Hackathons as a Part of Software Engineering Education: CASE in Tools Example

Software engineering programs intend to connect with industry practices to provide the most relevant up to date knowledge to the students. Students tend to pay more attention and attach more credibility to the academic knowledge when they see the endorsement of the program by the industry. For various reasons, faculty members find it difficult to connect to the industry, while as we noted those relations are essential both for education and research. Companies, while generally keen for recruitment of fresh graduates, may experience difficulty to convey their needs in terms of required capabilities and to influence education programs. We address these issues by introducing a hackathon as a part of the software engineering program curriculum and proposing a particular setup of this event. Incorporating educational hackathons into software engineering programs will ensure a connection between academic educational programs and current industrial practice.