About me

This page is in perpetual need of updating. Please consider much of the information outdated.

My PhD thesis concerned the negotiation of rules and experiences by players in digital multiplayer games. The thesis found that individuals fleetingly frame their game playing in a multitude of ways, e.g. serious competitions, casual events, as fabrications and learning experiences. Changes to game mechanics act as a muse to their experiences. Drawing from three studies the thesis extends the work on Frame Analysis to the domain of digital game studies, while also utilising the work on player motivations and player types.

I did my undergraduate degree in the department of Information Systems and my honours year was on open source software. I’ve dabbled as a software engineer and did a stint at CSIRO.

I'm currently active in the Interaction Design Group and the Microsoft Research Centre for Social Natural User Interfaces.

Teaching

My subjects for three years were:
Web Information Technologies - third year undergraduate,
Database Systems - second year undergraduate.

Grants

The University of Melbourne Faculty Internal Grant Scheme (FIGS) 2018.

Collaboration Support Grant

Scraping blog data using Python Jupyter Notebooks

$4996

Publications, Awards, etc.

 

May, A. J., Morgan, H., Harrop, M. and Lesh, J. (forthcoming - 2018) Two steps forward: pounding the pavement in the digital city. 14th International Conference on Urban History. Available: https://eauh2018.ccmgs.it/

Doyle, K. & Harrop, M. (2017) A Case Study in Online Journalism: Preliminary Findings and Unfolding Digital Humanities Methods. eResearch Australasia '17, Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre. Available: https://conference.eresearch.edu.au/2017/08/a-case-study-in-online-journalism-preliminary-findings-and-unfolding-digital-humanities-methods/

Pang, P. C. I., Harrop, M., Verspoor, K., Pearce, J., & Chang, S. (2016, November). What are health website visitors doing: insights from visualisations towards exploratory search. In Proceedings of the 28th Australian Conference on Computer-Human Interaction (pp. 631-633). ACM. Available: http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=3011843

Kennedy, J., Wilken, R., Nansen, B., Arnold, M., & Harrop, M. (2016). Overcoming the tyranny of distance? High speed broadband and the significance of place. In Making Publics, Making Places. (p. 193-216). DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.20851/publics

Arnold, M., Nansen, B., Kennedy, J., Gibbs, M., Harrop, M. & Wilken, R. (2016) An Ontography of Broadband on a Domestic Scale. Transformations (27) Available: http://www.transformationsjournal.org/issues/27/07.shtml

Wouters, N., Downs, J., Harrop, M., Cox, T., Oliveira, E., Webber, S. & Vande Moere, A. (2016, June). Uncovering the Honeypot Effect: How Audiences Engage with Public Interactive Systems. In Proceedings of the 2016 ACM Conference on Designing Interactive Systems (pp. 5-16). ACM.

Webber, S., Harrop, M., Downs, J., Cox, T., Wouters, N., & Moere, A. V. (2015). Everybody Dance Now: Tensions between Participation and Performance in Interactive Public Installations. In Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Australian Special Interest Group for Computer Human Interaction (OzCHI '15) (pp. 284-288). ACM.

Carter, M., Downs, J., Nansen, B., Harrop, M., & Gibbs, M. (2014, October). Paradigms of games research in HCI: a review of 10 years of research at CHI. In Proceedings of the first ACM SIGCHI annual symposium on Computer-human interaction in play (pp. 27-36). ACM.

Carter, M, Gibbs, M, & Harrop, M. (2014). Drafting an Army: The Playful Pastime of Warhammer 40,000. Games and Culture. 9(2): 122-147. doi:10.1177/1555412013513349

Harrop, M. (2013). Negotiating Frames, Rules and Motivations. In Proceedings of the 1st University of Melbourne Computing and Information Systems Doctoral Colloquium, The University of Melbourne, Australia.

Harrop, M., Gibbs, M. & Carter, M. (2013a) The Pretense Awareness Contexts and Oscillating Nature of Coaching Frames. In Proceedings of the Digital Games Research Association Conference (DiGRA 2013). Available: http://www.digra.org/digital-library/publications/the-pretence-awareness-contexts-and-oscillating-nature-of-coaching-frames/

Harrop, M., Gibbs, M. & Carter, M. (2013b) Everyone's a winner at Warhammer 40K (or, at least not a loser). In Proceedings of the Digital Games Research Association Conference (DiGRA 2013). Available: http://www.digra.org/digital-library/publications/everyones-a-winner-at-warhammer-40k-or-at-least-not-a-loser/

Carter, M., Harrop, M. & Gibbs, M. (2013) The Roll of Dice in Warhammer 40,000. Physical and Digital in Games and Play Seminar. 9th Game Research Lab Spring Seminar, May 29-30, Tampere, Finland.

Carter, M., Gibbs, M. and Harrop, M. (2012). Metagames, Paragames and Orthogames: A New Vocabulary. Foundations of Digital Games Conference, May 29-June 1, Raleigh, NC, USA, ACM.

Harrop, M. and M. Gibbs (2010). Innovative frames of play. Research workshop: Making Sense of Virtual Worlds and User Driven Innovation. Birkeroed, Denmark.

Harrop, M. (2009). Truce in Online Games. OZCHI 2009, November 23-27, Melbourne, Australia. 297-300.

Second place in the 24 hour design challenge at the OzCHI 2009 conference.

Best "elevator pitch" at Information Systems Departmental industry night, 2009.

Coordinator for the Interaction Design Group seminars, 2010 and ongoing member.