More Like this

1. One-off events? An empirical study of hackathon code creation and reuse

   https://doi.org/10.1007/s10664-022-10201-x  

   Mahmoud, Ahmed_Samir_Imam ; Dey, Tapajit ; Nolte, Alexander ; Mockus, Audris ; Herbsleb, James_D ( September 2022 , Empirical Software Engineering)

   Hackathons have become popular events for teams to collaborate on projects and develop software prototypes. Most existing research focuses on activities during an event with limited attention to the evolution of the hackathon code.

   We aim to understand the evolution of code used in and created during hackathon events, with a particular focus on the code blobs, specifically, how frequently hackathon teams reuse pre-existing code, how much new code they develop, if that code gets reused afterwards, and what factors affect reuse.

   We collected information about 22,183 hackathon projects from Devpost and obtained related code blobs, authors, project characteristics, original author, code creation time, language, and size information from World of Code. We tracked the reuse of code blobs by identifying all commits containing blobs created during hackathons and identifying all projects that contain those commits. We also conducted a series of surveys in order to gain a deeper understanding of hackathon code evolution that we sent out to hackathon participants whose code was reused, whose code was not reused, and developers who reused some hackathon code.

   9.14% of the code blobs in hackathon repositories and 8% of the lines of code (LOC) are created during hackathons and around a third of the hackathon code gets reused in other projects by both blob count and LOC. The number of associated technologies and the number of participants in hackathons increase reuse probability.

   The results of our study demonstrates hackathons are not always “one-off” events as the common knowledge dictates and it can serve as a starting point for further studies in this area.

    

   more » « less
2. How to Support Newcomers in Scientific Hackathons - An Action Research Study on Expert Mentoring

   https://doi.org/10.1145/3392830  

   Nolte, Alexander ; Hayden, Linda Bailey ; Herbsleb, James D. ( May 2020 , Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction)

   null (Ed.)

   Time-bounded events such as hackathons have become a global phenomenon. Scientific communities in particular show growing interest in organizing them to attract newcomers and develop technical artifacts to expand their code base. Current hackathon approaches presume that participants have sufficient expertise to work on projects on their own. They only provide occasional support by domain experts serving as mentors which might not be sufficient for newcomers. Drawing from work on workplace and educational mentoring, we developed and evaluated an approach where each hackathon team is supported by a community member who serves in a mentor role that goes beyond providing occasional support. Evaluating this approach, we found that teams who took ownership of their projects, set achievable goals early while building social ties with their mentor and receiving learning-oriented support reported positive perceptions related to their project and an increased interest in the scientific community that organized the hackathon. Our work thus contributes to our understanding of mentoring in hackathons, an area which has not been extensively studied. It also proposes a feasible approach for scientific communities to attract and integrate newcomers which is crucial for their long-term survival. 

   more » « less
3. Consider “HACKS” when designing hackathon challenges: Hook, action, collaborative knowledge sharing

   https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2022.954044  

   Wallwey, Cassie ; Longmeier, Meris M. ; Hayde, Donnelley ; Armstrong, Julia ; Kajfez, Rachel ; Pelan, Renee ( September 2022 , Frontiers in Education)

   Our world’s complex challenges increase the need for those entering STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math) disciplines to be able to creatively approach and collaboratively address wicked problems – complex problems with no “right” answer that span disciplines. Hackathons are environments that leverage problem-based learning practices so student teams can solve problems creatively and collaboratively by developing a solution to given challenges using engineering and computer science knowledge, skills, and abilities. The purpose of this paper is to offer a framework for interdisciplinary hackathon challenge development, as well as provide resources to aid interdisciplinary teams in better understanding the context and needs of a hackathon to evaluate and refine hackathon challenges. Three cohorts of interdisciplinary STEAM researchers were observed and interviewed as they collaboratively created a hackathon challenge incorporating all cohort-member disciplines for an online high school hackathon. The observation data and interview transcripts were analyzed using thematic analysis to distill the processes cohorts underwent and resources that were necessary for successfully creating a hackathon challenge. Through this research we found that the cohorts worked through four sequential stages as they collaborated to create a hackathon challenge. We detail the stages and offer them as a framework for future teams who seek to develop an interdisciplinary hackathon challenge. Additionally, we found that all cohorts lacked the knowledge and experience with hackathons to make fully informed decisions related to the challenge’s topic, scope, outcomes, etc. In response, this manuscript offers five hackathon quality considerations and three guiding principles for challenge developers to best meet the needs and goals of hackathon sponsors and participants. 

   more » « less
4. Socio-technical Constraints and Affordances of Virtual Collaboration - A Study of Four Online Hackathons

   https://doi.org/10.1145/3555221  

   Mendes, Wendy ; Richard, Albert ; Tillo, Tähe-Kai ; Pinto, Gustavo ; Gama, Kiev ; Nolte, Alexander ( November 2022 , Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction)

   Hackathons and similar time-bounded events have become a popular form of collaboration in various domains. They are commonly organized as in-person events during which teams engage in intense collaboration over a short period of time to complete a project that is of interest to them. Most research to date has thus consequently focused on studying how teams collaborate in a co-located setting, pointing towards the advantages of radical co-location. The global pandemic of 2020, however, has led to many hackathons moving online, which challenges our current understanding of how they function. In this paper, we address this gap by presenting findings from a multiple-case study of 10 hackathon teams that participated in 4 hackathon events across two continents. By analyzing the collected data, we found that teams merged synchronous and asynchronous means of communication to maintain a common understanding of work progress as well as to maintain awareness of each other's tasks. Task division was self-assigned based on individual skills or interests, while leaders emerged from different strategies (e.g., participant experience, the responsibility of registering the team in an event). Some of the affordances of in-person hackathons, such as the radical co-location of team members, could be partially reproduced in teams that kept open synchronous communication channels while working (i.e., shared audio territories), in a sort of "radical virtual co-location". However, others, such as interactions with other teams, easy access to mentors, and networking with other participants, decreased. In addition, the technical constraints of the different communication tools and platforms brought technical problems and were overwhelming to participants. Our work contributes to understanding the virtual collaboration of small teams in the context of online hackathons and how technologies and event structures proposed by organizers imply this collaboration. 

   more » « less
5. Igniting Creativity: Hackathons for Developing Undergraduate Research Projects in Antibody Engineering

   https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8124853  

   Porter, Sandra ; Bryans, Margaret ; Vemu, Sheela ; Kamajaya, Aron ; Ives, Feather ; Dillman, Allissa ; Lannan, Erica ; Mann, Candiya ; Smith, Todd ( January 2023 , Journal of advanced technological education)

   Life science organizations are increasingly using hackathons to bring communities together to tackle shared problems, teach skills, and develop new resources. In this study, we explored the potential benefits of hackathons for the biotechnology workforce education community by organizing two hackathons centered around developing research projects in antibody engineering—a practice widely employed in the biotechnology industry but uncommon in biotechnology education. To integrate antibody engineering into courses, instructors need protocols for both computational and laboratory methods. Developing and testing these protocols provides rich opportunities for undergraduate research, allowing students to learn industry-relevant skills and contribute to creating materials for the community. During the hackathons, teams of faculty, students, and industry partners collaborated to generate several new research projects. Each hackathon was only a few days, yet student participants reported benefits similar to those attributed to traditional undergraduate research experiences. We share lessons learned from these hackathons and provide insights for the workforce education community for hosting similar events. 

   more » « less