Isil Bilgin, Anibal SólonHeinsfeld, Jon Haitz Legarreta Gorroño, Peer Herholz, Sofie Van Den Bossche, Damion Demeter, Pierre Bellec, Cameron Craddock, Daniel Marguiles
The word "Brainhack" can be split into two terms; "brain" and "hackathon". And "hackathon" in its turn can be split into "hacking" and "marathon”. Hence a Brainhack is an event that provides a flexible and creative environment for its attendees to work collaboratively to produce tools and resources that would contribute and facilitate the use of open science practices in neuroscience research. It also aims to remove all the barriers between its attendees and to create equal opportunities for everyone to contribute to collaborative research.
Therefore organizing and providing a well planned, efficiently resourced, and flexible environment to each of your attendees should be the main aim that will lead you to a successful, productive, and memorable event. Please keep those aims in mind and follow the recommendations given in this How to Guideline prepared by the Brainhack Global (BHG) Organizing Committee which are based on years of experience of running the BHG event all around the world. Please do not forget that that the BHG Organizing Committee is there to make your job easier and more efficient, so please keep in contact with the members of the BHG Organizing Committee (brainhackorg@gmail.com) while you are planning and running the event.
One of the keys to a successful BHG event lies in effective communication across all the event sites. Therefore, from the very beginning, please choose a reliable contact point that will correspond with the BHG Organizing Committee. At the same time, you also have to choose a contact point that will reply to the questions coming from potential Brainhack attendees. To that end, you can assign either the same BHG contact point or a team of volunteers.
Once you have decided to host a local Brainhack event, please contact the BHG Organizing Committee and declare your interest in doing so. The BHG Organizing Committee will contact you with several questions about the planned event. They will also provide you with a Brainhack Global event materials that, among others, includes this How to Guideline. It is recommended to keep the BHG Organizing Committee up to date with your plans and preparations to swiftly get the support you need.
Depending on your budget, there are several viable options for you to consider:
- Hacker/maker/citizen science spaces: nowadays, any large city has a variety of spaces dedicated to hacking and making things, as well as lab spaces open to anyone. Running hackathons is often part of their mission, and they can offer cheap options for hosting. It is also a vibrant environment to run a hackathon.
- Academic institutions: academic institutions are a great option as well as they are often able to accommodate workshops for free.
- Spaces dedicated to the creation and innovative approaches to teaching: may be less conventional for academics, this type of organization has shown interest in hackathons in the past. They sometimes have sponsorships available.
Do not forget that Brainhacks are events focused on creation. The beauty and flexibility of space are important for productivity and creativity, to take into account when securing a venue. However, there are also some other, more practical issues to deal with. Here, we offer you an expandable checklist in which you can check off all the venue-related issues you have already considered/provided for:
Before showing your interest in hosting a Brainhack event, you should make sure that you have the financial resources to run an event. Note that the BHG Organizing Committee does not have funding resources and is run entirely by a volunteering group of people. Similarly, the BHG Organizing Committee may not be aware of the specifics of your country concerning banking, tax regime, etc.
Hence, you will need to contact your institution's financial department to discuss these issues.
To avoid any hidden costs, make sure that you discuss all the potential costs that might come up throughout the event with the venue administrator(s). Examples of variable costs are transport, coffee, food and refreshments, lodging, housekeeping, services outside working hours, wireless networks, technical support, stationery, security, etc.
- Make sure to choose a venue location easily accessible to all of your
attendees.
- Provide a variety of transport options by choosing a venue location easily accessible by car, public transport, foot, and bicycle.
- Provide (freely) available parking lots.
- Provide accessible, wheelchair-friendly entrances and seating spaces for disabled attendees along with all the necessary support.
- Make sure to choose a venue located close to local amenities and with easy access to lodging. It would be helpful to create a map that is showing local amenities to the attendees. (e.g. a map made for 2019 OHBM hackathon in Rome).
- Make sure that you have agreed upon the venue's opening and closing hours (depending on your demands).
- Make sure that the venue is willing to share the responsibilities for technical support and housekeeping.
- Make sure that (if possible) the venue provides recycle bins, electric vehicle charging stations, printing options, etc.
- Make sure to choose a venue located in a secure and safe area of the city.
- Make sure to choose a venue that provides all the necessary security. Ask whether rooms can be locked during (lunch) breaks, and check who has access to those keys.
- Make sure that in case of emergency the venue has all the necessary facilities within easy access (e.g. fire extinguishers, emergency exits, landline, list of contact points, etc.) and that all emergency exits are wheelchair-friendly.
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Rooms for presentations (welcome/pitches/workshops/unconferences/wrap-ups/closing): on the first day of the event, you will have to gather all of your attendees in a single large room to welcome them and discuss all the practicalities as well as the program of the event. You can also ask the attendees to give a short presentation of their project to inform their fellow attendees about the project aim(s) and the tasks to be done. On the last day of the event, the same room can be used for project wrap-ups, feedback, and some closing words. If you are planning to run a training track with educational workshops, then it might be efficient to hold some of the workshops in this room as well and to have one or two additional rooms close-by for easy navigation. One of these additional rooms can also be used to hold unconferences (depending on the wishes of your attendees).
- Make sure that the capacity of the largest presentation room is sufficient to accommodate all of your attendees.
- Make sure that all the presentation rooms (if necessary) come with a projector, screen, microphone, pointer, speakers, and enough power sockets.
