On Hackathons: A Multidisciplinary Literature Review

Literature Title

On Hackathons: A Multidisciplinary Literature Review

Literature Information

• Topic Area: Multidisciplinary review of hackathon activities
• Keywords: Hackathon, literature review, multidisciplinary, innovation, collaboration, learning, inclusivity, sustainability, evaluation framework, hacker culture

Research Background and Issues

• Identified Problems or Challenges:

  • Hackathons have rapidly grown over the past five years, widely utilized across various industries and disciplines, but integrated research on hackathons remains limited.
  • There is a lack of systematic conceptualization of hackathons in a multidisciplinary context, with fragmented findings across disciplines.
  • Insufficient theoretical frameworks exist for long-term, sustainable research.

• Significance:

  • Hackathons, as tools for innovation, collaboration, and learning, are increasingly applied to address technological and societal challenges.
  • Their short-term outcomes (e.g., project planning and team formation) and long-term impacts (e.g., innovation ecosystems and social influence) are of great importance for both research and practice.

• Research Motivation and Related Work:

  • While Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) research has partially explained how hackathons foster learning and innovation, it has yet to explore how these processes ensure long-term sustainability.
  • Other disciplines (e.g., organizational studies, gender studies, and science and technology studies) provide novel perspectives on hackathons, but no literature has integrated these viewpoints.

Proposed Solution

• Proposed Solution:

  • This study conducted a literature review of hackathons spanning 1999 to 2022 across 10 disciplinary fields to extract current research focuses and trends.
  • A unified framework comprising four core research areas—purpose, format, process, and outcome—was proposed to systematically organize the design and evaluation logic of hackathons.

• Innovative Contributions:

  • The first multidisciplinary literature review of hackathons, integrating perspectives from technology, humanities, and health domains.
  • An iterative analytical framework was provided, redefining the value of hackathons through purpose-driven format adjustments, process regulation, and outcome evaluation.
  • Addressed the fragmentation in current research and identified future research directions.

• Implementation Steps:

  1. Literature Screening: Keywords "hackathon" were searched across multiple databases, filtering English, peer-reviewed papers closely related to hackathons, resulting in 111 papers.
  2. Classification: Metadata classification of the literature, summarizing into four categories—purpose, format, process, and outcome—based on disciplines and research questions.
  3. Analysis: Thematic analysis of research questions, methodologies, data collection methods, and key findings to develop the core framework.
  4. Timeline Construction: Analyzed the temporal evolution of research hotspots, identifying shifts from early "purpose" studies to recent "outcome" and "process" studies.

Research Findings

• Specific Findings:

  • Four Core Research Areas:
    1. Purpose: Why hackathons are organized (e.g., fostering innovation, learning, and collaboration).
    2. Outcome: Results of hackathons (e.g., participant learning, new project launches, or entrepreneurship).
    3. Format: Organizational models of hackathons (e.g., time, location, technical support, competitive vs. non-competitive activities).
    4. Process: Actual operational mechanisms of hackathons, including team formation, task allocation, and collaboration.
  • Proposed a "purpose-to-outcome cyclical framework," regulating processes through format design to achieve goals, with research outcomes feeding back to refine initial purposes.
  • Integrated experiences from different disciplines to generate targeted recommendations for various application scenarios (e.g., platform design supporting both technical and non-technical participants).

• Advantages:

  • Compared to existing studies, this literature review is more systematic, covering diverse aspects of hackathons.
  • Provides a universal framework suitable for future applications and practices, rather than fragmented insights.
  • Strengthens the connection between multidisciplinary research and the HCI field, promoting interdisciplinary collaboration.

• Experimental or Evaluation Results:

  • Outcome Evaluation: Long-term, only a few hackathon projects achieved sustainable development (e.g., continuous code optimization and commercialization).
  • Participant Feedback: Hackathons stimulated students/employees' interest in learning, technical skills, and innovative thinking, but improvements are needed to support diverse participants.
  • Effectiveness of Format Adjustments: Adding non-technical materials, extending duration, and removing competitiveness enhanced event impact and participant experience.

• Limitations and Future Directions:

  • Limitations:
    1. Literature is concentrated on CS and Western-context hackathons, lacking non-English perspectives.
    2. Limited research on long-term (over three years) effects, particularly regarding team dynamics and project continuity.
    3. Insufficient in-depth studies on non-technical participants, such as hackathons in art, music, and healthcare fields.
  • Future Directions:
    1. Strengthen longitudinal studies of hackathon projects, analyzing their long-term social and economic impacts.
    2. Further explore inclusive design to address inequalities in gender, race, and technical backgrounds.
    3. Combine experiences from other fields to develop evaluation models tailored to specific domains (e.g., healthcare, education, social services).