Betin-Can, E. Surer), is accepted to the 2020 IEEE Conference on Games (COG) – 07.05.2020.
• Our study “A Multifaceted Gaming Platform for Interactive Learning of Archaeology and Culture of Kültepe: Preliminary Results on the Gaming Prototype” (E. Surer, C. Inci-Turkben, S. Duzgun) was published in Subartu (SUBART 45) by Brepols Publishers – 06.05.2020.
• We extended the paper submission deadline for the Special Issue on “Behavior and Usability Analysis for Multimodal User Interfaces” in Journal on Multimodal User Interfaces (JMUI) to 24th May, 2020 – 05.05.2020.
• As a member of the Civil Society Advisory Board, I participated to the H2020 project PROACTIVE‘s COVID-19 webinar – 30.04.2020.
• Our paper, “Multi-modal Egocentric Activity Recognition using Multi-Kernel Learning” (M. A. Arabacı, F. Özkan, E. Surer, P. Jančovič, A. Temizel), is published online at Multimedia Tools and Applications journal – 28.04.2020.
• I participated to the webconference on “COVID-19 emergency management, operative actions, and steps to prepare to new normality” organized by H2020 project eNOTICE partner UNITOV – 23.04.2020.
• I participated in the Games for Our Future 2020 – IndieCade Climate Jam organized by the University of Washington as a research mentor and the themes of the jam were Adapt, Engage, and Protect. It was a pleasure for me to share with you our research on serious/transformational games, HoloArch, Basic Design, and eNOTICE projects. You can watch the video here – 18.04.2020.
• Our submission, “Archaeogenetic analysis of Neolithic sheep from Anatolia suggests a complex demographic history since domestication” (Yurtman, E. et al.), is available on bioRxiv – 18.04.2020.
• The preprint of our accepted SIU 2020 conference paper titled Using Generative Adversarial Nets on Atari Games for Feature Extraction in Deep Reinforcement Learning (A. Aydın and E. Surer) is available on arXiv in Turkish – 06.04.2020.
• The preprint of our new study titled Using Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning in Auction Simulations (M. Kanmaz and E. Surer) is available on arXiv – 06.04.2020.
• Our new preprint is just out: “Enhancing the Monte Carlo Tree Search Algorithm for Video Game Testing” (S.Ariyurek, A. Betin-Can, E. Surer) is available on arXiv – 18.03.2020.
• The podcast of my radio interview on “Virtual Reality and Serious Games” at Radio TRT FM’s “Science is Life” programme is available here (in Turkish) – 10.03.2020.
• I gave a talk on Serious Games at METU Technopolis CoZone‘s QTurkey QTalks and I would like to thank the organizing team for the invitation – 07.03.2020.
• We organized the H2020 project eNOTICE‘s METU Joint Activity between the dates of 25-28 February 2020 in Ankara and Eskişehir. You can learn the details about the Joint Activity and Serious Gaming Workshop here – 28.02.2020.
• Our paper, “Using Generative Adversarial Nets on Atari Games for Feature Extraction in Deep Reinforcement Learning” (A. Aydin and E. Surer), is accepted to the 28th IEEE Signal Processing and Communication Application Conference (SIU 2020) – 28.02.2020.
• I would like to thank my university and GISAM for this nice video. “H2020 project eNOTICE‘s METU team has designed “serious games” for places such as hospitals and disaster areas to provide education for both public and officials.” – 26.02.2020.
• Our paper, “Multi-modal Egocentric Activity Recognition using Multi-Kernel Learning” (M. A. Arabacı, F. Özkan, E. Surer, P. Jančovič, A. Temizel), is accepted to Multimedia Tools and Applications journal – 24.02.2020.
• We are pleased to inform that our paper, “A Canine Gait Analysis Protocol for Back Movement Assessment in German Shepherd Dogs” (E. Surer, A. Cereatti, M. A. Evangelisti, G. Paolini, U. Della Croce, M. L. Manunta) has been officially accepted for publication to Veterinary Sciences journal. It has been a long journey, but we made it; congratulations to our team! – 17.02.2020.
• [TR] ODTÜLÜ Dergisi’nin oyun temalı 67. sayısında Don Kişot ile Peter Pan, gerçek ve kurgu arasındaki yolculuğumuzu yazdım; keyifli okumalar dilerim – 17.02.2020.

• We participated to TurkeyinH2020’s Horizon 2020 event at Centre for Research & Technology – Hellas (CERTH) Thessaloniki, Greece, between the dates of 11-13 February – 14.02.2020.
• I feel deeply honored to have talked about our research at #WomenInScience Day. I really do wish that our research sparks the joy of science in girls. You can read the interview here – 11.02.2020.

• I gave a seminar on Serious Games and participated to Global Game Jam’20 at Hasan Kalyoncu University, Gaziantep between the dates of January 31 to February 2, 2020 – 02.02.2020.
• Congratulations to our dear student Sahin Akin for successfully defending his Master’s thesis. We would like to thank him with his advisor and my dear friend Assoc. Prof. Ipek Gursel Dino for his great efforts during his thesis process – 24.01.2020.
• The Proceedings of the 15th International Summer Workshop (eNTERFACE’19) has been published online (ISBN 978-605-9788-33-5). You can download it from here – 13.01.2020.
• I gave a seminar titled “Using Serious Games, Virtual and Mixed Reality Applications in Healthcare” at Bioinformatics Seminar Series – 16.12.2019.
• It has been a wonderful experience to participate to Quantum Programming Hackathon as a jury; I would like to thank QTurkey for their successful and fruitful organization – 15.12.2019.
• I presented our eNOTICE project’s framework “Developing a Scenario-Based Video Game Generation Framework for CBRNe training” at Second International CBRN Congress, Ankara, Turkey – 28.11.2019.
• Our new preprint (Developing a Scenario-Based Video Game Generation Framework: Preliminary Results), based on the work that we developed during the 15th Summer Workshop on Multimodal Interfaces (eNTERFACE’19) for European Network Of CBRN TraIning CEnters (eNOTICE) project is available on arXiv – 19.11.2019.
• I delivered the keynote talk titled “Virtual and Mixed Reality Applications in Healthcare: Developments, Constraints and Opportunities” today in the opening of the 12th Congress of Medical Informatics. I presented the serious games and applications from our eNOTICE, HoloArch and Basic Design projects. I would like to thank my dear collaborators, students, Assoc. Prof. Yesim Aydin Son and Turkish Health Informatics Association for this nice opportunity – 15.11.2019.
• Our paper, “Usability of Virtual Reality for Basic Design Education: A Comparative Study with Paper-Based Design” (D. S. Ozgen, Y. Afacan, E. Surer) has been accepted to International Journal of Technology and Design Education – 12.11.2019.
• I gave a seminar titled “Developing a Scenario-Based Video Game Generation Framework” at METU Computer Engineering department where I also mentioned our in-progress serious games which are being developed for EU-funded project eNOTICE – 06.11.2019.