- Check whether/which presentation rooms have video and sound recording capabilities either for recording or live broadcasting.
- Make sure you also provide a locked room/area for your hosts to leave their coats/luggage/personal belongings.
- Extra rooms for the use of mothers with young kids, resting or quiet working spaces, and religious practices would also encourage attendance from different communities.
- Seating areas for resting and networking in between sessions and during the lunch/refreshment breaks.
- You might also like to have an optional room for the use of emergency situations that require special and calm handling (e.g. a health issue, or a harassment case)
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Rooms for hacking: besides rooms for presentations, you also have to provide a room where attendees can break up into smaller groups for hacking; i.e. to work on their project(s). Ideally, the hacking room would be separate or would at least not fully overlap with the presentation rooms. This would make it possible to, for example, have a focus group presenting on a topic, i.e. hold an unconference, while other attendees keep on hacking. To facilitate moving between workshops and unconferences on one hand and hacking on the other, the ideal situation would be to have adjacent hacking and presentation rooms.
- Make sure that the hacking room has all the necessary furnishing with a flexible design, hence the layout could be easily adjusted according to the needs of the project teams.
- Make sure that the hacking room has whiteboards and enough working surfaces and power sockets to avoid overcrowding. However, these demands must be balanced with several other considerations.
- Make sure that all rooms have enough lighting, tables, chairs, air conditioning/heating, emergency exits, and that they provide accessible, wheelchair-friendly entrances and seating space for disabled attendees along with all the necessary support.
- Provide enough power sockets, extension cables, and power (travel) plug adapters, considering at least 2 devices per attendee.
- One of the most important keys to a successful hackathon is a fast and
reliable wireless network. Therefore, make sure that you provide Wi-Fi
facilities with sufficient capacity for a large number of attendees within a
condensed space, considering at least 2 devices per attendee. Make sure that
all of your attendees are able to connect to the WiFi network (e.g. not all
attendees might be able to automatically connect to
eduroam).
Check whether the venue provides in-house Food and refreshments, and ask for the price list:
- Make sure that you have enough space for hosting the lunch/coffee breaks and the catering of other refreshments. Check whether the venue allows you to eat and drink inside the presentation and hacking rooms.
- Make sure that the venue provides enough gender-neutral, single-occupancy, accessible bathrooms together with adequate disabled bathrooms.
To host a successful Brainhack, you are not required to secure funding for the event. It is perfectly possible to host a local Brainhack event using venues from universities or free coworking spaces. However, if you plan to offer some benefits for the attendees, you have to determine the foreseen costs and secure the necessary funding/sponsor(s). When you handle the money-related processes, it is always beneficial to seek financial advice from your institution to deal with money and filing income, expenses, and taxes related to official registrations. If money is collected from the attendees, you may declare it for tax purposes.
The BHG Organizing Committee cannot substitute the financial department of your institution. Note that the BHG Organizing Committee may not know about the funding schemes of your institution, or other financial issues in your country (e.g. registering a bank account, laws concerning tax exemptions or deductions, etc.). Hence, you will need to contact your institution's financial department to discuss these issues.
Here, we provide aspects that you should study to estimate the potential costs you will incur in when organizing a local event:
Before you decide on your event's size, you have to determine the foreseen costs of your soon-to-be local Brainhack event. Here we list the five most common and biggest costs you should consider:
- Venue: securing a venue location is one of the most fundamental issues to be solved before your event is scheduled as you can either work with one free of charge (e.g. by using University resources) or not.
- Food and refreshments: check whether the venue provides in-house catering services, and ask for the price list. Prices will vary based on the number of attendees you provide for and the food options (e.g. breakfast, lunch, dinner, coffee/refreshments) you would like to offer. Dietary requirements have to be taken into account as well.
- Printing materials: to host a smooth Brainhack event, you will have to prepare and print some materials in advance such as name badges, instructions for accessing the wireless networks, program leaflets, instructions for locations (presentation/hacking rooms, bathrooms, etc.) together with a map of the venue, meal coupons, etc. Again, prices will vary depending on what you need along with the magnitude of your printing order.
- Travel stipends: if you have secured sufficient funding/sponsor(s), providing travel stipends to a select few attendees is a great way to increase the inclusivity of your event.
- Giveaways:
- For free giveaways, we recommend you to use your resources wisely and to make sure that you have enough leftovers to spend on those giveaways after the main issues (i.e. venue, catering, printing materials, potentially travel awards) are solved.
- For selling, it is up to the hosting site. We would recommend making sure that the money handling is audited and done properly abiding by the financial legislation and rules of the institute/country/state you are associated with.
- Registration costs: asking your attendees to pay a registration fee is one possible source of income but for the sake and the aim of the event, it is always recommended to keep the registration fee to a fair amount. Hence attendees without funding would also have the opportunity to attend. Nonetheless, by asking no fee during registration, you might risk lowering the number of attendees who will actually join the event as some might not show up. Therefore, having a registration fee could be beneficial, but try to keep the fee at a minimum.
