Multidisciplinary Hackathons: Towards Developing Practical Software Engineering Skills

Software engineers often work on multidisciplinary projects as they collaborate with domain experts in a variety of different disciplines to effectively develop software systems. While the focus of software engineering curricula is generally on teaching technical skills, it is highly desirable to provide students with hands-on experience in working on multidisciplinary projects. This research attempts to facilitate the experience of working on projects with stakeholders of diverse expertise through the use of multidisciplinary hackathons. In recent years, hackathons have been considered effective teaching and evaluation tools that can contribute to the development of practical skills for students. Hackathons can be used as an instrument to improve the educational experience through learning by doing in which learners can test their problem-solving, project management, and prioritization skills in a limited time. This research presents a case study of hackathons in the field of health informatics involving students from software engineering and nursing. To facilitate a consistent and supportive multidisciplinary learning experience, the hackathon was introduced as a course component in two different courses in nursing and software engineering. The data presented in this research is from two consecutive executions of the hackathon involving two different cohorts of students in 2022 and 2023. The results of this study show that students believe a multidisciplinary course would be a welcomed addition as it facilitated an exciting collaborative environment to work on real-world problems; providing a unique opportunity for interactions between different disciplines. The addition of hackathons into the courses enhanced the students' understanding of how to work with requirements from gathering to analysis to development, and allowed them the unique opportunity to examine the different challenges, technologies, and tools involved with other disciplines.