Hack Day Research Articles

Engaging Engineering Students in Public Health Responses to Disease Outbreaks Through Hackathons

Contribution: Although engineering hackathon events are common, this is one of the first reports of such an event used for the purpose of teaching engineering students about public health concepts. Results from this study suggest that hackathons are an effective format for teaching topics that are not core to the engineering discipline in a short period of time. Background: The current COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the essential role that computer scientists and engineers have in controlling disease outbreaks. However, engineering programs generally do not provide training on public health issues. Thus, there is a critical need to develop innovative and engaging ways to educate engineering students about public health without interfering with required discipline-specific content. Intended Outcomes: Hackathons, short-term events, held outside of the classroom, can provide an engaging and effective method for increasing the interest and knowledge of engineering students in disease outbreaks. In this article, the effectiveness of a hack day in increasing the interest and knowledge of engineering students in disease outbreaks is assessed. Application Design: One-hundred-six undergraduate students, 30 of whom were engineering majors, participated in a multidisciplinary disease focused hackathon. Student learning and engagement during the hackathon was assessed for the 30 engineering students that participated through pre- and post-event surveys. Findings: The results indicated that the hackathon increased both content knowledge and engagement of engineering students in public health issues. Additionally, students gained an increased understanding of public health professions and how they can contribute to disease tracking, prevention, and treatment. Therefore, hackathons are an effective and efficient tool for teaching engineering students about topics outside of their discipline.

Commentary: Making my way in physics

Commentary: Making my way in physics

Collaborations Workshop 2018 (CW18) Report – Culture Change, Productivity and Sustainability

The Collaborations Workshop 2018 (CW18) took place at The School of Mathematics, Cardiff University from the 26th to 28th March 2018. 90 people attended the event to discuss the themes of the workshop: culture change, productivity and sustainability. With a mix of lightning talks, keynotes, Q&A panels, discussions with speed blogging, collaborative ideas sessions, mini-workshops & demos, a social programme and a Hack Day in the agenda, CW18 was a feature-packed and immersive event.

Behind the scenes of the British Library Qatar National Library Partnership: Digital operations and workflow management

The British Library and Qatar National Library have been working in partnership since 2012 to make an extraordinary tranche of material available for everyone to access for free via the Qatar Digital Library. This article delves behind the scenes of the partnership, highlighting some of the operational and workflow lessons learnt when running this major digitisation programme. We look in detail at workflow management and coordination, how to use management information to find efficiencies, as well as providing a supportive team atmosphere for creative use of the collections via ‘Hack Days’.

The value of a good science hack

Matt Bellis (green shirt) takes part in the 2014 Science Hack Day in San Francisco. Image courtesy of Flickr/Matt Biddulph.

Hackathons for Libraries and Librarians

ABSTRACTHackathons can be ideal opportunities for libraries and librarians to promote new services and tools. In these social events, attendees form teams and work on a project together within a given time limit. This article explains hackathons, provides a brief history, and details how libraries and librarians can get involved. Similar event structures, like hack days and edit-a-thons, are also considered.

Developing a flourishing mHealth Habitat for the city of Leeds

The mHealth Habitat programme aims to create an environment for digital innovation to flourish across mental health, learning disability and community services in the city of Leeds. Funding has been secured to test, deploy and evaluate digital tools in a range of clinical services. Our initiative has a distinct focus on mobile and web applications which support self-monitoring, selfmanagement and online peer support as well as online therapeutic interventions. Delivered in partnership with the University of Leeds, our programme aims to support bright ideas through to mature projects, stimulate the SME digital community and develop research in the field. Our habitat comprises the essential elements for digital innovation to flourish, from regular early evening ‘show and tell events’ aimed at building a community of interest, through to regular ‘hack days' aimed at stimulating new ideas, and a digital innovation pathway which takes initiatives from initial idea through to deployment and scale. We are supporting a range of varied initiatives that will enable us to develop learning that we can both share and scale where appropriate. They include a self-monitoring project with the Yorkshire Centre for Eating Disorders; a user-led digital design initiative with Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services; an SMS project with the Assertive Outreach team aimed at keeping in touch with people reluctant to engage with services they are compelled to use through Community Treatment Orders; a Digital Craft Cafe inclusion initiative in partnership with Leeds Mind; online peer support with the regional Chronic Fatigue Service; development of an online platform to access and edit care planning documentation; goal setting and self-monitoring in a Healthy Lifestyles Services; in addition to tailored support for clinicians keen to test out existing applications in the services they deliver. Our programme is closely aligned to the strategic objectives of our NHS Trust and aim to achieve outcomes for people accessing our services as well as increased efficiency and effectiveness for clinicians. The mHealth Habitat forms one strand of our Recovery programme which aims to embed a recovery-focused approach in all services through partnership working, social inclusion and empowering those who use our services. Our digital innovations aim to increase choice and flexibility for people using our services, and improve experience of using services alongside International Journal of Integrated Care – Volume 14, 01 November – URN:NBN:NL:UI:10-1-116535– http://www.ijic.org/ International Digital Health and Care Congress, The King’s Fund, London, September 10-12 2014. improved outcomes. We are measuring financial savings to our NHS Trust as a result of more effective use of clinical time and improved work flows. Our early findings indicate there is great enthusiasm for digital innovation amongst clinicians but they lack the time, space and knowledge to develop their ideas. The developer and designer community are keen to collaborate with the NHS but smaller organisations find NHS Trusts a minefield to work with. In addition, information governance and IT provide challenges that require close collaboration to find solutions. In conclusion, the mHealth Habitat is a challenging terrain but with the right nurturing there are big gains to be made for people accessing services, clinicians and NHS Trusts.

Better value digital health: the medium, the market and the role of openness

The recent NHS 'hack days' have showcased the enthusiasm and talent of the junior doctor body as well as the potential of open source, open governance and small-medium enterprise. There still remains much scope for developing better value digital health services within the NHS. This article sets out the current state of NHS information technology (IT), how it fails to meet the needs of patients and professionals alike and suggests how better value digital health can be achieved.

Yahoo University hackday

Yahoo has recently embarked upon a program of supporting and organising "University Hack Days". This program is designed to help Yahoo reach out to new generations of aspiring web developers, and provide them with early experience of what it's like to work in the competitive new media development industry. HackDays [1] are also a great vehicle for Yahoo to use to help foster awareness of its APIs and other technologies from the Yahoo Developer Network [2] that can be used and mixed to create innovative new "mash-ups". The program encourages students to perform the following tasks: 1. To come up with a new and innovative idea that has relevance to the new media industry. 2. To present their ideas in a fashion designed to inform others about the nature of their project, and to invite discussion and feedback from industry professionals. 3. To develop a working prototype using the most appropriate technologies and development techniques. 4. To present the finished project in a competitive environment similar to that met in commercial organisations. The "University Hack Day" is an extension of the "Hack Day" program that Yahoo has been running internally for its engineers and now publicly in the "Open Hack Day" program.