- Local institutions and external organizations: in your search to secure funding, you might start with your own institution, as well as government agencies, charities, main funding associations (e.g. Welcome Trust in the UK), commercial institutions related to/supportive of open science, and/or crowdsourcing. It is recommended to already have the dates of your event confirmed and to have considered potential venue locations, as well as a preliminary program as these items, are often required when filling out funding templates. With regards to the program, you don't have to list specific projects yet, but you could provide them with the general framework of a typical Brainhack event, possibly listing (some of them) following activities: introduction to Brainhack (Global) (brainhacking 101), project pitches, (open) hacking, unconferences, wrap-ups and feedback, and social events/special activities (ice breakers). Feel free to look at the websites of previous Brainhack events to get inspired. If there are any previous event holders in your institution or country, you could contact them and ask for advice.
Sponsorship is another way to receive a variety of (financial) support such as materials (e.g. ballpoints), technical assistance, venue facilities, and/or additional funding. In your search to secure sponsors, it is recommended to prepare an outline of the event and/or a presentation to give potential sponsors more information about the aim and focus of the event along with a well-planned budget proposal. By preparing these materials before meeting possible sponsors, there is a good chance that you will increase your impact during the actual meeting.
If you are planning to run a training track with educational workshops, then it is recommended to search for skilled and experienced tutors and to prepare the necessary materials (e.g. slides, handouts, data, exercises, etc.). Make sure that each workshop adheres to the prespecified time schedule and that all workshops are of a high enough quality. You can always adhere to the previous years' materials or consult a list of available tutorials and online sources, and adapt those to your own specifications and requirements. Since preparing the necessary materials is a time-taking effort, make sure that all the tutors will deliver the materials in time and that the materials are of a high enough quality. To make sure that all those tasks are finished within the prespecified time frame and to audit the whole procedure, it is recommended to use a Gantt chart.
Considering the amount of work that needs to be done, the volunteering team is one of the most important keys in organizing a successful event. Do not try to be a hero and run the event by yourself; in the end, this would be a really exhausting job. Assembling a well-organized team will save you time and increase efficiency. We offer you an expandable list of tasks for which you can bring in a team of volunteers. Feel free to adjust the list based on the needs of your hosting site and disseminate the tasks among the volunteering team members. It is important to remember that when you set your team please give importance to choosing your team members from diverse backgrounds and profile to increase the dynamics in your group and raise the benefits of running a collaborative work.
We recommend you to use a Gantt Chart for time management. It is also important to make your attendees to know the members of the volunteering team, in the case of a need for help or anything. Therefore it is always recommended to introduce your team members at the beginning of the event to your attendees in your welcoming speech and also list their names, affiliations, emails and photos if necessary to your website to acknowledge their contribution.
Having a Code of Conduct is essential when organizing a hackathon. It sets the norms, ensures equality and inclusion, avoids any wrongdoing throughout the event, and supports an inviting and inclusive environment accepted by all. For a generic framework, you can adhere to the Code of Conduct provided by the BHG Organizing Committee.
Please make sure that every attendee, including the speakers, tutors, volunteers, and organizers, reads and understands the Code of Conduct ahead of the hackathon and that they adhere to the requisites throughout the event. Assign at least one female and one male member of the local organizing committee as a consultant/contact point for attendees to turn to at any time to report any action that violates the Code of Conduct. Clearly and explicitly announce those contact points to all of your attendees both in your informative emails and welcoming talk, and encourage your attendees to immediately reach out to those contact points in the case of any type of wrongdoing happening throughout the event.
Based on the scope of the incident and the law of the country/state, each site might take a different course of action. Please be well-prepared and make sure that
- you've gotten advice from the legal department of your institute,
- you've gone through a range of possible incidents,
- you know which type of action(s) to take, and
- you have a rough plan in mind on how to act and move on without disturbing the good conduct of your event.
It is also your responsibility to take the necessary actions to prevent such incidents from continuing to happen or from happening again.
In the case of an event, write a report that includes the information taken from each site of the incident without identifying the offended/offending parties and forcing any evidence to show or prove, since at the end of the day you are not there to judge the incident, you are there to take the initial report to help. This report should not be shared publicly with any other attendees or the other members of the volunteering team. In such cases offer that person a comfortable environment with the trusted people around, offer them to contact law enforcement or supporting services as necessary. Also as the report taking personnel, you are not responsible to take any other action than report taking. Report taking personnel should also be respected and must not be forced to take any further responsibilities unless they are willing to do so.
If the incident is relatively manageable with a word of warning, please do not hesitate to warn the people who are responsible for the wrongdoing. This will provide the sanity of the event and help everyone to feel secure and protected. verbal warnings should not be issued to the person of interest in public, you should be careful about being cautious on any type of public shaming or extra consequences such a public act might bring.
Make sure to confirm the hosting of a local Brainhack event with the BHG Organizing Committee. Send them an email with all the necessary details including the event location (city, country, site) and dates, (all) organizer(s) and their affiliations, main contact(s), and the event website (only if available). With your permission, all your event's info will then be forwarded to our website manager and as a result, your local Brainhack event will be featured on the Brainhack Global site.
Now is a great time to start thinking about a potential theme for your hackathon, as well as to consider some guest speakers to invite. If you would also like to run a training track, it is important to have a coherent and inclusive plan as the scope/difficulty of the tutorials along with the specific data analysis methods will depend on several items such as the (scientific) background of your attendees and the hackathon's theme. It is important to prepare a variety of materials aimed at different skill levels ranging from a quick introduction to open science tools to specific data handling workshops. Hands-on tutorials are an efficient way of learning, but they require preparation.
