c) VirtualHackathon Platform
MOOC – Virtual Hackathon
Chapter C – Platform: online tools
Researcher Anestis Petridis
For the organisation of a successful virtual hackathon event, tutors/organisers need to make a number of decisions about the structure of their event before the actual event takes place (i.e., specifications), find the venue, invite the participants and conduct the hackathon like any other virtual event. On the other hand, participants need to be informed about the hackathon event, register, participate and collaborate in the frame of this event either remotely or hybrid.
All of these crucial steps taken place either by tutors/organisers or participants require the existence of dedicated tools and platforms that will realise the preparatory decisions and the actual conduction of this virtual hackathon event.
This chapter provides a hands-on course regarding the use of online tools and platforms for the creation of a “virtual hackathon event” environment that will host the actual hackathon event. Through this platform, the tutors will be able to create their virtual hackathon events and set their properties according to their needs, monitor their events (the participation, the submissions, etc.) and make any appropriate adjustments during the event. Moreover, the platform will operate as a central checking point that will gather all information about upcoming and past virtual hackathon events . There, the participants will be able to check for upcoming events, read their details, register to events of interest providing their personal information, collaborate with other participants during the duration of the event, submit their projects, review other participants’ projects (if needed), and be informed about the evaluation process.
Lesson 1. Overview of the virtual hackathon platform
In this lesson, an overview of the virtual hackathon platform, which has been developed in the frame of the Erasmus+ Virtual Hackathon project, is presented to the students. The lesson begins with the description of the landing page of the platform https://platform.virtualhackathon.eu/ where active and past virtual hackathons are available to the users. In case of past hackathons, publicly available information (details about the event and the final submissions) is accessible to the public. If the submitted projects of a past hackathon have been evaluated with a review process, the user can also see the reviews and the reviewer under each project. Last, the lesson presents an overview of the management activities offered by the platform in order for the tutor/organiser to manage their own virtual hackathons.
Lesson 2. Creation of a new hackathon
In this lesson, the platform’s functionality for the creation and publishing of a virtual hackathon event is described. The students become familiar with the backend of the platform and are instructed how to create a new hackathon. More specifically, they are described all the fields that a tutor needs to go through and fill in in order to create and publish a virtual hackathon event, including Name, Slug, Cover Image, Icon, Tags, Short/Longer Description, Organisation, Files, Roadmap, Schedule information, Timeline, etc.
Lesson 3. Participants options: Profiling, registration and project submission
Initially, the lesson presents the profiling option supported by the platform. Among other information, the user of the platform can provide information about his/her competences and soft skills in order to help the tutor/organiser of a virtual hackathon event to group him/her properly. Then, the lesson outlines the registration option where a user can see the open registration hackathons and register. Last, the lesson describes the project submission process.
Lesson 4. Creation of a team
The number of participants taking part in a virtual hackathon event can be quite large. In this lesson, the students are taught how to create teams and how to handle the participants of an event. Details of participants given upon registration in the platform are presented. By means of these details and other information provided by the participant, the tutor of the event is able to filter and search among participants. The students of this lesson test these filters, view the participants with specific characteristics (e.g., name) and check how the participants are (or can be) allocated into different teams.
Lesson 5. Evaluation of projects
In this lesson, the review process is described. Here, the students can see how a reviewer can evaluate the submitted projects using a set of 5 metrics and providing a feedback note.
Lesson 6. Online tools
In this lesson, a number of supportive online tools for the conduction of a virtual hackathon event are described. More specifically, Excalidraw, Gitter and Jitsi are presented to students. Moreover, a hackathon roadmap tool is described to students. This roadmap tool enables tutors to create their own hackathon roadmap (methodology) and insert it under the information of the virtual hackathon event so that during the conduction of the virtual hackathon event the tutor will be able to consult the roadmap and guide participants respectively.
Extra Documentation:
Hackathon Roadmap
Hackathon Roadmap is a toolkit to accompany the participant during the hackathon.
https://roadmap.virtualhackathon.eu
Excalidraw
Excalidraw is a whiteboard tool that lets you easily sketch diagrams that have a hand-drawn feel to them.
Gitter
Gitter is a chat and networking platform that helps to manage, grow and connect communities through messaging, content and discovery.
Jitsi
Jitsi is a collection of free and open-source multiplatform voice (VoIP), video conferencing and instant messaging applications f
FINAL PROJECT:
- Create an account (tutor) and then create a virtual hackathon event and configure it.
- Create three accounts (participant 1, 2, and 3) and register to the previous event.
- Make an example project submission for all participants.
- Review participant’s projects.
- Present the final votes as presented on the tutor's side.
MOOC – Virtual Hackathon
Chapter C – Platform: online tools
Researcher Anestis Petridis
For the organisation of a successful virtual hackathon event, tutors/organisers need to make a number of decisions about the structure of their event before the actual event takes place (i.e., specifications), find the venue, invite the participants and conduct the hackathon like any other virtual event. On the other hand, participants need to be informed about the hackathon event, register, participate and collaborate in the frame of this event either remotely or hybrid.
All of these crucial steps taken place either by tutors/organisers or participants require the existence of dedicated tools and platforms that will realise the preparatory decisions and the actual conduction of this virtual hackathon event.
This chapter provides a hands-on course regarding the use of online tools and platforms for the creation of a “virtual hackathon event” environment that will host the actual hackathon event.
MOOC – Virtual Hackathon
Chapter C – Platform: online tools
Researcher Anestis Petridis
For the organisation of a successful virtual hackathon event, tutors/organisers need to make a number of decisions about the structure of their event before the actual event takes place (i.e., specifications), find the venue, invite the participants and conduct the hackathon like any other virtual event. On the other hand, participants need to be informed about the hackathon event, register, participate and collaborate in the frame of this event either remotely or hybrid.
All of these crucial steps taken place either by tutors/organisers or participants require the existence of dedicated tools and platforms that will realise the preparatory decisions and the actual conduction of this virtual hackathon event.
This chapter provides a hands-on course regarding the use of online tools and platforms for the creation of a “virtual hackathon event” environment that will host the actual hackathon event.