• I gave a seminar titled “A Brief Introduction to the Design Process — Perspectives and Applications in Video Game Design” at METU Computer Engineering department – 31.10.2019.
• Our paper, “Automated Video Game Testing Using Synthetic and Human-Like Agents” (S. Ariyurek, A. Betin-Can, E. Surer), is accepted to IEEE Transactions on Games journal – 10.10.2019.
• 6th International Conference on Movement and Computing (MOCO’19) proceedings are online! You can read our paper “Information Augmentation for Human Activity Recognition and Fall Detection using Empirical Mode Decomposition on Smartphone Data” (S. Sezer and E. Surer) here – 01.10.2019.
• Assoc. Prof. Yasemin Afacan (Bilkent University) presented our paper titled “Modeling a User-Oriented Ontology on Accessible Homes for Supporting Activities of Daily Living (ADL) in Healthy Aging” at the 5th EAI International Conference on Smart Objects and Technologies for Social Good (GOODTECHS’19) in Valencia, Spain. Congrats to the team! – 25.09.2019.
•  I participated to the eNOTICE Joint Activity at Dortmund, Germany – 19-24.09.2019.
• Our Multimedia Informatics program had its orientation meeting today and we had a chance to welcome our new students. We wish all of our students and faculty a successful and productive semester – 18.09.2019.
• The book Guide to Mobile Data Analytics in Refugee Scenarios is published by Springer today. You can read the two chapters that we as D4R METU team contributed here: Policy Implications of the D4R Challenge and The Use of Big Mobile Data to Gain Multilayered Insights for Syrian Refugee Crisis – 07.09.2019.
• Congratulations to Ceren Cindioğlu (METU Faculty of Architecture) for successfully defending her thesis advised by Assoc. Prof. İpek Gürsel Dino and co-advised by me. We also would like to thank Burak Güneş Özgüney for his tremendous efforts in our team – 02.09.2019.
• MMI student Oğuzcan Ergün successfully defended his MSc thesis titled “Developing Building Information Modelling Based Virtual Reality and Mixed Reality Environments for Architectural Design and Improving User Interactions with Serious Games”, which was supervised by me and co-supervised by Assoc. Prof. İpek Gürsel Dino (METU Faculty of Architecture). Congratulations to our team – 29.08.2019.
1- Detecting “Clickbait” News on Social Media Using Machine Learning Algorithms (Ş. Genç and E. Surer)
2- Positive or Negative? A semantic orientation of financial news (M. Kanmaz and E. Surer)
3- Scene Classification: A Comprehensive Study Combining Local and Global Descriptors (B. F. Cura and E. Surer)
• IEEE VR 2019 Conference Proceedings are online! You can read our (O. Ergün, Ş. Akın, İ. Gürsel Dino, E. Surer) poster paper “Architectural Design in Virtual Reality and Mixed Reality Environments: A Comparative Analysis” – 22.08.2019.
• We had a chance to visit Aşıklıhöyük excavations and had fruitful discussions for NEOGENE project. We would like to thank Aşıklıhöyük team for their wonderful hospitality – 07.08.2019.
• The 15th Summer Workshop on Multimodal Interfaces (eNTERFACE’19) is over! We would like to thank participants for their enthusiasm and congratulate them for their excellent research outcomes! – 02.08.2019.
• We presented the results of our project “Developing a Scenario-Based Video Game Generation Framework for Virtual Reality and Mixed Reality Environments” that we developed during The 15th Summer Workshop on Multimodal Interfaces (eNTERFACE’19) at Bilkent University – 02.08.2019.
• PhD opportunity in Italy on the topic “Use and validation of new simulation technologies for education and training in Disaster Medicine, Global Health and Humanitarian Aid” w/ our colleagues; please let me know if you are interested in applying – 01.08.2019.
• GOODTECHS 2019 – 5th EAI  International Conference on Smart Objects and Technologies for Social Good Preliminary Program is now available – 25.07.2019.
• ACM Distinguished Speaker Prof. Peter Robinson (University of Cambridge) gave two lectures (Lecture I: “Computation of Emotions” and Lecture II: “Driving the Future”) in Ankara during the 15th Summer Workshop on Multimodal Interfaces (eNTERFACE’19) – 22.07.2019 and 23.07.2019.
• Our Data for Refugees (D4R) team‘s study titled “Big Data Analysis for Social Good: a Case Study on Syrian Refugees” (M. A. Akyol, Ö. O. Kılıç, T. Taşkaya-Temizel, A. U. Aydınoğlu, E. Surer) is available at TSE Technical Journal’s June 2019 issue (in Turkish, pp.34-41). You can read it here – 16.07.2019.
• I participated to the eNOTICE Joint Activity at Birmingham, UK and also visited Coventry University’s Simulation Centre – 08-13.07.2019.
• I participated to the panel titled “Digital Utopias + Game Technologies” with Hakan Yılmaz on June 26th at 4 pm at Studio-X Istanbul. The panel is organized in bang. Prix 2019‘s Digital Dynamics series by ArtBizTech – 24.06.2019.
• We, as a team, presented the recent outcomes of NEOGENE: Archaeogenomic analysis of genetic and cultural interactions in Neolithic Anatolian societies project at 41st International Symposium of Excavations, Surveys and Archaeometry at Dicle University, Diyarbakır. The title of my talk was “Developing a Computational Framework to Fuse Material Culture with Ancient DNA”. Detailed symposium programme is available here – 16.06.2019.
• Our submission “Information Augmentation for Human Activity Recognition and Fall Detection using Empirical Mode Decomposition on Smartphone Data” (S. Sezer and E. Surer) is accepted to 6th International Conference on Movement and Computing (MOCO’19)! See you in Arizona, USA – 09.06.2019.
• You can read our new preprint  “Automated Video Game Testing Using Synthetic and Human-Like Agents” (S. Ariyurek, A. Betin-Can, E. Surer) on arXiv.org and ResearchGate – 04.06.2019.
• Our submission “Modeling a User-Oriented Ontology on Accessible Homes for Supporting Activities of Daily Living (ADL) in Healthy Aging” (Y. Afacan and E. Surer) is accepted to 5th EAI International Conference on Smart Objects and Technologies for Social Good (GOODTECHS’19), which will be held in Valencia, Spain – 03.06.2019.
• It has been a pleasure to participate as a jury in METUTECH-ATOM’s project team selections – 30.05.2019.
• Congratulations to dear Şura Genç (METU COGS) for winning Best Poster Award at METU II Open Research Day with our work titled “Detecting “Clickbait” News on Social Media Using Machine Learning Algorithms”! You can read our paper here – 28.05.2019.
• I participated to the eNOTICE Joint Activity at Gurcy-le-Chatel, France – 20-24.05.2019.
• I presented our work titled “Serious Gaming in CBRNe Domain: A Survey on User Expectations, Concerns and Suggestions” (E. Surer, T. B. Atalay, D. Ç. Demirkan, H. Ş. Düzgün) at 3rd International Conference CBRNE – Research & Innovation, Nantes, France – 21.05.2019.
