Author:
Kiev Gama
Affiliation:
Universidade Federal de Pernambuco (UFPE), Brazil
Keyword(s):
Software Crowdsourcing, Hackathon, Motivation, Civic Apps.
Related
Ontology
Subjects/Areas/Topics:
Collaborative and Social Interaction
;
Enterprise Information Systems
;
Human Factors
;
Human-Computer Interaction
;
Information Systems Analysis and Specification
;
Physiological Computing Systems
;
Software Engineering
;
Tools, Techniques and Methodologies for System Development
Abstract:
Hackathons are intensive events that typically last from 1 to 3 days, where programmers and sometimes people
with interdisciplinary backgrounds (e.g., designers, journalists, activists) collaborate to develop software
applications to overcome a challenge proposed by the event organizers. Civic hackathons are a particular type
of hackathon that gained momentum in the last years, mainly propelled by city halls and government agencies
throughout the world as a way to explore public data repositories. These initiatives became an attempt to
crowdsource the development of software applications targeting civic issues. Some articles in academic literature
have conflicting arguments about factors that motivate developers to create such apps. Claims are mostly
based on anecdotal evidence since research is still scarce in the empirical analysis of civic hackathons. Thus,
we decided to do a study to gather data under the perspective of hackathon participants, focusing on what
motivation factors
make them join such competitions. We conducted a survey research where we intended to
provide empirical evidence for a diverse audience (e.g., hackathon organizers, open data specialists) interested
in civic hackathons as a form of software crowdsourcing. In this work, we present preliminary results.
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