It is recommended to ask all of your attendees several questions at registration, which will allow you to get a more concrete idea about their (scientific) background and skills. You can then use this information for the design of your tutorial materials/resources using a structure in which you can first give them some necessary (basic) background information, after which you can show them some more advanced applications.
Although hackathons are designed to provide attendees with an utmost flexible environment, they are also designed to encourage attendees to finish their selected project goals in time, which might put them under some pressure. To avoid any excessive strain on attendees, include enough breaks (e.g. coffee/tea breaks, scientific dating, etc.) in your program which would allow them to network and relax while increasing their productivity and creativity.
If you are requiring funding, it would be helpful to have a brief program of the event prepared and offered to the funding bodies together with an explanation of the goal is expected to achieve with such a particular program, what expertise you can offer to the attendees with the tutorials and hands-on practices, what materials you can provide and what benefits the attendees could get out of following such a program.
In your tutorial preparations, you can look at those repositories listed below for suggestions of the tools and sources and also the previous years' materials to get inspired and reproduce:
http://www.brainhack.org/ https://github.com/ohbm/hackathon2019/blob/master/Tutorial_Resources.md https://github.com/Remi-Gau/hitchhackers_guide_brain https://github.com/brainhack101/neurolinks
It is always recommended to set up a working repository in either Google Drive or free access storages (eg. GitHub) where you can store your organizational proceedings and materials, made available to all of your team members. Doing so will help you to
- collaboratively make decisions as a group,
- follow the track of the work that needs to be done, and
- assign tasks to team members.
It is also recommended to set up a working repository in an open/free access repository where speakers/tutors/project leaders can store their materials (e.g. slides, code, data, links, etc.). On the day of the event, make sure that the repository contains the latest, bug-free version of the materials to avoid any conflicts during the event.
When selecting and sending invitations to potential guest speakers, make sure to consult the following guidelines and check off all the issues you have already considered/completed:
- Which guest speakers to choose? Define the criteria you will take into account
when selecting potential guest speakers:
- Program fit
- Geographical proximity
- Work-related characteristics:
- Career stage
- Latest work
- New initiatives (they may be pushing)
- Work-related characteristics:
- Diversity
- Budget
- Plan for at least one alternative speaker or activity in case of a last-minute cancellation.
- Give chance to Early Career Researchers to find a platform to lead the tutorials and talks.
- Which talk/tutorial to give?: inform your speakers about a potential theme; either one that you would like to be the core of the event or one that you are most familiar with and that is relevant to the philosophy of the event. You can also suggest specific topics you would like them to give a talk/tutorial on.
- When to give the talk/tutorial?: inform your speakers about the event program; specifically when they would be scheduled to give a talk/tutorial.
- When contacting the speakers, inform them about your motivations for choosing them.
- After sending speaker invitations: block the speakers' time slots as they confirm their attendance.
The website for your local Brainhack event should be simple and include all necessary information allowing easy access to potential attendees. Make sure to consult the following guidelines and check off all the website tabs you have already considered/added:
- Location of your local Brainhack event (i.e. venue), along with directions and transport recommendations which will give attendees easy access to the venue
- Dates of your local Brainhack event
- Schedule/program of your local Brainhack event
- A list with proposed project descriptions; each project should also list the necessary tools and/or data to download so attendees can prepare themselves ahead of the hackathon.
- Registration deadline for your local Brainhack event, along with a link to the registration form (e.g. Eventbrite).
- Contact point(s): email address(es) and affiliation(s) of the main organizer(s).
- Social accounts: links to the social accounts associated with the event (e.g. GitHub, Mattermost channel, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, etc.).
- FAQs
- Sponsor information
A tool to generate your local Brainhack event website from a template is proposed in the following repository: https://github.com/brainhackorg/local_brainhack/
Based on the dates of the hackathon, registration should start at least a couple of months ahead and made public using all communication channels at one's disposal. It is important to accurately indicate the starting and ending date (deadline) of the registration period on your event's website. Based on your venue and potential funding, you should also have a rough idea about the number of attendees you would be able to accommodate to create a fair environment from which all attendees can benefit (getting the most out of the event).
To facilitate the registration process, you can use a form-based website (e.g. Eventbrite) which will help you in gathering the necessary information from your (potential) attendees, while your institution's finance department can deal with the collection of the registration fee. Asking for a registration fee would guarantee attendance and would help you estimate the number of to-be-hosted attendees. Keeping the registration fee to a fair amount is always recommended to make the event affordable for all attendees (e.g. students). In previous years, those fees varied from country to country and from event to event (ranging from free to $100) but in general, it is recommended to keep it as low as you could possibly go for.
Collecting information from your potential attendees will make you more aware of the diversity of your attendees. It will also help you to ensure the inclusion of attendees as projects and tutorials can now be tuned to the skill level (e.g. programming skills) and requisites (e.g. basic theory/framework vs. more advanced applications) of your attendees. It exists a list of questions that have been frequently asked in previous years' registration forms. Please, feel free to choose, add, or remove the ones that suit your needs.
At this point, it is also recommended to collect attendees' interests for unconferences and project pitches. Unconferences provide the attendees with a flexible and friendly environment in which they can share their expertise on a specific topic without any preliminary work being required. You can also let them share ideas in areas of their own interest or let them discuss a topic for which they would like to get some input from their fellow attendees.