• Congratulations to Team EllTech for their successful presentation and prototype at METU Design Factory’s 2019 Spring Closing Ceremony – 17.05.2019.
• We have been at METU II Open Research Day with 6 posters of our recent research. I’m glad to be working and collaborating with such brilliant students and colleagues – 17.05.2019.
• Anadolu Agency (AA) prepared a video to explain our “Music Within” project, you can watch the video here – 16.05.2019.
• Our “Music Within” project was on TRTHaber today. You watch the video here – 15.05.2019.
• Our “Music Within” project was on NTV and newspapers today! For details, please check the complete list of news and video here – 14.05.2019.
• Our study titled “A Multifaceted Gaming Platform for Interactive Learning of Archaeology and Culture of Kültepe: Preliminary Results on the Gaming Prototype” (E. Surer, C. İnci Türkben, H. Ş. Düzgün) is accepted to Subartu, Brepols Publisher’s book series – 04.05.2019.
• Our student Sahin Akin presented our paper titled “Improving Visual Design Perception by Integrated Mixed Reality Environment for Performative Architecture” (S. Akin, O. Ergun, I. Gursel Dino, E. Surer) in 7th eCAADe Regional International Symposium in Aalborg, Denmark today – 03.05.2019.
• Dear game developers and/or VR/MR enthusiasts, come to test our games which aim to ease the interaction with our architectural design platform – 26.04.2019.
• Congratulations to our dear students Şura Genç, Medet Kanmaz and Burak Fatih Cura for their oral presentations at 27th IEEE Signal Processing and Communication Application Conference (SIU 2019) today – 24.04.2019.
• Congratulations to our dear student Elif Bozlak for her presentation today at International Music and Sciences Symposium at ITU. You can read the abstract of our work here – 19.04.2019.
• My interview with Haberturk was on TV; I talked about our EU-funded project eNOTICE’s serious game that we are developing w/ Prof. Sebnem Duzgun and our METU-funded project HoloArch w/ Assoc. Prof. Ipek Gursel Dino, Sahin Akin and Oguzcan Ergun. You can watch the interview here – 16.04.2019.
• I gave a seminar at Hacettepe University’s Computer Engineering department on serious gaming, where I also mentioned our in-progress game which is being developed for EU-funded project eNOTICE. Abstract of my talk and my biography are available here – 16.04.2019.
• I participated to IEEE VR 2019, the 26th IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces and presented our work titled “Architectural Design in Virtual Reality and Mixed Reality Environments: A Comparative Analysis” (O. Ergun, S. Akin, I. Gursel Dino, E. Surer) – 20.03.2019.
• Three submissions of ours are accepted to 27th IEEE Signal Processing and Communication Application Conference (SIU 2019) as oral presentations! Congratulations to our dear students Şura Genç, Burak Fatih Cura and Medet Kanmaz for their tremendous efforts.
The titles of the accepted submissions are as follows:
1- Detecting “Clickbait” News on Social Media Using Machine Learning Algorithms (Ş. Genç and E. Surer)
2- Scene Classification: A Comprehensive Study Combining Local and Global Descriptors (B. F. Cura and E. Surer)
3- Positive or Negative? A semantic orientation of financial news (M. Kanmaz and E. Surer) – 14.03.2019.
• I will be in Paris between the dates of March 14-18 to attend L’Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science 2019 events and to support my dear friend and colleague Assoc. Prof. Nurcan Tunçbağ – 12.03.2019.
• Are you an international student at METU? We have a bio-inspired art and video installation for you at METU Library, 19-20 March 2019. This is a research project aiming to evaluate the impact of music in a multi-cultural context. We added new musical and video features after our latest exhibition; join our experiment! Please send an email to Elif Bozlak (bozlak.elif@metu.edu.tr) for registration. To see and listen to our previous work, please check:
GOODTECHS 2018 ProceedingInternational “Music and Sciences” Symposium | Soundcloud | Flickr
• Our abstract titled “Serious Gaming in CBRNe Domain: A Survey on User Expectations, Concerns and Suggestions” (E. Surer, T. B. Atalay, D. Ç. Demirkan, H. Ş. Düzgün), on the serious game that we have been developing for eNOTICE project, is accepted to the 3rd International Conference CBRNE – Research & Innovation as an oral presentation. You can check the video of the initial game here. Congratulations to the team and see you in Nantes, France! – 11.03.2019.
Call for Participation of eNTERFACE is out. If you have any questions regarding the project proposal titled Developing a Scenario-Based Video Game Generation Framework for Virtual Reality and Mixed Reality Environments, please contact me – 08.03.2019.
• I gave a lecture on Persona Building at METU Design Factory – 08.03.2019.
• I gave a lecture titled “Game Development Basics” at Bilkent University – 07.03.2019.
• I participated to the joint activity of eNOTICE project in Vyškov, Czechia—a full-week organization with fruitful discussions and research input – 24.02.2019-02.03.2019.
• Our submission titled “Improving Visual Design Perception by Integrated Mixed Reality Environment for Performative Architecture” (S. Akin, O. Ergun, I. Gursel Dino, E. Surer) is accepted to 7th eCAADe Regional International Symposium which will be held at Aalborg, Denmark – 21.02.2019.
• Our submission titled “Architectural Design in Virtual Reality and Mixed Reality Environments: A Comparative Analysis” (O. Ergun, S. Akin, I. Gursel Dino, E. Surer) is accepted to IEEE VR 2019 Conference, which will be held in Osaka, Japan – 21.02.2019.
• We opened a new course with Çiğdem Atakuman and Mehmet Somel at METU Department of Archaeometry, ARME 707 – Digital Archaeology of the Neolithic Transition (Wednesdays 14:40-17:30, METU Archaeological Museum) – 19.02.2019.
• This semester, I opened a new course, MMI 706 – Reinforcement Learning (Wednesdays 9:40-12:30, II-06) – 19.02.2019.
• I gave a seminar titled “Recent Practices, Opportunities and Challenges in Serious Games Research” at METU Science and Technology Policy Studies – 15.02.2019.
• Our paper and mention award on Data for Refugees (D4R) Challenge is available at Colorado School of Mines’s Newsroom – 07.02.2019.
• I gave a lecture on Machine Learning at Evolutionary Genomics Winter School at Ege University. It was an interdisciplinary program, so please check for participating lecturers and the whole program here – 05.02.2019.
METU Technopolis Animation Technologies and Game Development Center (ATOM) will organize Global Game Jam 2019 at Wyndham Hotel Ankara between the dates of 25-27 January. Looking forward to meeting you there soon – 23.01.2019.
• Our team, Data Analytics without Borders, won the Honorable Mention Award on the category of Labor at Data for Refugees (D4R) Challenge with our paper titled “Data Analytics without Borders: Multi-Layered Insights for Syrian Refugee Crisis”. Congratulations to the team: Özgün Ozan Kılıç (METU IS), Mehmet Ali Akyol (METU IS), Oğuz Işık (METU CRP), Banu Gunel Kilic (METU IS), Arsev Umur Aydinoglu (METU TEKPOL), Elif Surer (METU MMI), Hafize Şebnem Düzgün (Colorado School of Mines), Sibel Kalaycıoğlu (METU SOC) and Tugba Temizel (METU IS). The D4R project received over 100 submissions and you can access the proceedings of this international challenge and workshop here.
