POSSE 2014-11 Feedback

To Do For Next Time

Update all materials (slides and activities) with appropriate Creative Commons license.

Provide actual contributions that participants can do.
Have two different groups formed?
- One set of groups based on the project
- One set of groups based on the course
- Have different groups on different days?
Have participants look at and comment on each other's work
Some folks felt that logging the stage 1 activities was busy work
Some folks felt overwhelmed by stage 1, felt better after stage 2
End of spring has conflict with ICSE
This timing worked, but having more lead time
Very helpful to have two folks from the same institution
Pair folks from different institutions during stage 1 to provide collaborators, similar to having two folks from same institution
Ask for summary of experience of what you got out of POSSE
- Ask folks to put them on Opensource.com

Darci's Notes:

Interesting to see how you can integrate into an existing curriculum and/or to build new curriculum
Stage 1 exercises worked well regarding preparation for stage 2 – they were not over burdensome, the sequence was incredibly rich
Thought I was doing busy work in some cases, e.g. how many commits. Why do the copy and paste kind of thing.
The activity did force me to create a blog for example.
It might have been helpful to ask us to look at other people’s posts.
Complete newbie perspective – started worrying that stage 1 was going to be overwhelming. Stage 2 leveled this feeling; now have many pages of notes about things I want to do.
What time of year works? Software engineering conference is in May. Stage 1 could have started a bit earlier. Reading articles activity – some overlap, too much?, create captcha, having multiple people from the same institution was good, set up pairs during stage 1 (to replicate the benefits of having more than one person from the same institution).
Red Hat asks those who they fund to provide an immediate write up and a 1 year post evaluation.
Yes, we will attend and we will do a summary report at a department meeting for example. Or post a summary to an institution’s website. The H stuff is always great promotional materials for the institution.

Get folks to communicate things like roadblocks that they encounter after stage 2

Exposure to tools used
Information/resources
Just learning about general points about it, the history, the terminology, the resources, tools, and how to find information about it
Introduction to tools: IRC, Blogs, Wiki
- Entry into an FOSS world
- Now I feel like i can actually become part of a project and guide students how to do it
Community support, IRC - My biggest takeaway is everyone can and should get involved in FOSS
Was of communicating using IRC and wiki
Background readings on FOSS
Seeing (fieldtrips) to specific projects gives known starting oints, examples of activities (I know most of the tools)
Exposure to how to get into a FOSS project. My philosophy already aligns with Open Source, but I have been isolated, ignorant
Work on incorporating into courses
Learning about how to start in open source. Where to start was the hardest part for me before this experience
Figuring out how to use IRC, learning how to evaluate FOSS projects to figure out if they are suitable for student projects
The readings
Learn history of open source, wiki, git, evaluating a project
Becoming knowledgeable of the breadth and depth of HFOSS through excellent sequence of exercises

More HFOSS projects listed
Starting it even more time before stage 2. This year it fell over my midterm exams and evaluations so it was hard to complete the activities
Activities created at previous POSSES - though I suppose I could have gone and found these myself...
Most of the material on how to teach FOSS was lost on me. I am at a point of just learning how to do FOSS, find a project. The Stage 1 materials were asking for details of things that I couldn't find the first page of
I think stage 1 is well designed and covers the HFOSS material adequately

Working on a team and learning the ropes and more details in a collaborative way
Learning others programs and projects
Collaborations, hands-on activities
Interaction with other professors who have different experience level and getting ideas from them.
Learned a lot about other FOSS projects. It was good to network with professors with keen interest in OpenMRS
Relationship building, collaboration and idea sharing among the group
Group working on the project
Ideas for activities/assignments, connections with faculty at other institutions
Contacts with others, in person was able to make collaborations, more than in wiki/IRC format
Actually digging into a project (OpenMRS in my case). I didn't realize how big GitHub is (but fortunately I already use it). The dummy exercise of everyone hacking some program was AWESOME!
Networking, off-the-main-agenda discussing about practically using OSS in courses
Learning via the presentations/discussions (re-emphasizing stage 1) and doing the activities together (crucial piece)
Meeting people I might be able to collaborate with in the future
Meeting the people, seeing what everyone is doing/planning to do
Hands-on activities, ideas for assignments/activities
Beyond the exercises, meeting f2f others so there is a "face" with HFOSS

A specific team that would focus on the type of courses and timing that related to community colleges
Better food :-), more detailed case studies of how FOSS is used successfully at other schools
Some more time for discussion, lots planned so several discussions were cut off to "stay on schedule"
On of the teachers could go through a workflow (live) doing something on a real project. We talked all over it, and the dummy was good, but...
I would have liked to separate by project sooner
Maybe consolidating info on common pitfalls in starting an HFOSS project. There was a higher level overview presented
Grouping based on the way we wanted to use in HFOSS in our classes rather than by project