Project pitches require a bit more planning and work ahead of the event. You need a rough plan about the amount of work that needs to be done and clear goals that can be (partly) achieved during the (short) amount of time you are provided with. Afterward, further collaboration is encouraged to finalize the project. To get fellow attendees excited for a project, it is recommended that attendees prepare a 2-5 minute presentation to be given on the first day of the event. Collecting project ideas ahead of your event will help you to organize your event's program accordingly, while also allowing you to list the submitted projects in your local website a priori to the event to attract more attention.
One important point to rise and remember during event is that, when the project teams are set up, please encourage your attendees to create diverse and inclusive team profiles, having attendees from different career levels and background knowledge to create a fairground for each attendees to make their voice heard and effort worth.
Below are some resources and pointers that will help publicizing your local Brainhack event.
BHG will list and announce your local event on its main website and through its social media and communication channels.
It is recommended to run your own social media and communication channels by opening a Mattermost channel dedicated to your own local event site, a Twitter account, and sending emails to forums or email lists. By doing so, you will increase attention to and awareness of your event and effort:
- Having a hashtag associated with your event makes the event more memorable; therefore, try to find one that matches your event and spread it via the social accounts.
- It is also good to disseminate some photos after you've got permission from the attendees to take and publish them publicly.
Initiating communication between attendees and project-specific teams is also an important aspect of the hackathon. After you have confirmed your local Brainhack event, it is recommended that you:
- Open a Mattermost channel specific to the event site/location (e.g.
bhg19-bostonfor a local event in Boston, MA, USA). - Invite interested candidates.
- Make all announcements/updates simultaneously with the other social media/ coding social media and communication channels (i.e. website, Mattermost, Twitter, GitHub, YouTube, Instagram, etc.).
After projects are pitched, you should encourage teams to open their own Mattermost channel for efficient and sustainable communication during and also after the hackathon.
Social events are another important part of organizing a local Brainhack as it can boost networking opportunities between the attendees and provide a more relaxed and friendly environment. Please consider adding several events to your program, such as a bbq, a picnic, a dancing or karaoke night, a pop quiz night, etc. based on the amount of funding you have and/or your attendees' interests. Although 2-3 days of hacking might be intense, such activities might bring a nice break and make the event more memorable.
Please make sure that alcohol consumption is restricted to a certain amount to avoid any type of high-risk behavior and other incidents that might occur in the event sites. Responsible management of alcohol consumption along with a well-organized variety of suggestions allowing non-alcohol consumers to participate would be the best way to organize social events and special activities. For more information about the catering options and alcohol use and service, please also read the information under the Food and refreshments section.
Create a checklist with all the tasks along with the volunteers in your team assigned to them. Doing so will help you be more organized and will enable you to track the tasks at hand.
Here you can find the template checklist by the BHG Organizing Committee which includes the main topics listed in this very guideline. Please modify the tasks according to your own demands and time schedule.
Depending on your budget and funding resources, it might be a nice gesture to give away some booklets, handouts, stickers, pins, notebooks, pens, T-shirts, 3D printed materials, or other printings (if you consider a T-shirt, make sure to collect the size of the attendees). However, those require a dedicated team, good research, resources to allocate a timely manner. Therefore plan such arrangements with good time management.
Do not forget the speakers you agreed are mainly the senior researchers, who have many other workloads and duties filling their schedule. Kindly reminding them of the updates about the event, their presentation, and the schedule of the event is always a risk-free approach. If you are inviting speakers from abroad or other cities, make sure that you are sorting or helping them to sort out their accommodation arrangements ahead of time to avoid any possible problems you might face during the event.
Finalizing and publishing a finalized program through the hosting website and other communication channels is one of the main drivers for organizers to stick with the plan from the very early stage and also would help in getting the attraction to your offered event. The program template offered by the BHG provides an efficient time-schedule based on the experiences of the previous years' event holders' feedback. It is recommended to use this template as a starting point and to adjust it based on your specific requests concerning tutorials, speakers or the number of days the event will be held. A detailed explanation of the activities held during a Brainhack can be found in this paper.
The typical schedule looks like:
Day 1
- 9:00-9:30 Breakfast
- 9:30-10:00 Introduction to Brainhack, presentation of the space and schedule
- 10:00-11:00 Project pitches
- 11-00-12:30 Team organization & open hacking
- 12:30-13:30 Lunch
- 13:30-16:30 Open hacking
- 16:30-18:00 Unconference
- 18:00-20:00 Dinner
- 20:00-(...) Open hacking
Day 2
- 9:00-9:30 Breakfast
- 9:30-11:00 Unconference
- 11:00-12:30 Open hacking
- 12:30-13:30 Lunch
- 13:30-16:30 Open hacking
- 16:30-18:00 Unconference
- 18:00-20:00 Dinner + social
Day 3
- 9:00-9:30 Breakfast
- 9:30-11:00 Unconference
- 11:00-12:30 Open hacking
- 12:30-13:30 Lunch
- 13:30-15:00 Open hacking
- 15-00:17:00 Project wrap-ups + conclusion
If you plan to run a train track, tutorials prepared coherently and adequately based on the initial information you collected regarding the knowledge and experience level of your attendees through the registration period. Although 3 days tutorials might not be enough to train all of your attendees to a professional level, but aim to create materials as much inclusive as it could be providing hands-on tutorials with a set of data that would speed up the learning period and give a chance your attendees to practice and discuss the applications with the professionals. Once the attendees are ready to contribute they can switch to the project teams and start helping.