•  eNTERFACE 2019, Ankara, Turkey
Host Institution: Bilkent University, Computer Engineering Department
Organizers: Asst. Prof. Hamdi Dibeklioğlu (Bilkent University) Asst. Prof. Elif Surer (Middle East Technical University)
Dates: July 8 – August 2, 2019
Location: Bilkent University, Main Campus, Ankara, Turkey
Call for ProjectsGuideline for Authors
• GATEWay’19 has been a huge success! Thanks a lot for your participation, enthusiasm, genuine feedback and excellent research outcome – 18.01.2019.
• Our extended abstract titled “Cross-Cultural Audiences and Their Perceptions of Music in a Biological Context: Transforming “Music Within” Art Installation into a Cross-Cultural Interface” (E. Bozlak, A. C. Acar, E. Surer) is accepted as an oral presentation to International “Music and Sciences” Symposium, which will be held at ITU Turkish Music State Conservatory, Musicology Department – 15.01.2019.
• We evaluated bang. Prix Art Innovation 2019 applications and the results will be announced soon. It has been an honor to be a jury with a team of artists, curators and scientists— Agah Uğur (Borusan Holding – Group CEO), Bige Örer (IKSV, Director of Istanbul Biennial), Ekmel Ertan (Amber Platform), Gözde Durmuş (Stanford University) and Ozan Türkkan (New Media Artist) – 14.01.2019.
• GATEWay’19 is approaching! A total of 30 presentations and projects from Game Development Pipeline, Machine Learning for Multimedia Informatics courses, and GATEWay Junior section will be with us on 18th of January!
Demir Export employees were METU Design Factory‘s guests at our Design Thinking workshop – 05.01.2019.
• My METU AVESIS Academic webpage is available here – 29.12.2018.
• I participated to Bilim Kahramanlari Derneği‘s (Science Heroes Association) FIRST Lego League jury training – 23.12.2018.
• Our interview on ERC-funded project Neogene is published on newspaper Duvar [TR] – 17.12.2018.
• We evaluated Kristal Piksel Video Game Awards at Animation Technologies and Game Development Center (ATOM); it has been great to be a jury member and I would like to thank the organizers – 15.12.2018.
• Şeyhmus Ölker from App Samurai gave a seminar for Game Development Pipeline course. I would like to thank AppSamurai team for their participation – 13.12.2018.
• I participated to the GOODTECHS 2018 Conference GOODTECHS 2018 – 4th EAI International Conference on Smart Objects and Technologies for Social Good between the dates of 28-30 November in Bologna, Italy and presented our recent work:
Bozlak, E., Acar, A. C., Surer, E. (2018) “Design and Evaluation of an Interactive Art Installation to Introduce ‘de novo’ Mutations to Different Audiences: “Music Within” Project”
Akin, S., Ergun, O., Surer, E., Dino, I. G. (2018) “An Immersive Design Environment for Performance-based Architectural Design: A BIM-based Approach” – 29.11.2018.
• Save the date, GATEWay’19 is loading! We are looking forward to seeing you on January 18 2019, 15:00-20:00 at METU Informatics Institute. Game Development Pipeline, Machine Learning and GATEWay Junior presentations and projects will be waiting for you; stay tuned for the updates – 22.11.2018.
• Our interview on ERC-funded NEOGENE project and Ancient DNA is available on this month’s Aktüel Arkeoloji Dergisi – Actual Archaeology Magazine (in Turkish). We would like to thank Aktüel Arkeoloji and Deniz Genceolu for this great opportunity | Interview – 06.11.2018.
Django Girls event, which was organized by Asst. Prof. Hande Alemdar (METU CENG) and a group of volunteers, was a huge success. Being a mentor was an amazing experience. I would like to thank especially Hande Alemdar, Ebru Aydın Göl, Elif Bozlak, Evrim Fer, Meriç Kınalı, Muazzez Çınar, İdil Sülo, Gizem Sönmez, Elifnur Sünger, IEEE ODTÜ, all the mentors, meta-mentors and participants for making this event possible. Looking forward to the next one, go girl! – 04.11.2018.
• Our joint “Immersive and Responsive Environments” workshop with METU Department of Architecture is on 23-24 November. If you would like to experience our joint HoloArch project, please fill the registration form here. Deadline is November 15 – 31.10.2018.
bang. Art Innovation Prix 2019 is on its way and Call for Submissions are open as of today. Previous bang. Art Innovation programs have been amazing learning experiences for us and I am honoured to be a jury on 2019’s selections – 25.10.2018.
• “Music Within” project is in the 6th issue of İTÜ Guitar Magazine! Congratulations to Elif Bozlak for her article and I would like to thank her for these kind words and for her amazing effort in this project. As she depicts in her article this is a collaborative work and I also personally would like to thank the names she mentioned – 17.10.2018.
• Our paper titled “An Immersive Design Environment for Performance-based Architectural Design: A BIM-based Approach” (S. Akin, O. Ergun, E. Surer, I. G. Dino) is selected to Poster session of 4th EAI International Conference on Smart Objects and Technologies for Social Good (GOODTECHS 2018) and will appear within the proceedings as a 2 pages paper. This work is supported by Middle East Technical University GAP-201-2018-2823 Grant and YÖP-704-2018-2827 Grant and we would like to thank also the participants of the workshop conducted at University of Lisbon, Design Computation Group for tool testing, and Jose Nuno Beirao and Rui de Klerk for their contributions to the workshop. Congrats to our team and you can read our abstract here – 10.10.2018.
• We are opening a new course this semester at METU Department of Archaeometry: “Digital Archaeology of the Neolithic Transition” with Assoc. Prof. Çiğdem Atakuman and Assoc. Prof. Mehmet Somel. You can add this course this week during Add/Drop period. We are looking forward to meeting you on Wednesdays at 14:40 at Department of Archaeometry – 07.10.2018.
• Our paper titled “Design and Evaluation of an Interactive Art Installation to Introduce ‘de novo’ Mutations to Different Audiences: “Music Within” Project” (E. Bozlak, A. C. Acar, E. Surer) is accepted to 4th EAI International Conference on Smart Objects and Technologies for Social Good (GOODTECHS 2018). We would like to thank Bang. Art Innovation Prix 2018 event and 92 participants in our study for their sincere support. You can read our abstract here. Please enjoy our Soundcloud and Flickr accounts and see you in Bologna – 06.10.2018.
• Are you developing video or board games? Are you younger than 18 years old? GATEWay’19 Junior is waiting for you. Send us your project concept documents via DM before December 15, 2018! – 02.10.2018.
• MMI 505 Game Development Pipeline course has an official Twitter account: @GameDevPipeline In this account, we will share resources, assignments, source code, scientific papers and tutorials on game development. Follow us, contribute to the content and make the most out of this experience – 27.09.2018.
