ACCESS – INTERACT – EXPERIMENT

OSDP USER EXPERIENCE HACKATHON

March 27 – April 24, 2024

REGISTRATION CLOSED

Would you like to have a say in improving the user experience of a federal open-access data platform? How about learning how to interact with datasets?

This virtual event aims to bring together scientists, researchers, academics, postgraduate students, high school students, government figures, general members of the public, non-profit organizations, and Indigenous communities across Canada to interact with publications and datasets available through the OSDP. Participants will share their experiences of navigating the OSDP and provide creative insights that will help us improve the user experience of the platform.

Whether you’re a seasoned pro at manipulating datasets or have never seen a dataset before, you are welcome to apply! We are recruiting both individuals and teams.

Hosted by Dalhousie University’s Department of Information Science in partnership with Natural Resources Canada (NRCan).

apply now

RULES

To complete the hackathon, you will be required to interact and experiment with the OSDP to evaluate its user experience and provide innovative solutions for its usability. More specifically, you will be asked to:

  • Identify a relevant challenge in which an OSDP dataset can be used (feel free to use our examples listed under Challenges)
  • Develop a solution to the challenge by using at least one of the OSDP’s datasets, found here
  • Complete a survey and create a short presentation to present to the judging panel by May 15, 2024

CHALLENGES

There are many ways you could approach this hackathon, individually or in your teams. For example, you could design a challenge using OSDP datasets related to:

  • Activities taking place within a specific region, province, or territory
  • A specific project that is happening and what the environmental impacts may be
  • Species at risk, and how these overlap between different human development activities

PRIZES

A panel of judges will be established to review the presentation and select the most creative and innovative projects for prizes. Judges will consider the design and implementation of the selected challenge that provides useful and innovative insights into the OSDP user experience.

Prizes consist of:

  • 1st place: $2,500 CAD
  • 2nd place: $1,500 CAD
  • 3rd place: $1,000 CAD

IMPORTANT DATES

  • March 23 by 11:59 PM ADT: Application deadline
  • March 25 by 11:59 PM ADT: Selected participants notified by email
  • March 27 at 1:00 – 1:45 PM ADT: Virtual Hackathon kickoff
  • April 3 at 2:30 – 3:15 PM ADT: Virtual check-in
  • April 10 at 1:00 – 1:45 PM ADT: Hackathon midway check-in
  • April 17 at 2:30 – 3:15 ADT: Virtual check-in
  • April 24 at 1:00 – 1:45 PM ADT: Hackathon wrap-up
  • May 13 at 11:59 PM ADT: Deadline for presentation materials (Powerpoint)
  • May 15: Deadline for surveys and virtual presentations to judges (presentation schedule forthcoming)