Please schedule the preparation of the tutorials wisely. Since each tutor already will be busy with their own research, the tutorials might be rushed up and end up as not efficient and useful materials that would embrace all of your attendees. Therefore make a good plan from the very beginning regarding who will prepare which tutorial and when they will deliver the materials and then chase that time-schedule to avoid any last-minute rushes.
It is always recommended to have an emergency plan to react efficiently in the event of any cancellations of an already agreed plan in the program or other higher risking emergencies that might cause health and safety hazards to the attendees (e.g. life-threatening health condition of an attendee, first aid requiring incidents, fire etc.). Please do not forget emergency situations can develop very quickly, therefore it is always recommended to have a backup plan to deal with the emergency situations.
Considering the possible safety emergency situations, finding a venue that provides all the supplies to take the necessary actions in the existence of an emergency situation should be one of the priorities. Based on the provided sources, it is always good to have emergency procedures established and made ready to be followed by the event holders. It is recommended to have a team of appointed and trained volunteers to lead the emergency back up plans. The emergency back plans should include basic requirements such as:
- Contacting the emergency services immediately.
- Keeping people away from the danger.
- Evacuating the area of hazard giving special care and priority to the people with special needs.
- Providing first aid and necessary medical assistance to the persons with injury.
- Liaise with the emergency services.
- Having necessary sing posts to help with the emergency situations.
Before the event, make sure that the volunteering team practiced on the location of the exists, contact numbers of the security, and emergency services, fire assembly points, first aid, how to raise and alarm, helping with evacuating the attendees and well-maintained risk management.
Although it might be the case that the occurrence of those events is low in your venue, it is always better to know the environment well and be prepared.
It is always recommended to check the venue supplies several times before the event to avoid the last-minute crisis. The basic checks are:
- Network capacity
- Power and plugs
- Video projector
- Microphone
- Board
- Windows
- Heater/Air-conditioning
- Lightning
- Bathrooms
- Ease of access
- Tables
- Chairs
- Room for refreshments
- Bins
- Fire exits and fire extinguishers
Recordings and/or live broadcasting the talks is generally a good idea that reinforces the global nature of the event. It may be a means to reach a broader audience that was not able to attend the event in person. The recorded materials will surely be also a useful resource for the community.
In order to broadcast your event, you will need to:
- Secure a camera, including a tripod, and choose an appropriate location in the room.
- Allow your website to broadcast live.
- Allow your website to display the slides (if any) and the speaker as they talk.
- Attendees (both guest speakers and participants) should give their consent to be recorded. You will need to make sure that they agree (e.g. upon registration).
- Make sure to send an email to all selected candidate attendees with all the necessary information as how the event will be run (e.g. event schedule, location, accommodation, bringing their own laptops, including converters and adapters, downloading the data, the Code of Conduct, etc.), underlining the main aim of the event, i.e. sharing knowledge.
- Make sure to also inform the non-selected candidate candidate attendees (if any) so they don't miss the chance to apply to another event.
Concerning to the selection procedures, diversity, and equality must be the main aim of the organization to provide a heterogeneous audience profile. As much as having experienced participants at the hackathon would add a contribution to the event, having first-time attendees always bring dynamism to the event enforcing the information sharing and networking across the individuals. In order to have a balanced attendee list, the BHG events can find suggested criteria in the BHG GitHub page.
Hard-working brains require good energy sources and you need to provide well thought and designed food and refreshments throughout your event. As much as your budget allows you, try to go with a variety of options. If you could arrange, a light breakfast is always a good chance for networking while the attendees plan their work for that particular day. Coffee, tea, water, should be provided either throughout the day or within the break times.
Keeping the food healthy and rich should be your main aim for your food choices. Collecting food preferences during registration would help you to plan the food options. It is always good to have vegetarian/ vegan/allergy free/ dairy-free options included in your food choices. You might consider foods that would give energy rather than make the attendees sleepy (e.g. heavy on carbs or alcohol, etc.). Please be moderate on providing alcohol including drinks and foods, considering the impact of serving too much alcohol in an event site. Also, please consider the attendees who do not/must not consume alcohol (e.g. attendees with breastfeeding, religious believes or attendees under the age of 18), and provide alternative drinking options displaying both alternatives in the same places to be inclusive.
There might be cases where you might not provide food to the attendees due to the lack of funding. In such cases, please let your attendees know before the event starts and make sure that they either supply their own food or guide them to the local shops and restaurants.
If you are tight on budget, but still want to provide something to make your attendees happy, then why don't you take a look at our Get a Hold of Your Donuts: An Ultimate Guideline for Donuts!. We are sure you will find something that definitely will make all jolly good 😉.
Make sure the event program is finalized together with enough time allocated for project pitches at the beginning of the event and final presentations at the end of the event, which includes enough amount of breaks for refreshments, unconferences and networking.
Send an email reminder to attendees, sponsors, volunteers, and organizers with the time-schedule and all necessary information regarding the location and contact points.
Make sure that the attendees, speakers, volunteers, suppliers were all provided with the link to the Code of Conduct, and that it has been read before the event participation.
Remind attendees not to forget their own laptops and electrical converters, etc.
Remind the attendees who plan to pitch a project to prepare a 2-5 minutes presentation to share a brief summary of their project and what they require from the people who will work with them. Collect information from attendees about their need for the car parking.
