How Do Hackathons Foster Creativity? Towards Automated Evaluation of Creativity at Scale

Jeanette Falk Olesen; Yiyi Chen; Janet Rafner; Mike Zhang; Johannes Bjerva; Alexander Nolte

doi:10.1145/3706598.3713447

How Do Hackathons Foster Creativity? Towards Automated Evaluation of Creativity at Scale

Jeanette Falk Olesen, Yiyi Chen, Janet Rafner, Mike Zhang, Johannes Bjerva, Alexander Nolte

Social Software Engineering

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution › Academic › peer-review

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Abstract

Hackathons have become popular collaborative events for accelerating the development of creative ideas and prototypes. There are several case studies showcasing creative outcomes across domains such as industry, education, and research. However, there are no large-scale studies on creativity in hackathons which can advance theory on how hackathon formats lead to creative outcomes. We conducted a computational analysis of 193,353 hackathon projects. By operationalizing creativity through usefulness and novelty, we refined our dataset to 10,363 projects, allowing us to analyze how participant characteristics, collaboration patterns, and hackathon setups influence the development of creative projects. The contribution of our paper is twofold: We identified means for organizers to foster creativity in hackathons. We also explore the use of large language models (LLMs) to augment the evaluation of creative outcomes and discuss challenges and opportunities of doing this, which has implications for creativity research at large.

Original language	English
Title of host publication	CHI '25
Subtitle of host publication	Proceedings of the 2025 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
Editors	Naomi Yamashita, Vanessa Evers, Koji Yatani, Xianghua (Sharon) Ding, Bongshin Lee, Marshini Chetty, Phoebe Toups-Dugas
Place of Publication	New York
Publisher	Association for Computing Machinery, Inc.
Number of pages	23
ISBN (Electronic)	979-8-4007-1394-1
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1145/3706598.3713447
Publication status	Published - 25 Apr 2025
Event	ACM CHI 2025 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - Yokohama, Japan Duration: 26 Apr 2025 → 1 May 2025 https://chi2025.acm.org/

Conference

Conference	ACM CHI 2025 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
Abbreviated title	CHI2025
Country/Territory	Japan
City	Yokohama
Period	26/04/25 → 1/05/25
Internet address	https://chi2025.acm.org/

Funding

YC and JB are funded by the Carlsberg Foundation, under the Semper Ardens: Accelerate Programme (project nr. CF21-0454). MZ and JB are funded by the Villum Foundation (project nr. VIL57392). We would further like to thank the Aarhus University Research Foundation and Center for Shaping digital citizenship.

Keywords

Hackathons
creativity
human-centered AI
large language models
quantitative methods

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10.1145/3706598.3713447

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Olesen, J. F., Chen, Y., Rafner, J., Zhang, M., Bjerva, J., & Nolte, A. (2025). How Do Hackathons Foster Creativity? Towards Automated Evaluation of Creativity at Scale. In N. Yamashita, V. Evers, K. Yatani, X. Ding, B. Lee, M. Chetty, & P. Toups-Dugas (Eds.), CHI '25: Proceedings of the 2025 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems Article 198 Association for Computing Machinery, Inc.. https://doi.org/10.1145/3706598.3713447

Olesen, Jeanette Falk ; Chen, Yiyi ; Rafner, Janet et al. / How Do Hackathons Foster Creativity? Towards Automated Evaluation of Creativity at Scale. CHI '25: Proceedings of the 2025 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. editor / Naomi Yamashita ; Vanessa Evers ; Koji Yatani ; Xianghua (Sharon) Ding ; Bongshin Lee ; Marshini Chetty ; Phoebe Toups-Dugas. New York : Association for Computing Machinery, Inc., 2025.

