Research

Organizational settings

I focus on supporting process analysts, workers and managers to analyze work processes, identify issues and develop means for improvement. I developed technologies that allow organizational workshop participants to interact with graphical process models, foster creativity, provided automated feedback about the current state of collaboration and a web-based system which allows stakeholders to discuss processes between workshops. In addition to designing means to support process analysis in and around workshops, I co-developed RuM (rulemining.org), an open-source toolkit for declarative process mining. RuM supports analysts to utilize AI driven process analytics and to visualize existing (business) processes based on event logs in order to identify issues and to develop means for improvement.

Hackathons

My aim is to foster the impact of hackathons beyond the confines of singular events in specific contexts. Hackathons are organized in various domains including (IT) entrepreneurship, corporations, communities, higher education, civic engagement and others with the aim to develop (technical) innovation, tackle civic, environmental and public health issues, spread knowledge, allow citizen participation and create new or expand existing communities. In order to foster and sustain these outcomes and to create the desired impact, I have conducted studies to identify individual and team related aspects that are associated with outcome sustainability. Furthermore, I employed analytics, to identify factors that can indicate project continuation. Based on this work, I proposed a multi-level methodological framework to help hackathon planners navigate the numerous design and planning decisions to make their event a success (hackathon-planning-kit.org).

Volunteer groups and open-source communities

I focus on the sustainability of collaboration in this context. I have conducted studies of small volunteer groups to identify suitable means for supporting the sustainability of collaboration, designed heuristics that allow volunteers to quickly assess their current state of collaboration and analyzed the social networks of contributors on GitHub revealing that individuals that participate in projects with high potential for building social capital are less likely to disengage, that higher team diversity is associated with a decreased risk of disengagement and that women are more likely to disengage than men.

The following timeline illustrates my academic career. For more information please refer to my resume or contact me directly.

Career timeline

2020

Associate Professor – University of Tartu, Estonia
Adjunct Associate Professor – Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, USA

2018

Lecturer (Assistant Professor) – University of Tartu, Estonia
Adjunct Assistant Professor – Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, USA

2017

Research associate – Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, USA
Postdoctoral fellow – University of Pittsburgh, USA
Adjunct faculty – University of Pittsburgh, USA

2016

Visiting research fellow – University of Pittsburgh, USA
Temporary research programmer – Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, USA
Online tutor – EURO-FH University of Applied Sciences, Hamburg, Germany

2015

Postdoctoral research fellow – Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany

2013

Visiting research fellow – Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia

2011

Process management consultant and coach

2009

Researcher and PhD student – Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany

2008

Co-founder and front-end developer – RWTH Aachen University / fromatob.com, Germany

2004

Student assistant and developer – Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany

2001

Student assistant and developer – Technical University Dortmund, Germany

Publications

For a complete list of my publications please refer to my Google Scholar profile.

Journals

Nolte, A., Chounta, I.-A. & Herbsleb, J. D. (2020). What Happens to All These Hackathon Projects? - Identifying Factors to Promote Hackathon Project Continuation. Proc. ACM Hum.-Comput. Interact. 4, CSCW2, Article 145 (October 2020), 26 pages. (PDF, video)
Nolte, A., Hayden, L. B. & Herbsleb, J. D. (2020). How to Support Newcomers in Scientific Hackathons - An Action Research Study on Expert Mentoring. Proc. ACM Hum.-Comput. Interact. 4, CSCW1, Article 25 (May 2020), 23 pages. (PDF, video)
Jahnke, I., Meinke-Kroll, M., Todd, M., & Nolte, A. (2020). Exploring Artifact‑Generated Learning with Digital Technologies: Advancing Active Learning with Co‑design in Higher Education Across Disciplines. Technology, Knowledge and Learning. (PDF)
Pe-Than, E. P. P., Nolte, A., Filippova, A., Bird, C., Scallen, S. & Herbsleb, J. D. (2020). Corporate Hackathons, How and Why? A multiple case study of motivation, project proposal and selection, goal setting, coordination, and project continuation. Human-Computer Interaction. (PDF)
Pe-Than, E. P. P., Nolte, A., Filippova, A., Bird, C., Scallen, S. & Herbsleb, J. D. (2019). Designing Corporate Hackathons With a Purpose. IEEE Software 36, 1, 15-22. (PDF, Runner-up for 2019 Best Paper Award)
Nolte, A., Pe-Than, E. P. P., Filippova, A., Bird, C., Scallen, S. & Herbsleb, J. D. (2018). You Hacked and Now What? - Exploring Outcomes of a Corporate Hackathon. Proc. ACM Hum.-Comput. Interact. 2, CSCW, 129:1-129:23. (PDF, Slides)
Chounta, I.-A., Nolte, A., Hecking, T., Farzan, R., & Herrmann, T. (2017). When to Say “Enough is Enough!”: A Study on the Evolution of Collaboratively Created Process Models. Proc. ACM Hum.-Comput. Interact. 1, CSCW, 33:1-33:21. (PDF)
Nolte, A., Bernhard, E., Recker, J., Pittke, F., & Mendling, J. (2016). Repeated Use of Process Models: The Impact of Artifact, Technological and Individual Factors. Decision Support Systems, 88, 98–111. (PDF)