Confirm with all volunteers regarding they're signed up duties and who to report back. They should know their duties and fluidity between the roles in the case of a need of personnel in a situation. They should all know the rules listed in the Code of Conduct, how to act in the case of a crisis and who to direct the people affected by the incident. Similarly, they should be clear about how to act in the case of an emergency situation, being the liaison with the first aiders, security of the building and the organization leaders. If you could create a Gantt chart from the very early stage of job dissemination you can also refer your volunteers to follow it and fill the checkboxes regarding the works that have already been done and completed. While this would help you to be organized as the event host, you can also follow the track of the works that needs to be completed and make additional assignments in the case of a job needs more volunteers to work on to finish in time.
Confirm all time, quantity and service information with the vendors.
Make sure the Code of Conduct has been read and agreed upon. Make sure they join the Mattermost channel and ask them to join and introduce themselves there.
Share the program with them.
Request them to send their presentations so that they are published on the website.
Make sure the Code of Conduct has been read and agreed upon. Make sure they join the Mattermost channel and ask them to join and introduce themselves there.
Share the program with them. Remind attendees of the structure of the starting pitches, and ending demos according to the scheduled time plan. If you are running a train track, share the necessary information regarding the tools, data, slides to download ahead of the event, tutorials to read through, the rooms and the schedule dedicated to the train track.
- Prepare the name badges. Tools to generate the name tags are available at brainhackorg/brainhack_certificates.
- Organize the chairs and desks ready for the sitting plan.
- Check projector and microphone, recorder devices, wireless network connection, electrical plugs and extensions, heaters/coolers, lightings.
- Layout the notepads, stickers, pens, markers, putty, etc. on the desks.
- Layout the cabling through the desks.
- Put signs for the route to the event rooms.
- Put signs for the route to the restroom and other areas.
- Post signs for the emergency info.
- Arrange the leaflets with the information about the venue/city.
- Arrange to recycle bins if necessary
- Get the prints prepared (name badges, wireless network name/password information sheets, event program, the map of the venue, etc.).
- Prepare parking permits.
- Help attendees with the event room and name badges.
- Give out promotional materials.
- Round up people to attend the presentation.
- Welcome the speakers.
- Check if there is any change with their presentation (mainly does), get the final version anyways.
- Confirm the talk time-schedule again.
- Provide necessary supplements (USB, electrical plugs, marker, water etc.).
- Welcome address.
- Introduce the organizers
- Thank the venue and sponsors.
- Explain the history and purpose of the event.
- Make the announcements (hashtag, website, time-schedule fire escapes, fire assembly, first aids, make the volunteering helpers known by the attendees).
- Explain the logistical issues (meal, the use of the rooms, use of recycling bins, etc.).
- Make sure the Code of Conduct has been read by all the attendees and agreed upon. Give some explanations about why it is important, what to be careful about and what to avoid during the event.
- Introduce the Code of Conduct Execution Team in the case of a need for consulting.
- Encourage attendees the fair use of the sources.
- Encourage attendees for sharing their contributions to the event.
- Encourage attendees to own the event and make it as memorable, productive and fun to be in.
- Encourage attendees to introduce themselves to the people around them and to make their badges used to be recognized.
- Remind attendees the how to proceed/program/end day evaluation-demo-presentations.
- Encourage each project group to choose the team leaders.
- Advise team leaders about the sharing spirit of the event.
- Encourage the teams to write down a problem statement, the solution, and the skills/help needed in formatted presentations.
- Encourage teams to be diverse and inclusive in their team member profile having leaders and team members from all different profiles.
- Collect the project/team ideas.
- Remind teams for the format and duration of the presentation.
- Organize the order of the project pitching by groups.
- Moderate QA and discussions after each pitch.
- The resulting project titles and team members will be reflected/written on the projector.
- Coordinate the meal (e.g. lunch, snacks, refreshments, etc.).
- Lead people to meal preferences.
- Keep close contact with the attendees.
- Check on hackers' technical and supplementary requests.
- Remind hackers the time-schedule of project pitching, coding, preparation, and presentation.
- Encourage the use of open science tools.
- Remind attendees the demo presentation details.
- Facilitate the contact of the attendees to the senior researchers.
- Facilitate the access of the attendees to the online sources.
- Help attendees with the setups.
- Remind attendees of the deadline of the hacking with demo details.
- Make sure the fair use of social media for the event.
- Make sure the video recording and online streaming is working well.
- Make sure the Mattermost channel is used well.
- Make sure nothing that would violate the code-of-conduct is allowed.
- Publishable materials (photos, recordings, pitch ideas, websites, etc.) are collected and shared through social accounts.
- Clean the spaces for the next day.
- Remind the teams about the time-schedules.
- Remind the teams about the format of the presentation and demo.
- Organize the order of the project pitches.
- Moderate the presentations.
- Moderate the QAs and discussions.
- Farewell talk by the organizers to the attendees.
- Acknowledge the volunteers, helpers, attendees, speakers, and sponsors or their contribution.
- Encourage the attendance and event organization for the next years.
- Encourage the follow-ups on the projects and publications from those projects.
- If there is an event afterward lead people to that event.
- Remove the signs
- Collect the garbage
- Collect the cable layouts
- Collect the remaining supplies
- Check for lost items
- Send a thank you to all the sponsors with event highlights and photos as evidence of the event's success.
- Send a post-event survey to all the sponsors to collect information in order to improve next years' hackathon(s).
