Jamography: How to document and reference design jams in academia

Abstract

In this chapter, we propose that academic papers on ephemeral development events, such as game jams and hackathons, pay more attention when providing identifiable details of the events, or have a dedicated reference section (‘jamography’) detailing the referenced events in an identifiable manner in order to improve transparency and sustainability of the publications. Game jams are organised in a global context, and depite the similarities of jams, important differences can be noted in terms of how jams are implemented, what their formats are, and what culture and context are surrounding them. Furthermore, game jam names are not always unique. This means that, when identifying game jams in an academic study, one can find it impossible to tell two events apart. Since the game jams topic is an emerging and still poorly documented area in research, it is hard to know what kind of game jams are being discussed. Apart from this, whereas game jams are ephemeral, vanishing as soon as they are completed, documentation is key - website references do not always suffice. In this chapter, we propose and argue the key information and format.Peer reviewe