Open data hackathons and game jams: A systematic literature review

Open data can be used to understand societal issues and provide accountability, in line with the goals of open government. Open data hackathons and game jams are events where citizens gather to reuse open data and address social issues. We lack an overview of open data hackathons and game jams regarding capturing the events’ purpose and resulting prototypes. To address this gap, we performed a systematic literature review and categorized the events based on their orientation, types of prototypes produced, and data collection methods used to record them. The majority of studies in our review are open data hackathons, with participants engaged in the development of an app, service, or web portal. Despite the promising ways in which games can express social issues, we found only one case of an open data game jam. Hence, we recommend further research into the reuse of open data through game jams and participatory game-making.