This past weekend saw Siyavula’s most effective hackathon yet! We were recently approached by the South African Institute of Civil Engineering’s (SAICE) UCT chapter to partner with them in one of their yearly outreach initiatives. It was a logical fit for them as they could use the knowledge and skills they have acquired at UCT over the course of their degrees to make a meaningful contribution to learners and educators across South Africa.

The SAICE committee marketed and recruited volunteers from the Civil Engineering faculty, and we were able to use the Redlabs in Menzies for the sprint, which meant that each volunteer had access to a computer. The tasks for the hackathon were pre-uploaded to Vula (the UCT student portal), which is easily accessible to all students. Siyavula provided technical support where needed, created the tasks to be distributed and invited a few other UCT teaching initiatives to join us for the day. By partnering with a student organization, much of the red tape which is often experienced at the hackathons in terms of computer lab access, internet access and venue logistics were lifted, which made for a simple and efficient process on the day.

SAICE had the idea of making the hackathon a more competitive affair. Each volunteer had to find sponsorship for each question successfully uploaded to FullMarks, and the person who had raised the most money by the end of the hackathon would win a 1TB Hard drive. There was therefore an added incentive for the volunteers to get as many questions into the bank as possible. The money that was raised from the event will be donated to a charity.

On the day of the sprint we had 15 student volunteers arrive promptly at 9:30 at the lab, ready to get stuck in. At previous hackathons we usually experienced a slow start as students would have to set up their laptops first. All the setup up that was required at the SAICE hackathon was that students needed to set up a user account for FullMarks, and then they were on their way! Siyavula had the new graphing and equation editor installed just in time for the SAICE hackathon and found this the perfect opportunity to stress-test the tool. In the past we encouraged volunteers to only upload questions to FullMarks using the OpenOffice importer, which required an additional learning curve as well as adding time to the process.

We were pleased at how easily the students orientated themselves to the tasks, tools and platforms we provided. From the previous hackathons we learnt how to structure the tasks in a simple and easy to understand way, where we provided them with help text on the tasks where needed. Very little technical support and guidance was needed at this hackathon. A few issues did arise however, where students were having problems uploading images to their questions, and the multiple choice functionality was not responding with the new editor. Luckily our software developer was on call and managed to fix both problems within an hour!

As the volunteers were all first time attendees, Mark gave a brief presentation about Siyavula and FullMarks, how the project began, events that have shaped it and where it is headed. Students then continued working on solutions to the questions we have in our Grade 11 Mathematics and Physical Science textbooks. The hackathon ended at 1pm, when it was time to trade the dark and cold lab for some fresh air, sunlight and plenty of pizza!

With just 15 volunteers, we were able to add 130 new questions with fully worked answers for Grade 11 Mathematics and Physical Science into the FullMarks assessment bank. In addition to this, FullMarks in now also easier and faster to use as its new editor has been installed and thoroughly tested by 15 first-time users.

Other UCT societies have since expressed interest in co-hosting similar hackathons. We look forward to many more collaborations with student and educator groups wanting to add knowledge to our platforms, making it easily and freely accessible to all. One of Siyavula’s core objectives is to support communities in creating and contributing to the world of open educational resources. If you belong to a group of educators, a student committee or any other society and would like to contribute to Life Sciences, Maths or Physical Science knowledge or resources, we would love to support you along the way!

For more info:

Contact Bridget: Bridget@siyavula.com

 

 

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