Hackademia: Transforming Students Into Citizen Scientists Through Hackathons

Since 2015, the University of Geneva has been experimenting with the use of hackathons to motivate student participation in research and innovation, as a form of citizen science, for the benefit of both the university and the city of Geneva. In this talk, we will describe a range of hackathon typologies that have been tested, from Hackademia, a University-only hackathon focused on solving challenges facing our digital services, to the Open Geneva Festival, a city-wide hackathon that involves dozens of public and private partners. We will discuss what motivates students to participate, including different ways of obtaining ECTS credit for hackathons that have been tested, and what the measures of success for a hackathon should be. The Division de l’Information Scientifique (DIS), responsible for our library services, has been an active participant in many of these hackathons. We will present some concrete results of their participation, and suggest possible future directions for hackathon-based collaboration between libraries and students.