• I participated to the Expert’s seminar on serious games in Brussels, Belgium. I gave a presentation titled “Innovating game development methodologies” and presented the games that we have been developing at eNOTICE project. I would like to thank the organizers and especially eConfidence project and European Schoolnet for the invitation. You can reach the agenda here – 12.09.2018.
• Our submission to EU H2020’s H2020-MSCA-ITN-2018 call received TÜBİTAK Above-Threshold-Awards – 31.08.2018.
• Wanna catch some bugs, test video games, and win the prize? Drop us an email (odtu.game.testing@gmail.com) to contribute to a research study pursued by Sinan Arıyürek, me and Aysu Betin Can from METU Graduate School of Informatics – 26.07.2018.
• Congratulations to Dilay Seda Özgen (Interior Architecture and Environmental Design, Bilkent University) for successfully defending her Master’s thesis on virtuality reality in design education, which was supervised by Assoc. Prof. Yasemin Afacan and co-supervised by me – 18.07.2018.
• As part of a collaboration between our Multimedia Informatics program and METU Department of Architecture, a workshop titled “Immersive and Responsive Performative Architectural Design in Mixed Reality” was conducted at Design Computing Summer School 2018 in Lisbon, Portugal by Assoc. Prof. Ipek Gursel Dino and our student Şahin Akın from METU Department of Architecture on our joint project with me and our student Oğuzcan Ergün (METU MMI) – Update: 17.07.2018.
• Stay tuned, new surprises from the Music Within project are coming! For now, please enjoy our Soundcloud and Flickr accounts.
Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/elif-bozlak/
Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/165795698@N08/ – 13.07.2018.
• I will be tweeting at @ElifSurerMETU. Please follow me and stay tuned for the updates – 07.07.2018.
• Cfp: We are organizing a workshop on Virtual Heritage and Digital Archaeology at GOODTECHS 2018 – 4th EAI International Conference on Smart Objects and Technologies for Social Good – which will be held in Bologna, Italy (28-30 November 2018). Deadline for submissions: 3 September 2018.
• Our new preprint titled “Multi-modal Egocentric Activity Recognition using Audio-Visual Features” (Mehmet Ali Arabacı, Fatih Özkan, Elif Surer, Peter Jančovič, Alptekin Temizel) is available on arXiv – 04.07.2018.
• Here is my interview on Digital Games and Rehabilitation (in Turkish) done by NETLAB Media. I tried to encourage serious game developers to understand how valuable our work is and how lucky we are to touch other people’s lives. I would like to thank NETLab Media for this opportunity and for their valuable contributions – 28.06.2018.
• I gave a seminar on serious gaming for the module R/N of the second level courses of Master CBRNe – University of Rome “Tor Vergata” (Italy). I would like to thank the coordinators of this course for this successful organization – 22.06.2018.
• You can access our vacancies regarding “NEOGENE: Archaeogenomic analysis of genetic and cultural interactions in Neolithic Anatolian societies” on EURAXESS page – Postdoc and PhD positions in archaeogenomics, population genetics, bioarchaeology, and archaeological modeling
•  Postdoc and PhD positions in archaeogenomics, population genetics, bioarchaeology, and archaeological modeling – Applications are invited for multiple Ph.D. and postdoc positions in an ERC-funded interdisciplinary research project on the Neolithic Transition in Southwest Asia. We seek applicants with backgrounds in molecular biology, population genetics, anthropology, archaeology, and computer science. The successful applicants will join the 5-year research project “NEOGENE: Archaeogenomic analysis of genetic and cultural interactions in Neolithic Anatolian societies”, supported by a European Research Council Consolidator Grant. You can also follow us on METU Blog, Twitter and Facebook for more information.
• METU Informatics Institute Friday Seminars were successfully held this semester and on behalf of the organizing committee, I would like to thank our invited speakers and guests for their participation.
Prof. Sadi Turgut (METU Physics) – Quantum Computers
Prof. Rengül Çetin-Atalay (METU BIN) – Personalized Medicine in Cancer through Bioinformatics
Assoc. Prof. Alptekin Temizel (METU MMI) – Deep Learning in Computer Vision
• Congratulations to Fatih Ozkan (Information Systems) for METU II Thesis Awards (Advisor: Assoc. Prof. Alptekin Temizel, Co-advisor: Asst. Prof. Elif Surer) and Bilgin Aksoy (Multimedia Informatics) for winning Course Performance Awards.
• Congratulations to our students and my colleague Aybar C. Acar for getting METU II Open Research Day Awards! – Special Mention Award (Oğuzcan Yıldırım, Elif Sürer), Art-in-Science Award (Elif Bozlak, Aybar C. Acar, Elif Sürer) – 29.05.2018.
• METU Informatics Institute Thesis Awards results have been announced. Congratulations to our student Fatih Özkan (Information Systems) – MSc Programme – Advisor: Assoc. Prof. Alptekin Temizel and Co-advisor: Asst. Prof. Elif Sürer
Complete list of the winners is here – 23.05.2018.
METU Design Factory‘s closing ceremony, where our students will present their final projects, will be on June 1 at 14:00. You are all kindly invited, please register from Eventbrite.
• We had precious invited speakers at MMI 590 Graduate Seminar course, I would like to thank each of them for their amazing seminars:
– Asst. Prof. Pelin Angın (METU CENG)
– Asst. Prof. Ramazan Gökberk Cinbiş (METU CENG)
– Dr. Erinç Dikici (SAIL LABS Technology GmBH, Austria)
– Dr. Cristián Huepe (Northwestern Uni. USA/Beijing Normal University China/SCL-SoL Lab Chile)
– Prof. Dr. Oğuz Işık (METU CRP)
– Dr. Alper Koz (METU OGAM)
– Asst. Prof. Ali Emre Turgut (METU MECH)
– Asst. Prof. Ulaş Yaman (METU MECH)
• Only 2 weeks left for GHItaly18 – 2nd Workshop on Games-Human Interaction. Congrats to the organizing committee! For more information: http://ghi.di.unimi.it/
• Congratulations to our METU “Data Analytics without Borders” team coordinated by Assoc. Prof. Tugba Taskaya Temizel (METU IS) for passing the pre-evaluation at D4R | Data for Refugees Turkey Challenge!
Data Analytics without Borders team (in alphabetical order):
Assoc. Prof. Tuğba Taşkaya Temizel (METU IS) (Coordinator), Mehmet Ali Akyol (METU IS), Asst. Prof. Arsev Umur Aydinoglu (METU TEKPOL), Doğa Çağdaş Demirkan (Colorado School of Mines), Prof. Şebnem Düzgün (Colorado School of Mines),  Assoc. Prof. Banu Gunel Kilic (METU IS), Prof. Oğuz Işık (METU CRP), Prof. Sibel Kalaycıoğlu (METU SOC), Özgün Ozan Kılıç (METU IS), Elif Surer (METU MMI) – 08.05.2018.
