Aldo Gordillo

Educational escape rooms promote critical reflection on misinformation and media useDebriefing sessions after gameplay hold a critical role in learning effectivenessEscape rooms should be accompani...

Escape rooms have evolved from recreational activities to engaging educational tools, combining storytelling, puzzlesolving, and teamwork. Despite their popularity, research on escape rooms remains highly decentralized with no clear focus or pathway. To shed some light on this growing field, this study analyzes 1,051 published articles on escape rooms using natural language processing, specifically keyword analysis and structured topic modeling. Our study addresses four key research questions related to (1) commonly used phrases, (2) research topics, (3) the evolution of these topics, and (4) their interconnections. We identified 24 distinct topics categorized into design and development, field of application, participants, and technology. The analysis reveals an almost exclusive focus on educational applications (>90%), particularly in healthcare and STEM education, highlighting soft skills and practical knowledge development. Based on our findings, we provide a research agenda where we highlight future research opportunities which include expanding research methods, incorporating generative artificial intelligence and easing the barriers to adoption for teachers.

This document, titled “Applying the IGLUE Best Practices with Escapp”, provides considerations, instructions, and recommendations for teachers on how to apply the IGLUE Best Practices when using Escapp. This document does not replace the IGLUE Best Practices guide, but it extends it by providing additional information and recommendations on how to apply these practices when a specific tool is employed. The target audience of the present document is teachers of any educational level and knowledge area who are interested in creating and conducting educational escape rooms using Escapp.

This article presents a systematic literature review on escape rooms as a didactic tool for teaching and learning programming. The review examined the programming topics and languages addressed, the educational levels targeted, evaluation methods used and key design elements such as format, duration, location and narrative structure. Methodological quality was assessed using the MMAT and GRADE frameworks to determine the strength and reliability of the included studies. Findings indicate that while educational escape rooms show strong potential to support programming education through active, experiential learning, the current body of research is relatively small and still developing. The topics covered included basic programming concepts, web development and data analysis. Most escape rooms were implemented in higher education contexts and delivered in various formats (physical, fully virtual or hybrid), often incorporating digital tools and physical elements to enhance immersion. Although motivational and engagement benefits were consistently reported across studies, the majority relied heavily on post‐activity perception surveys for evaluation. Only a few studies used more objective assessments such as pre/post‐tests or learning analytics. Notably, no study included delayed post‐tests or longitudinal follow‐ups, and only a small number explored teamwork, collaboration or problem‐solving strategies in depth. Consequently, the overall certainty of evidence on measurable learning outcomes remains low to moderate. Context and implications: Rationale for this study: Learning programming is challenging, and traditional teaching often falls short. Game‐based learning, particularly educational escape rooms, may help, yet no prior review has focused on programming. Why the new findings matter: This study shows escape rooms boost engagement and motivation, though current research remains small‐scale, beginner‐focused, and methodologically weak, limiting evidence of lasting learning impact. Implications for researchers and educational institutions: For educators, escape rooms provide a promising and adaptable method for teaching programming and teamwork skills, but they must be firmly grounded in established learning theories, embedded into curricula, and evaluated through robust mixed‐methods approaches. Researchers should extend the scope beyond introductory content to include advanced topics, a wider range of learner demographics and long‐term outcomes that assess retention and skill transfer. Policy‐makers and funders can help scale these initiatives by investing in educator training, developing accessible design tools and fostering cross‐institutional collaborations. Such efforts will ensure escape rooms are inclusive, evidence‐based and capable of delivering meaningful, sustainable learning impacts.

Educators have shown growing interest in escape rooms, as they engage students while fostering teamwork, leadership, creativity, and communication. Consequently, educational escape rooms are emerging as a novel form of learning activity that seeks to enhance students’ learning through immersive and highly engaging experiences. This paper presents a novel approach to designing reusable educational puzzles within Unity and integrating them seamlessly into the Escapp platform for creating educational escape rooms, as part of the IGLUE project. We describe the workflow that enables educators to configure customizable puzzle instances via Escapp’s interface—each instance accessible through a unique URL that exposes configuration data in JSON format. Four distinct Unity puzzles have been developed according to a flexible, parameter-driven architecture, enabling them to adapt dynamically based on educator-defined configurations. During runtime, the Unity game fetches the JSON data to instantiate and render the puzzle, while solution validation occurs via secure API communication with Escapp—puzzle attempts are sent back to the platform for validation, and correct solutions trigger automatic notifications of completion. This bidirectional integration supports modularity, reusability, and real-time feedback and learning analytics, enhancing the design of escape room-style learning scenarios in a scalable and extensible way.

The objective of this document, titled “Best Practices for Creating and Conducting Educational Escape Rooms: A Comprehensive Guide for Teachers” (or “IGLUE Best Practices” for short), is to present guidelines and recommendations for helping teachers of any educational level and knowledge area to design, build, execute, and evaluate educational escape rooms considering different formats (physical, virtual, and hybrid) and delivery modes (face-to-face and remote). The guidelines and recommendations defined in this document (also referred to as practices) cover the whole life cycle of educational escape rooms and have been organised according to the phases of this cycle: design, build, execution, and evaluation.

Making research advances available to the community in the shape of open source software has the potential to introduce cutting-edge innovations from early on, foster collaborative development, and revolutionize industrial applications. However, including open source software resulting from a research project as part of a production system poses some risks and must be evaluated in detail, considering all pros and cons. This is especially delicate when that piece of software is in charge of authentication and authorization. This article reports on an experience of integrating open source identity and access management (IAM) software that is the result of multiple research projects, the FIWARE Keyrock IAM, into three educational web-based platforms: two learning object repositories and a course management platform. We intend to draw the lessons learned from this experience so they can guide software practitioners when deciding if they should integrate open source software developed in research projects.