Conferences

van der Aa, H., Balder, K. J., Maggi, F. M., & Nolte, A. (2020). Say It in Your Own Words: Defining Declarative Process Models Using Speech Recognition. In: Business Process Management Forum. BPM 2020 (pp. 51-67). Springer. (PDF)
Alman, A., Di Ciccio, C., Haas, D., Maggi, F. M., & Nolte, A. (2020) Rule Mining with RuM. In: 2nd International Conference on Process Mining (pp. 114-121). Springer. (PDF)
Medina Angarita, M. A., & Nolte, A. (2020). What do we know about hackathon outcomes and how to support them? – A systematic literature review. In: Collaboration Technologies and Social Computing. Springer. (PDF, video)
Affia, A. O., Nolte, A., & Matulevičius, M. (2020). Developing and Evaluating a Hackathon Approach to Foster Security Learning. In: Collaboration Technologies and Social Computing. Springer. (PDF, video)
Qiu, H. S., Nolte, A., Brown, A., Serebrenik, A., Vasilescu, B. (2019). Going Farther Together: The Impact of Social Capital on Sustained Participation in Open Source. In: ICSE '19: Proceedings of the 41st International Conference on Software Engineering. (PDF, ACM SIGSOFT Distinguished Paper Award)
Sirgmets, M., Milani, F., Nolte, A., & Pungas, T. (2018). Designing Process Diagrams – A Framework for Making Design Choices When Visualizing Process Mining Outputs. In: Proceedings of the 26th International Conference on Cooperative Information Systems. Springer. (PDF)
Herrmann, T., Nolte, A., & Prilla, M. (2016). Socio-technical Process Design — The Case of Coordinated Service Delivery for Elderly People. In: Blurring the Boundaries Through Digital Innovation (pp. 217-229). Springer. (PDF, Special award Sandro D’Atri)

Workshops

Nolte, A., Pe-Than, E. P. P., Affia, A. O., Chaihirunkarn, C., Filippova, A., Kalyanasundaram, A., Medina Angarita, M. A., Trainer, E., & Herbsleb, J. D. (2020). How to organize a hackathon - A planning kit. arXiv preprint arXiv:2008.08025. (PDF)
Nolte, A. (2019). Touched by the Hackathon: A Study on the Connection between Hackathon Participants and Start-Up Founders. In: International Workshop on Software-intensive Business 2019: Start-ups, Ecosystems and Platforms (IWSiB 2019) (pp. 31-36). ACM. (PDF, Slides)

Teaching

Undergraduate

LTAT.05.007 Human Computer Interaction – Lecturer
University of Tartu (Spring 2019 and 2020, sample syllabus)

INFSCI 1017 Implementation of Information Systems – Lecturer
University of Pittsburgh (Spring 2017, sample syllabus)

Project Management – Lecturer
Ruhr-University Bochum (Summer 2016)

Project Management – Co-Lecturer
Ruhr-University Bochum (Summer 2015)

Software Engineering – Co-Lecturer
Ruhr-University Bochum (Summer 2015)

Project Management – Co-Lecturer
Ruhr-University Bochum (Summer 2015)

Graduate

LTAT.05.007 Human Computer Interaction – Lecturer
University of Tartu (Autumn 2018 to 2020, sample syllabus)

LTAT.05.019 Digital Product Management Industry Project – Lecturer
University of Tartu (Autumn 2018 to 2020)

LTAT.05.011 Digital Product Design Introductory Project – Lecturer
University of Tartu (Autumn 2018 to 2020)

Information Management – Online Tutor
EURO-FH University of Applied Sciences Hamburg (Winter 2016)

Business Engineering – Online Tutor
EURO-FH University of Applied Sciences Hamburg (Winter 2016)

Process Management and Innovation – Co-Lecturer
Ruhr-University Bochum (Summer 2014 to 2016)

Project Management – Co-Lecturer
Ruhr-University Bochum (Summer 2015)

Subject-driven role-guided externalization of organizational models – Co-Lecturer
JKU Linz (ERASMUS Summer School 2014, Sample slides on process modeling fundamentals)

Subject-driven role-guided externalization of organizational models – Co-Lecturer
JKU Linz (ERASMUS Summer School 2013)

Fellowships & Grants

Co-author and WP lead of the Research project Prescriptive Monitoring of Business Processes funded by the Estonian Research Council (January 2021 to December 2024)

Co-author and WP lead of the Research project Applied Research on Development of Autonomous Driving Lab for Level 4 Autonomy funded by the Estonian Research Council under the NUTIKAS program (May 2019 to July 2021)

Recipient of a Research fellowship by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) on Supporting sustained collaboration over time in hybrid collocated and online settings at the School of Information Sciences, University of Pittsburgh, PA, USA (April 2017 to May 2019)

Recipient of a Scholarship by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) for a short term research visit to the Information Systems School at the Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia (February to May 2013)

Recipient of an eXist Business Start-up Grant by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi) for the development of an online travel platform (fromatob.com) in cooperation with RWTH Aachen University, Germany (2008)