• We participated to the 40th International Symposium of Excavations, Surveys and Archaeometry, 07-11 May 2018 Canakkale. You can check the symposium programme here – 08.05.2018.
• [EN] We are hiring a lab manager and an IT manager for ERC-funded NEOGENE project executed by Assoc. Prof. Mehmet Somel. For more information about the project, you can read the interview done with Mehmet Somel here.
[TR] 2018-2022 arasında H2020 ERC desteğiyle yürütülecek Neolitik Dönüşüm konulu bir projede (NEOGENE) çalışmak üzere ODTÜ Antik DNA ve Populasyon Genetiği grubunda moleküler lab sorumlusu ve bilgi işlem sorumlusu olarak çalışacak arkadaşlar arıyoruz, çevrenize de duyurursanız çok seviniriz. Proje hakkında daha fazla bilgi için proje yürütücüsü Doç. Dr. Mehmet Somel’in röportajını okuyabilirsiniz. Şimdiden çok teşekkürler.
https://compevo.bio.metu.edu.tr/odtu-antik-dna-laboratuvar-sorumlusu-is-ilani/?lang=tr
https://compevo.bio.metu.edu.tr/odtu-antik-dna-grubu-bilgi-islem-sorumlusu-is-ilani/?lang=tr
• I gave a talk titled “Digital Games in Archaeology and the Use Case of Kültepe Interactive Gaming Platform” at the Department of Archaeometry (METU) on 4 May 2018 (Cavit Erginsoy Seminar Room, Department of Physics). You can access the complete list of  Department of Archaeometry’s Friday Seminars here – 04.05.2018.
• I gave a talk on “Serious Gaming in Rehabilitation” at the Artificial Intelligence session of 2nd Medical Informatics Meeting on 28 April 2018 in Dokuz Eylül University, Izmir. I would like to thank Medical Informatics Assocation Turkey (Tıp Bilişimi Derneği) for the invitation – 28.04.2018.
• I guided a panel and gave a talk on Serious Gaming at the International Child and Information Safety Congress “Digital Games” on 13 April 2018 in Ankara at 11:30. You are all kindly invited. My short biography is available here.  You can access the conference program here – 13.04.2018.
• Marie Claire Turkey interviewed Cevher Eryurek, Ayla Kara Coban and me on gaming in Turkey for their April issue and I had a chance to talk about serious gaming. I would like to thank dear Cevher Eryurek and Marie Claire Turkey for this great opportunity. The interview titled “Game Over | Continue?” is here: Cover Page 1 | Cover Page 2Page 3 | Page 4 | Page 5 | Page 6  – 01.04.2018.
• My METU Academic Staff Roster page is updated and my list of activities before 2017 is available – 29.03.2018.
• Our paper titled “Ranking Based Boosted Multiple Kernel Learning For Activity Recognition on First-Person Videos” (F. Özkan, E. Surer, A. Temizel) is accepted to 26th IEEE Signal Processing and Communication Application Conference (SIU 2018).
• I was a guest lecturer at METU Design Factory and gave a lecture on “Persona Building”; thank you very much for this great opportunity – 23.03.2018.
 • METU Design Factory is at the second stage of “Mars Valley Urbanization Challenge”, please vote till 20 March. Many thanks in advance.
• I gave a seminar on Machine Learning at METU Digital Design Studio. I would like to thank Prof. Arzu Gönenç Sorguç for the invitation. It was a pleasure to meet those enthusiastic students – 28.02.2018.
Details: http://dds.archweb.metu.edu.tr/artificial-intelligence-lecture-by-assist-prof-dr-elif-surer-dds
• I will give the following courses during 2017/2018 Spring Semester:
MMI700 Research Methods (w/ Assoc. Prof. Alptekin Temizel) – Wed 10:40-12:30 II-06
MMI 590 Graduate Seminar – Wed 12:40-13:30 II-06
MMI 727 Deep Learning: Methods and Applications (w/ Assoc. Prof. Alptekin Temizel) – Thu 9:40-12:30 II-06
MMI 704 Motion Capture, Analysis and Synthesis – Thu 13:40-16:30 II-05
I am also a mentor at Interdisciplinary Design Studio – Spring ’18 – Fri 9:40-12:30 METU Design Factory
• Video of the first prototype on hospital-based serious game developed by METU team for European Network Of CBRN TraIning CEnters (eNOTICE) project is available here. This scenario is built for the joint activity with ARMINES. With AI agents and complex scenarios, it is possible to create new modules for other CBRNe activities and for upcoming eNOTICE joint activities.
•  [SURVEY] METU team has been developing a serious game including various scenarios for eNOTICE project. We would like to investigate the user expectations on this domain, users’ gamer profiles, their suggestions and hesitations regarding using serious gaming in CBRNe training. This is a public survey open to practitioners, training centers and academics.
Thank you in advance for your contribution.
• Congratulations to METU-BIN student Elif Bozlak; her project has been selected to Bang. Art Innovation Prix 2018 and it will be a pleasure for me to be her mentor during this process.
• This semester, our Master’s student Oğuzcan Ergün participated to ODTÜ Tasarım Fabrikası / Design Factory (DTS-5) and developed solutions to improve the lifestyles of Yörüks with the team AURORA. This project has been mentored by UNDP Türkiye, Prof. Aydan Erkmen (METU EEE), me and Dr. Serkan Alkan (METU DF).
For next semester’s DTS applications, deadline is 4th of February!
• We would like to see you all in our GATEWAY 2018 event where our Multimedia Informatics Masters students will showcase their Game Development Pipeline course’s games and Machine Learning for Multimedia Informatics course’s projects they developed during this semester. There will also be a League of Junior Games section where our young game developers will present their card and board games. The event will be held at METU Informatics Institute on 17 January 2018 16:30-20:00. You are all kindly invited. Please see the attached poster and do not forget to follow our Facebook page for more information: http://www.facebook.com/GATEWay.METU/
• We had precious guests at MMI 700 Research Methods course, I would like to thank each of the participants for their seminars – 06 Jan 2018.
– Dr. Oya Çeliktutan Dikici (Imperial College London)
– Asst. Prof. Serdar Çiftçi (Harran University)
– Dr. Çiğdem Beyan (Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia)
– Dr. Sertan Şentürk (Kobalt Music R&D)
– Emine Koçak and Latif Özen (Ankara Restoration and Conservation Regional Laboratory of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism)
– Asst. Prof. Hamdi Dibeklioğlu (Bilkent University)
• Esra Özkan from ArtBizTech is going to give a presentation on bang. Art Innovation Prix 2018. This event is organized by METU Design Factory. You are all kindly invited.
