Hackathon | UBC Learning Analytics

UBC’s Learning Analytics Hackathons offer students an opportunity to work with real learning data and explore how analytics can support learning and student success. Since the inaugural hackathon in 2015, hundreds of participants from diverse faculties and backgrounds have collaborated on analyzing learning data and developing data-driven solutions to complex problems.

Imagine you had data that represented all of your or your students activity in a Canvas course – what would you build?

Next Hackathon – Fall 2024

Details about the Fall 2024 Hackathon will be posted in mid-September 2024.

Past Hackathons

Looking back at UBC’s 9th Learning Analytics Hackathon

November 4, 2023

The UBC Learning Analytics Hackathon is an annual event that brings together students, researchers and instructors to create, design, and explore data-driven solutions for enhancing teaching and learning at UBC. This year, the 9th edition of the Hackathon took place on November 4, 2023, with 100 UBC students from various disciplines and backgrounds participating in this all-day event.

UBC 8th Learning Analytics Hackathon – Untapping Canvas potential

November 5, 2022

The anticipation was palpable when Alison and Will kicked-off UBC’s 8th Learning Analytics Hackathon on November 5, 2022. In front of them, 100 undergraduate and graduate students coming from many departments were spread into 12 groups. The teams were then tasked with optimizing their learning experience by analyzing real course data from Canvas (UBC’s primary learning platform for delivering online course content), prototyping their ideas and presenting their findings. The only guideline? To “create, design, and explore something cool”.

Student Dashboards Hackathon

October 25, 2020

UBC’s Learning Analytics hackathon went virtual in 2020. Students were challenged to build a heatmap of their course’s discussion boards using the Canvas API and a scaffolded Github repo. To encourage student participation at all skill levels, students could either work completely independently (or with a team) or follow along with the scaffolded github repo where solutions to each “step” were regularly released.

Spring Learning Analytics Hackathon – Cancelled

March 13, 2020

UBC’s Learning Analytics hackathon was cancelled due to COVID-19.

Learning Analytics + Canvas API Hackathon

March 29-30, 2019

UBC held its fifth learning analytics hackathon on March 29 and 30, giving students experience analyzing and visualizing educational data while exploring the emerging field of learning analytics. The two-day event kicked off with a design-thinking workshop focused on encouraging students to reflect on their experiences at UBC and the problems they’d like to tackle using data. On day two, students were offered workshops that took them through each stage of a data analytics project, learning how to extract, analyze, and visualize data in a way that would be useful to other students. Students had the option of working with their own personal data from Canvas — UBC’s online learning platform — or data from a course created specifically for the Hackathon.

Apps for students, by students, at the Canvas API Hackathon

October 27-28, 2018

UBC held its first learning analytics hackathon focused exclusively on the Canvas API on Oct. 27-28, bringing together more than 100 students who signed up to spend their weekend creating apps and dashboards for Canvas, UBC’s new online learning platform. The Hackathon gave students an opportunity to learn about and explore the Canvas API (application program interface), which allows users to write programs to interact with Canvas. Hackathon participants worked primarily with a sample course, built specifically for the event.

Learning Analytics Hackathon 3.0 explores how data can empower students

March 19, 2018

Do UBC students need a Tinder-style app that “matches” them with possible research topics? How can we design tools that help students know if they’re on track to succeed in an online course? On March 10 and 11, students, researchers and instructors came together for the Learning Analytics Hackathon to brainstorm and prototype tools to address these questions.

Learning analytics hackathon attracts over 80 participants

January 2017

In January 2017, the Institute for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning and the Learning Analytics Visual Analytics group held Hackathon 2.0 at UBC. The two-day event brought together over 80 students, researchers, faculty and staff to explore educational data. Organizers welcomed participants with a range of expertise, and encouraged beginners to sign up to the event.

Students Crack Data at Learning Analytics Hackathon

March 19, 2018

In October 2015 the Learning Analytics Visual Analytics (LAVA) group held the first ever learning analytics hackathon at UBC. During the two-day event, more than 70 participants with a wide range of backgrounds and expertise applied a variety of approaches to analyzing learning-related data. Some used classroom observation data to better understand how learning unfolds, while others used data from a learning management system to identify patterns in how learners use available materials.