Getting students involved in open source software
The structure of a successful, student/academic hybrid for open source instruction and a description of the experience from the student viewpoint
Presented by: Wes Turner, Senior Lecturer at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Director of the Rensselaer Center for Open Source (RCOS); Alice Bibaud, RCOS Student Leadership teammember
Open Source software is a powerful tool for introducing novice programmers to software development in a realistic setting particularly with regard to software development processes; the complexities of maintaining and modifying real projects; and the importance of community and models of communication. It is also a great way to introduce students to the philosophical underpinnings of open source and collaborative development. However, just requiring that students join open source projects "in the wild" can be problematic. Stale projects, or unprepared/uninviting communities can be a major barrier to a good student experience; and bringing large groups of students to small projects can be overwhelming for the communities. We will introduce an organization, the Rensselaer Center for Open Source (RCOS) that uses open source projects and principles to provide a unique educational experience to undergraduate students as a variation of an Undergraduate Research Initiative. Over the course of a semester, students join and contribute to open source projects of their choosing, both self-created and external. To manage the large number of students who participate each semester, RCOS makes extensive use of student peers and a cadre of undergraduate student leaders who have substantial influence on the organization. Our talk will describe the operation and creation of RCOS with an eye towards helping the organization. We will end with the student perspective on RCOS highlighting the importance of student leadership in managing the upwards of 300 students and 65 projects that may be active in a semester.
About RCOS
The Rensselaer Center for Open Source (RCOS) is a unique hybrid student/academic organization developed at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. RCOS allows students, primarily undergraduates, to get independent study credits by working on open source projects under the tutelage of academic, industry and peer mentors. The students have the freedom to select their projects based on their interests and choose freely from among existing internal (founded at RCOS) and external open source projects, or they can found a project specific to their own interests. Importantly, RCOS is very student focused. A leadership team of 4-7 student coordinators help shape the form of RCOS each semester and often changes in student leadership are reflected in changes in the course syllabus and implementation. We also leverage upwards of 20 peer mentors to provide technical and logistical resources to the class. As a unique course based on Undergraduate Research, students are able to take RCOS multiple times to continue work on existing projects or to work on something completely different. In its 16+ years of existence, RCOS has enrolled over 4400 students and has worked on more than 1300 projects.
About this session
There will be time for Q&A following the presentation.
The link to access this event will be included in your registration confirmation email.
Please Note: The start time is 9:00AM (0900) Eastern U.S. time
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