Date: 26 December Tuesday 12:30-13:30
Location: METU Design Factory
• MMI 702 Motion Capture, Analysis and Synthesis course’s student Ali Alsamarei’s project “Opt Art” mentored by me had participated to .bangPrix 2017. The catalogue of the projects is now online, you can check it out here: http://www.bangprix.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Bang-Art-Innovation-Prix-2017-Katalog-k.pdf 
• During GATEWay’18, presentations and projects from Game Development Pipeline and Machine Learning for Multimedia Informatics courses will be with us on 17th of January. GATEWay’s FB page is here: https://www.facebook.com/GATEWay.METU/
• On November 29 at 11:30, Emine Koçak (Ankara Central Laboratories for Restoration and Conservation) is going to give a seminar titled “Re-restoring a bone panel from Kültepe-Kanesh” for MMI Research Methods (MMI 700) course. On the same slot, Latif Özen (Directorate General of Cultural Assets and Museums) is going to give a seminar titled “Research Methods for Cultural Heritage”. You are all kindly invited.
• Our graduate Gökhan Yılmaz presented “Acceleration of Line of Sight Analysis Algorithms with Parallel Programming” at USMOS Conference @METU KKM, 21 November at 3 pm. It is a joint paper with Elif Surer and Alptekin Temizel. You can see the abstract of our presentation here – 21-23 November 2017.
• Our student Hüseyin Erdoğan presented “Game-Based Mobile Platform to Instruct First-Aid Techniques” at USMOS Conference @METU KKM, 22 November at 2 pm. It is a joint paper with Yahya Can Acar, Orhan Çınar, Elif Surer and Pınar Karagöz. You can see the abstract of our presentation here – 21-23 November 2017.
•  Asst. Prof. Hamdi Dibeklioğlu (Bilkent University) gave a seminar titled “Exploring Temporal Dynamics of Facial Behavior” for Multimedia Informatics – Research Methods (MMI 700) course – 15 November 2017.
• I will give the following courses during 2017/2018 Fall Semester:
MMI505 Game Development Pipeline (with Assoc. Prof. Alptekin Temizel) – Thu 9:40-12:30 II-06
MMI700 Research Methods (with Assoc. Prof. Hüseyin Hacıhabiboğlu) – Wed 10:40-12:30 II-06
MMI702 Machine Learning for Multimedia Informatics – Thu 13:40-16:30 II-06
I am also a mentor at Interdisciplinary Design Studio – Fall ’17 – Fri 13:40-17:00 METU Design Factory
Kristal Piksel Game Awards applications have started. Check for the application procedures here. We, as the selection committee, are looking forward to seeing your brilliant game ideas!
METU Campus Newspaper (ODTÜ Kampüs İçi Gazetesi) second issue welcomes new faculty members, including me. I would like to thank everyone contributing to campus newpaper for their warm welcome!
• We presented our paper titled “Boosted Multiple Kernel Learning for First-Person Activity Recognition” at 25th European Signal Processing Conference (EUSIPCO 2017). You can see the .pdf version of our poster here – 30 August 2017.
• Our papers on Hemispatial Neglect Syndrome got accepted to JMIR Serious Games, congrats to the REWIRE team:
Tobler-Ammann*, B. C., Surer*, E., Knols, R. H., Borghese, N.A., de Bruin, E. D. (2017) “User Perspectives on Exergames Designed to Explore the Hemineglected Space for Stroke Patients With Visuospatial Neglect: Usability Study”, JMIR Serious Games 2017;5(3):e18.
DOI: 10.2196/games.8013 | Download (.pdf)
Tobler-Ammann, B. C., Surer, E., de Bruin, E. D., Rabuffetti, M., Borghese, N. A., Mainetti, R., Pirovano, M., Wittwer, L., Knols, R. H. (2017) “Exergames Encouraging Exploration of Hemineglected Space in Stroke Patients with Visuo-spatial Neglect: a Feasibility Study”, JMIR Serious Games 2017;5(3):e17.
DOI: 10.2196/games.7923 | Download (.pdf)
• Ali Kaan Sungur successfully defended his MSc thesis “Hierarchical Temporal Memory Based Autonomous Agent for Partially Observable Video Game Environments”. Congrats to our student! – 15 August 2017.
• We presented our abstract titled “A Multifaceted Gaming Platform for Interactive Learning of Archaeology and Culture of Kültepe” at Kültepe International Meeting III (KIM 3). You can see the abstract of our presentation here – 4-7 August 2017.
• Umut Demirel successfully defended his MSc thesis “Creating a Generic Hand and Finger Gesture Recognizer Using Forearm Muscle Activity Signals”. Congrats to our student and his thesis supervisor Assoc. Prof. Hüseyin Hacıhabiboğlu. It has been a pleasure being Umut’s co-advisor and working with this great team – 1 August 2017.
• My chapter titled “Physical and Cognitive Training of Children with Down Syndrome Using Video Games”, an extended version of my GOODTECHS 2016 article, is published by Springer, Cham – 15 July 2017.
• Call for Papers: IEEE Consumer Communications & Networking Conference (CCNC 2018) – Track 1: Networking solutions for Games, Multimedia, Social Good, and P2P applications. Deadline: 1 July 2017.
• Fatih Özkan has successfully defended his MSc thesis “Multiple Kernel Learning for First-Person Activity Recognition”. Congratulations to our dear student! You can read our EUSIPCO article here – 8 June 2017.
• GOODTECHS 2017: Serious Games to Improve Quality of Life session (Pisa, Italy – 29–30 November, 2017) is waiting for your submissions. Deadline: 1 July 2017.
• Gökhan Yılmaz has successfully defended his MSc thesis “Accelerating Line of Sight Analysis Algorithms with Parallel Programming”. I would like to congratulate him and his thesis supervisor Assoc. Prof. Alptekin Temizel. It has been a great pleasure working with them as a co-supervisor – 31 May 2017.
• Congratulations to our dear student, Umut Demirel and his thesis supervisor, my dear colleague, Assoc. Prof. Hüseyin Hacıhabiboğlu for the Best Poster Award at METU II Open Research Day! It is great to be Umut’s co-advisor and a part of this team – 30 May 2017.
• We had precious guests at GATE 590 seminars, I would like to thank each of the participants for their seminars – 26 May 2017.
– Assoc. Prof. Flavio D’Alessandro (La Sapienza University of Rome / Bogazici University)
– Assoc. Prof. Sinan Kalkan (METU CENG)
– Prof. Gözde Bozdağı Akar (METU EEE)
– Dr. Arsev Umut Aydınoğlu (METU Design Factory)
– Asst. Prof. Ahmad Hasasneh (Palestine Ahliya University)
– Dr. Firas Omar (Zarka University)
ECISLab‘s 6 students participated to the METU II Open Research Day, I would like to thank them for their successful presentations. You can reach the titles of their theses and projects here. I would like to thank the organization committee and Asst. Prof. Nurcan Tunçbağ for their tremendous effort during this event – 24 May 2017.
• I participated to the e-Game Show 2017 panel titled “The Future of Video Game Industry: A Window of Opportunity” with Prof. Haşmet Gürçay (Hacettepe), Dr. Gaetano Dumita (QMUL), David Greenspan (BANDAI NAMCO) and Dimiter Gantchev (WIPO) at Hacettepe University Beytepe Congress Center, Ankara – 13 May 2017.