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abstract = "Hackathons have become popular collaborative events for accelerating the development of creative ideas and prototypes. There are several case studies showcasing creative outcomes across domains such as industry, education, and research. However, there are no large-scale studies on creativity in hackathons which can advance theory on how hackathon formats lead to creative outcomes. We conducted a computational analysis of 193,353 hackathon projects. By operationalizing creativity through usefulness and novelty, we refined our dataset to 10,363 projects, allowing us to analyze how participant characteristics, collaboration patterns, and hackathon setups influence the development of creative projects. The contribution of our paper is twofold: We identified means for organizers to foster creativity in hackathons. We also explore the use of large language models (LLMs) to augment the evaluation of creative outcomes and discuss challenges and opportunities of doing this, which has implications for creativity research at large.",

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Olesen, JF, Chen, Y, Rafner, J, Zhang, M, Bjerva, J & Nolte, A 2025, How Do Hackathons Foster Creativity? Towards Automated Evaluation of Creativity at Scale. in N Yamashita, V Evers, K Yatani, X Ding, B Lee, M Chetty & P Toups-Dugas (eds), CHI '25: Proceedings of the 2025 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems., 198, Association for Computing Machinery, Inc., New York, ACM CHI 2025 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Yokohama, Japan, 26/04/25. https://doi.org/10.1145/3706598.3713447

How Do Hackathons Foster Creativity? Towards Automated Evaluation of Creativity at Scale. / Olesen, Jeanette Falk; Chen, Yiyi; Rafner, Janet et al.
CHI '25: Proceedings of the 2025 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ed. / Naomi Yamashita; Vanessa Evers; Koji Yatani; Xianghua (Sharon) Ding; Bongshin Lee; Marshini Chetty; Phoebe Toups-Dugas. New York: Association for Computing Machinery, Inc., 2025. 198.

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution › Academic › peer-review

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AU - Olesen, Jeanette Falk

AU - Chen, Yiyi

AU - Rafner, Janet

AU - Zhang, Mike

AU - Bjerva, Johannes

AU - Nolte, Alexander

PY - 2025/4/25

Y1 - 2025/4/25

N2 - Hackathons have become popular collaborative events for accelerating the development of creative ideas and prototypes. There are several case studies showcasing creative outcomes across domains such as industry, education, and research. However, there are no large-scale studies on creativity in hackathons which can advance theory on how hackathon formats lead to creative outcomes. We conducted a computational analysis of 193,353 hackathon projects. By operationalizing creativity through usefulness and novelty, we refined our dataset to 10,363 projects, allowing us to analyze how participant characteristics, collaboration patterns, and hackathon setups influence the development of creative projects. The contribution of our paper is twofold: We identified means for organizers to foster creativity in hackathons. We also explore the use of large language models (LLMs) to augment the evaluation of creative outcomes and discuss challenges and opportunities of doing this, which has implications for creativity research at large.

AB - Hackathons have become popular collaborative events for accelerating the development of creative ideas and prototypes. There are several case studies showcasing creative outcomes across domains such as industry, education, and research. However, there are no large-scale studies on creativity in hackathons which can advance theory on how hackathon formats lead to creative outcomes. We conducted a computational analysis of 193,353 hackathon projects. By operationalizing creativity through usefulness and novelty, we refined our dataset to 10,363 projects, allowing us to analyze how participant characteristics, collaboration patterns, and hackathon setups influence the development of creative projects. The contribution of our paper is twofold: We identified means for organizers to foster creativity in hackathons. We also explore the use of large language models (LLMs) to augment the evaluation of creative outcomes and discuss challenges and opportunities of doing this, which has implications for creativity research at large.

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KW - creativity

KW - human-centered AI

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M3 - Conference contribution

BT - CHI '25

A2 - Yamashita, Naomi

A2 - Evers, Vanessa

A2 - Yatani, Koji

A2 - Ding, Xianghua (Sharon)

A2 - Lee, Bongshin

A2 - Chetty, Marshini

A2 - Toups-Dugas, Phoebe

PB - Association for Computing Machinery, Inc.

CY - New York

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ER -

Olesen JF, Chen Y, Rafner J, Zhang M, Bjerva J, Nolte A. How Do Hackathons Foster Creativity? Towards Automated Evaluation of Creativity at Scale. In Yamashita N, Evers V, Yatani K, Ding X, Lee B, Chetty M, Toups-Dugas P, editors, CHI '25: Proceedings of the 2025 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. New York: Association for Computing Machinery, Inc. 2025. 198 doi: 10.1145/3706598.3713447

How Do Hackathons Foster Creativity? Towards Automated Evaluation of Creativity at Scale

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