by Peace Ossom Williamson
Open Data Day: Hackathon Recap
"Open Data Day is an annual celebration of open data all over the world. For the ninth time in history, groups from around the world will create local events on the day where they will use open data in their communities." To celebrate and encourage the use of open data, the UTA Libraries sponsored a hackathon, or a "project marathon," where individuals came together to form groups, come up with an idea, and see that very idea through to completion all in one sitting.
The hackathon website is at opendataday.uta.cloud.
UTA Libraries partnered with Golden Key, and the Association for Information Technology Professionals, two active student groups on campus to facilitate the program throughout the day. Also, a pending student organization, the Society for Artificial Intelligence, partnered with the Libraries to provide support and workshops during the event.
Image credit: Nitin Kanwar
The theme for the hackathon was improving the accessibility of health information. Participants were asked to create tools to improve the public's access to trustworthy health information or make it more easily understood.
This was the first Open Data Day at UTA hackathon - ODD@UTA for short, and the participants were given breakfast, the rules of the event, and instructions in an online guide and via handouts. Then, they had 12 hours to form groups, if not already formed, come up with an idea, create and complete their project, and write up the supporting description and documentation for its use. Participants were a mix of undergraduate and graduate students, and the majority came from the College of Business, the College of Engineering, the College of Liberal Arts, and the College of Science, although there was minor participation from other colleges within the university. There were teams of students who knew each other prior to the competition and others who met and formed groups there on the spot, but all of the groups worked diligently from 10 am - 10 pm to complete their projects. Some even stacked large amounts of food and snacks at their tables to avoid having to leave their machines and disrupt their process to rehydrate and refuel.
Activities during the Hackathon
During the day of the event, other activities were available to provide participants opportunities to learn, re-energize, collaborate, or just relax. Red Bull provided a refrigerator with a variety of energy drinks, refilled throughout the day. Also, participants had the first opportunity to utilize the new gaming space in the Central Library. The gaming space is equipped with large screens and more popular consoles, like the Playstation 4 and Xbox One, and controllers were checked out and reserved for participants. Oftentimes, working for long stretches of time can lead to mental fatigue and lack of productivity; so, the gaming lounge was a place to decompress and experience a change of scene.
Image credit: Nitin Kanwar
Intro to AI workshop
Participants also attended workshops during the hackathon that were led by members of the Society for Artificial Intelligence. One of the workshops was an introduction to artificial intelligence, and it involved great topics, questions, and participation from multiple present parties who contributed their thoughts and ideas around AI processes.
Other workshops that were offered were an Introduction to GitHub (2 attendees) and a matchmaking event for participants to build teams (no attendees). Since both had little to no turnout, plans are being made to adapt workshop offerings in the future, based on participant suggestions and input.
Event Conclusions
Submissions
The participants were instructed to submit their projects on the ODD@UTA hackathon Devpost site. The site allows for all things hackathon, including finding partners, sharing ideas, conversing, submitting projects, and voting during the public gallery. At the conclusion of the event, the teams rushed to complete their submissions before the deadline, and four submissions were received. Because some teams did not finish and complete their submissions, we may create an opportunity in the future to submit incomplete projects. This will allow for a new competition category where future teams can build upon, fix, or add functionality to projects that were previously submitted.
Submissions can be found here: oddutahack.devpost.com/submissions. The files for the Capping Substance Abuse project are here: project files.
Judging
The judges for the hackathon were leaders in their respective industries who brought their particular knowledge and experiences into the judging process. Dr. J'Vonnah Maryman is Assistant Director of Family Health Services for Tarrant County Public Health Department, and she used her awareness and expertise in health provision and education to assess the usefulness of the tools created. The next judge, John Brink, is a former student who received his MBA from the UTA College of Business. He has over 10 years of experience in visualization and analytics which was helpful in evaluating the user-friendliness and functionality of what was created. The third judge for the event was Courtney Mumma, Deputy Director of the Texas Digital Library, who has coordinated and judged numerous hackathons and "ideathons" in the past.
Judging took place through the start of the week, followed by verification that teams used open data and abided by the rules of the competition. Winners were awarded prizes, with first place consisting of awards totaling $500, second place received awards totaling $375, and third place received awards totaling $250, split among the individual members of the groups.
Awards
During the awards, the winning teams showed their projects and answered questions about how they formed their teams, split up the work, overcame problems and challenges, and how they built what they created. For an article with interviews with the teams, see the article "Hackathon awards students for creating health-based apps," published in The Shorthorn, the UTA student newspaper. Team information is below along with a link to videos of their presentations.
1st Place
Team: How Safe Are Drugs?
Members: Kord Hickson, Ervin Moore, Tej Patel, and Wendy Lee
Image credit: Rebecca Bichel
2nd Place
Team: Disease Diagnoser
Members: Vivek Patel, Devi Prasad Tripathy, Aditya Rajguru
Image credit: Rebecca Bichel
3rd Place
Team: MyLevels
Members: David Trimino, Preston Hudson, Domingos Pelezo (not pictured), and Lalit Goski
Image credit: Rebecca Bichel
Videos of the presentations are available here.
For more information about other workshops and events offered by the Libraries' Research Data Services, visit libguides.uta.edu/DAVis. The webpage is updated every semester.
Thanks to the team who put the event together, the individuals who volunteered prior to and during the event, and to the participants for their creativity and hard work on a Saturday during midterms!
Image credit: Rebecca Bichel
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