•  I gave a seminar titled “Serious Games and Its Applications: Examples from Health Industry” at Çankaya University’s 2nd Virtual Reality & Augmented Reality & Serious Games Meeting. I would like to thank Asst. Prof. Murat Yılmaz and Çankaya University for the invitation – 6 May 2017.
İsmail Arı 2017 Summer School (31 July – 4 August 2017) is organized to commemorate our beloved friend, İsmail Arı, at Boğaziçi University. Please check for the application details here, deadline is 20 May 2017.
• The 1st Workshop on Games-Human Interaction (GHItaly 2017) will be held in conjunction with the 12th Edition of CHItaly, the biannual Conference of the Italian ACM SIGCHI Chapter, from 18th to 20th of September 2017 in Cagliari. Please check the official website for Call for Papers.
ECISLab and Publications pages have been updated, you can now download the full-texts of the articles & proceedings in .pdf format – 27 March 2017.
• GATE 590 – Graduate Seminar course had its first guest today! We would like to thank Dr. Firas Omar for his seminar on “Usability in Game Development” and Assoc. Prof. Banu Günel for the organization of this event – 17 March 2017.
ArtBizTech organizes bang.prix competition to merge art and technology. Submission categories are hybrid art (kinetic, robotic, mechatronic), new media, data art and bio art. Deadline for the applications is 3 April 2017. For submission details, please check the website [TR].
• Our submission to EUSIPCO 2017 (F. Özkan, M. A. Arabacı, E. Surer, A. Temizel, “Boosted Multiple Kernel Learning for First-Person Activity Recognition”) is available on arXiv:1702.06799.
• I will give the following courses during 2016/2017 Spring Semester:
GATE 704 Motion Capture, Analysis and Synthesis – Thursday 9:40-12:30 II-05
GATE 541 Physics for Computer Games – Friday 9:40-12:30 II-05
GATE 590 Graduate Seminar – Friday 12:40-13:30 II-05
• I will give a new course  “Motion Capture, Analysis and Synthesis” (GATE704) during the 2016/2017 Spring semester. Courses page will be updated soon!
• I participated to the “Starting Your Game Career: Education” panel at Gaming Istanbul 2017 (GIST) event at Istanbul Congress Center – 3 February 2017.
• Thank you very much for your participation to GATEWay’17-MMI Edition! 12 Game Development Pipeline projects, 4 Machine Learning for Multimedia Informatics projects and 1 Junior project were presented. You can check our FB album for the details of the event. See you next year!
GATEWay’17 – MMI Edition is loading, please check our FB page for the updates. METU Multimedia Informatics students will present their projects of the “Game Development Pipeline” and “Machine Learning for Multimedia Informatics” courses. The event is here and you are kindly invited.
• Our joint BAP-1 Project (PI: Assoc. Prof. Hüseyin HACIHABİBOĞLU) in collaboration with METU Spatial Audio Research Group (METU-SPARG) and Virtual Reality and Computer Vision Group  is accepted  – 25 January 2017.
• I gave a talk titled “Physical and Cognitive Training of Children with Down Syndrome Using Video Games” at 2nd EAI International Conference on Smart Objects and Technologies for Social Good in Venice, Italy – 30 November and 1 December 2016. The proceedings will be published by Springer-Verlag in the Lecture Notes of ICST.
• I participated to “Career in Gaming Industry” panel organized by Oyunder at METU – 19 October 2016.
• MODSIMMER participated to the European Researchers’ Night 2016 (Bilimin Ev Hali) at METU – 30 September  2016.
• I will give a new course “Machine Learning for Multimedia Informatics” (GATE702) during the 2016/2017 Fall semester. Courses page will be updated soon!
• Ali Kaan Sungur presented “Voluntary Behavior on Cortical Learning Algorithm Based Agents” at the IEEE Computational Intelligence & Games Conference – 20-23 September 2016 | Santorini, Greece.
• Call for Papers: Deadline: 12 September – GOODTECHS: 2nd EAI International Conference on Smart Objects and Technologies for Social Good – Track Session on Serious Games, November 30–December 1, 2016 | Venice, Italy.
• I will give a talk on Serious Games at the İsmail Arı Summer School, to the memory of our beloved friend, İsmail Arı, at Boğaziçi University – 26 August 2016.
• I was going to present my abstract on Cognitive Training of Children with Down Syndrome at the 10th European Down Syndrome Congress 2016 (EDSC 2016), but the congress had been cancelled. Still, thanks a lot to the organizing committee for their efforts and for the fruitful programme!
• We organized GATEWay’16 Summer Edition at METU Informatics Institute – 17 June 2016.
• I gave a talk titled “New Techniques on Game Development” at e-GameShow 2016 – 2 June 2016.
• We organized Informatics Science Festival – 16 May 2016.
• We organized IS’CyDeS 2016 – International Symposium on Cyber Defence and Security – 13 May 2016.
•  We presented our project proposals at METU Northern Cyprus Campus for Academic Development Program-5 – 29-30 April 2016.
•  Our GATE students presented their projects and games at Bilim Eğlencelidir! (Science is Fun!) event at Congresium Ankara – 17 April 2016.
• I attended to 37th HFM Panel Business Meeting to present our abstract at Bucharest, Romania – 11-13 April 2016.
• I gave a seminar titled “Recent Advances in Simulation Technology and Serious Games – Applications from METU Multimedia Informatics Master’s Program” at Laboratory for Engineering of the Neuromuscular System LISiN, Politecnico di Torino – 16 March 2016.
• I visited the Faculty of Computer Science of University of Vienna and gave a presentation on Applications from METU Multimedia Informatics Master’s Program – 12 February 2016.
• I was a mentor at Global Game Jam (GGJ)’16 – 29-31 January 2016. Congratulations to the 210 participants who developed 54 games in total!
• We organized GATEWay’16-Winter Edition at METU Informatics Institute – 23 January 2016.
• Our joint BAP-1 Project (PI: Assoc. Prof. Pınar KARAGÖZ) in collaboration with MODSIMMER is accepted  – 11 January 2016.
• I participated to the “Today and Tomorrow of Game Education in Turkey” panel at GaMeX 2015 event at Istanbul Congress Center – 17 December 2015.
• I gave a seminar on Serious Games at MODSIMMER – 25 November 2015.
• I participated to the Eurasia Graphics 2015 and was a presenter at Kristal Piksel Video Game Awards event at Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University, Istanbul – 19-20 November 2015.
• We participated to the USMOS 2015 Conference – 11-12 November 2015.
• I participated to the SIAMOC 2015 Conference in Padova, Italy – 2 October 2015.
• I gave a seminar titled Recent Advances in Simulation Technology and Serious Games – Applications from METU Game Technologies Master’s Program at University of Padova, Italy – 25 June 2015.
• I gave a seminar on Recent Advances in Simulation Technology and Serious Games – Applications from METU Game Technologies Master’s Program at University of Milan, Italy – 22 June 2015.
• We organized GATEWay’15 at METU Informatics Institute – 6 June 2015.
• I participated to the Education Panel and made a presentation at e-Game Show 2015 – 23 May 2015.