Comic4Welfare: An Interactive Comic-Based E-Learning Platform for Animal Welfare Education

Comic4Welfare is a digital e-learning platform developed by researchers at Rhine-Waal University of Applied Sciences in Germany to address gaps in agricultural and animal welfare education. The paper presents the platform's conceptual, pedagogical, and technical design, which combines decision-based interactive comics with the Comic Automaton, a tool that lets learners create their own comic narratives. The authors frame the approach as constructivist, emphasizing experiential learning, emotional engagement, and "learning through creation." The platform was built with Angular, Ionic, GraphQL, and Unity 2021, and it uses a "string of pearls" narrative structure with limited branching rather than a drama management system.

The platform includes three comics aligned with core modules on colostrum and milking and a sheep-focused storyline, along with a Learning Diary for reflection and a Task Mode that scaffolds comic creation through randomly drawn task cards. Development was guided by four workshops with 10 to 20 agriculture and animal husbandry students per session, using paper prototypes, dot-voting, A/B testing with UEQ surveys, and think-aloud protocols. These sessions shifted the design toward 2D comics over 3D simulations and prompted the addition of Task Mode after learners struggled with open-ended narrative generation.

The evidence presented is largely formative and qualitative. The strongest quantitative data is a UEQ comparison in which the learning platform scored higher on clarity, efficiency, and reliability, while the Comic Automaton scored higher on attractiveness and novelty but lower on effectiveness. In a later practical assignment, 22 students rated usability, engagement, and continued use of the Comic Automaton at 3 out of 5. The authors explicitly state that long-term educational effects, learning outcomes, and retention remain unevaluated, and that AI integration is planned but not yet implemented.