- Send a certificate of attendance to all the attendees. Tools to generate the certificates are available at brainhackorg/brainhack_certificates.
- Send a post-event survey to all the attendees to collect information in order to improve next years' hackathon(s).
- Acknowledge all the volunteers and event organizers on the appropriate platform(s) for their contribution.
- List all the negative and positive event experiences in an internal file to make sure they are known and to make sure that the negatives are not repeated next time.
- Compute how much the event cost, both in total and per person, for next years' cost calculations.
- Prepare the Brainhack proceedings with the BHG Organizing Committee.
- Write a blog post with some general observations about the Brainhack, along with some highlights and success photos. Collect these photos and include some of them in next year's Brainhack website.
One of the reasons why Brainhack attendees continue their collaboration(s) after the event is the possibility of publishing the final product of their Brainhack project. As organizers, you can provide them with a list of some of the possible publication opportunities. The first step towards publication is to get a DOI (digital object identifiers) for the project's code along with a repository in an open access storage (eg. GitHub). Make your attendees aware that by using a DOI, their work will be recognized and cited properly. For more information on how to make code citable using a DOI, you can refer to/share these guidelines with your attendees.
Brainhack aims to encourage all of its attendees on being inclusive and appreciative of any single work and effort that has been given by the members of the projects from the beginning until the publication submission. Brainhack does not assert any ownership over any of the work performed at Brainhack events or anything that comes from it. Beyond that, the ownership of work is an ethical issue that should be resolved by the team and really isn't any business of Brainhack organizers, unless they are explicitly asked (and agree) to arbitrate a dispute.
As the general point of view in most cases that the team would 'own' whatever comes out of their efforts. If a project leader, or any other team member, wants to retain all intellectual property from a project, then they should clearly state that to the other members of the team BEFORE those members make any contribution to the project.
Publishing in the F1000Research Brainhack Global collection
F1000Research is pleased to be supporting Brainhack Global 2019 with a collection that invites publication of outputs from all the Brainhack events.
What is F1000Research?
F1000Research is an Open Access publishing platform established in 2013 with the aim of fast and transparent publishing. We publish a range of different article types, from traditional research articles, to software tools, method articles, data notes and more without editorial bias. All articles benefit from open post-publication peer review and editorial guidance on making all source data openly available.
How does the publishing process at F1000Research work?
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Submission: Articles are submitted through an online submission system and, to avoid delay, published rapidly (usually within a week or two). When an article is submitted, the F1000Research editorial team carry out initial checks on all submitted articles before publication to ensure that all policies are adhered to, such as checks for plagiarism, and readability.
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Publication: Once an article has passed all the sufficient checks it is published on the F1000Research platform (and tagged within the Brainhack Global collection). At this point the article has a DOI and is citable but is clearly labelled ‘awaiting peer review’.
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Peer review: Peer reviewers are suggested by the authors following specific criteria and all suggestions undergo careful checks by the F1000Research editorial team for suitability and any competing interests. Peer reviewers assess on the technical aspects of the article (not novelty or significance) and are required to make one of three statuses: approved, approved with reservations, or not approved (denoted by symbols on the article). These are accompanied by a detailed peer review report, which appears online alongside the article, together with the reviewer names and affiliations.
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Author response and versioning: Authors can respond publicly to reviewer reports and this typically results in the submission of a revised article together with a short summary of the changes. New versions are published linked with all previous versions of an article. Reviewers are then contacted to inform them of new versions and asked whether earlier concerns have been adequately addressed. To ensure the peer review status (and version) of any article is always immediately obvious, we include a dynamic citation format that notes both the version numbering and the peer review status in the title of the article.
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Indexing and discoverability: Articles published on F1000Research are immediately indexed in Google Scholar. Independent permanent archives such as PubMed, PubMed Central, Scopus and other bibliographic databases index F1000Research papers that have passed peer review i.e they have received at least 2 “Approved” referee statuses, or 1 “Approved” plus 2 “Approved with Reservations” statuses.
More information can be found here and here
What can be submitted to the collection?
We are welcoming any of the different article types for the Brainhack Global collection, but feel the software tool articles and potentially the data notes and brief reports will be the most appropriate for Brainhack outputs. Our article guidelines can be found here. We aim to make it easy for authors and, where possible, offer some flexibility in terms of formats and structure. We have published a range of articles from hackathons in the past and are happy to publish short outputs that aren’t a ‘complete’ story but will provide use to the community.
How do I submit?
Authors can submit directly through the Brainhack Global collection- here. If you are writing a software tool article you can also submit via Overleaf with our template F1000Research charges Article Processing Charges by word count. We find most software tool articles fall into either the short or medium article category. F1000Research is offering 20% off these listed prices for articles submitted to the Brainhack Global collection.
What are the benefits of publishing on F1000Research?
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The publishing process is fast, easy and transparent
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Publishing an article in the collection is a great way to get additional credit for your participation in the event, whilst bringing further visibility to any outputs you’ve created
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We are able to host interactive figures via Plotly as part of a publication allowing authors more flexibility in terms of presenting their data
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Updates to articles can be published at any time, keeping the article cohesive and up to date for anyone utilising your tool
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F1000Research is particularly of use to early career researchers as the platform allows you to showcase smaller outputs that can be difficult to publish in ‘traditional’ journals, build up your academic CV and engage with the research community openly, which can potentially lead to further collaborations
The Brainhack Global 2019 Organizing Committee