The main difference between a workshop or hackathon and other event formats is the opportunity for active participation. This can provide a very rewarding experience but also leads to additional challenges in preparation and delivery. This page provides some information and guidance to help with preparation of your workshop or hackathon.
Workshops and hackathons are delivered on the 2nd day of the conference in either the morning or the afternoon. Due to the participatory nature of these events, they will not be streamed online. Attendees will be asked to pre-register for these events, but this should only be considered indicative of attendance and will not be enforced on the day. Where relevant advanced instructions may be sent to conference attendees to allow them to e.g., install workshop pre-requisites or preselect a topic.
If you have any questions about preparing your event, please don’t hesitate to get in touch via [email protected]. If you have requested a mentor, they will also be able to help.
Please bear in mind the following points when preparing your workshop/hackathon:
- For any material that will be presented during the session, please bear in mind our Presentation Accessibility Guidelines.
- Attendees may have different levels of experience, try to account for this with the format of your workshop and make good use of your helpers to support less experienced attendees.
- Any instructions to be followed by attendees are a potential source of problems. Instructions should be as clear as possible and account for attendees using their own laptops (e.g., should support Windows, Mac and Linux where possible). Preferably these instructions should be tested in advance of the workshop by a novice user.
- Network connectivity will be provided via venue wifi. When planning your event, minimising the size of data downloads/uploads on the day is key to avoid straining wifi resources. It should also not be assumed that use of uncommon protocols (i.e., not HTTP, SSH or FTP), VPNs or access to ports on attendee machines will be possible. If you have any concerns about the networking facilities required for your event, please get in touch to discuss and arrange testing with the venue. The advanced instructions sent to attendees can be used to pre-download any sizeable pre-requisites.
- Give careful thought to how you will organise attendees and support them with your helpers. Will attendees work individually on exercises or self-organise into groups? Will they freely choose a topic or be assigned one? How will they access support?