Possible Pathways and Learning Activities
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== Curated Paths == | == Curated Paths == | ||
| − | # [http://foss2serve.org/index.php/Bug_Verification_Path | + | # [http://foss2serve.org/index.php/Bug_Verification_Path Verify a bug] |
# Create enhancement | # Create enhancement | ||
#* Draft pathway on Dropbox under Contribute Code | #* Draft pathway on Dropbox under Contribute Code | ||
Revision as of 15:13, 6 May 2016
Contents |
Pathways Model - Candidate Paths to HFOSS Contribution
This page contains a list of possible paths for the HFOSS contribution pathways model and learning activities that may support a path step or allow students to gain general HFOSS knowledge.
Glossary
The following terms are used below to make the list more concise and avoid duplication.
- Contributor - anyone who contributes to FOSS – code, design, docs, feedback, ideas, etc.
- FOSS - free & open source software. “a FOSS”: a project; “FOSS”: the broader culture.
- Forge - web site containing many FOSS – e.g. Sourceforge
- Lead - anyone who coordinates or directs other contributors
- Planet - blog aggregator for a FOSS or topic
Curated Paths
- Verify a bug
- Create enhancement
- Draft pathway on Dropbox under Contribute Code
- Identify user roles and write user stories for a feature (Design a feature)
- Verify software download and install project
- Draft of Download and Install on Dropbox
- Test installation instructions (Activity)
- Introduce new users to the project
- Fix a bug
- Develop UML diagram from an existing project
- Create a new defect report from mailing list or personal experience
- Audit security: does the existing code meet security guidelines?
- Verify and improve development environment installation instructions
- Triage a bug: categorize a bug / determine if it needs more information
Candidate Paths
Project Promotion
- Write an article about a topic related to FOSS and submit to a FOSS news blog/web site
- Good blogs/sites for publication?
- Write a review / tutorial / comparison of one or more FOSS
- Good blogs/sites for publication?
- Write an article on “what I wish I knew” - about FOSS; before starting a project or course
- Add a personal project blog to an appropriate planet / blog aggregator
- Create a lecture that provides a tour of the application domain landscape of FOSS
- Show market segment leaders (Apache, MySQL), tools (Eclipse, Notepad++), games (game engine), humanitarian, industry specific (e.g., ERP), etc. - this may be a pre/post-scavenger hunt lecture
- Video it, Keep it short & modular for remixing.
- Create a list of wanted topics, get community to contribute.
- See examples from entrepreneurship education
- http://www.prendismo.com/collection/ (was Cornell eClips)
- http://ecorner.stanford.edu/
Specification & Coding
- Contribute code
- Build a feature (is this the same as "contribute code"? It's going to involve design and stakeholder analysis all the way through to production and testing)
- Build a plugin (as in, this will not affect the rest of the codebase, so might have less stakeholder analysis, integration with the core etc)
- Fix a bug
- Design a feature (Business analysis and user experience design):
- Conduct stakeholder analysis
- Identify user roles and write user stories for a feature
- Create wireframes for a feature
- Gathering feedback on wireframes
- Specify the MVP for a feature
- Add information to ongoing discussion on design decisions
- Ask relevant and appropriate questions to bound a problem
Community Development
- Organize & conduct a tutorial session for a FOSS
- Participate in / Support / Organize a hackathon
- Raise money or other resources for an open source project
- Promote a project of interest using multiple tools/channels
- Improve awareness of the project:
- Evidence gathering - collect publicity on a project, collect information on breadth of use of an HFOSS project
- How many people impacted?
- How many deployments?
- Data analysis of impact
- Fundraising efforts/Funding models
- Create/contribute to marketing for a project (social media)
- Data analysis around social media
- Blog posts
- Evidence gathering - collect publicity on a project, collect information on breadth of use of an HFOSS project
- Help build the community
- Find install instances (e.g. by social media search)
- Find articles about application and its uses
- Improve outreach to users
- Improve project visibility (e.g. via social media strategy, tweeting etc)
- Analyse project's social media reach and influence
- Create/install a new theme for the project web site
Documentation
- Review a page and summarize problems found and submit proposed revision
- Find & improve a page that could benefit from editing / rewriting / improvement
- Find references (to other pages or resources) and add them (with appropriate links)
- Find a "stub" page and expand it with research and related references
- Create a new page with appropriate research & related references
- “Garden” a site or other documentation – prune, restructure, etc
- Instructor could clone or create a sandbox area for this
- Major restructuring might require advance planning
- Test documentation (e.g. installation instructions) and summarize problems found
- Rewrite & simplify installation instructions for typical (non-technical) computer users
- Write concise and helpful instructions to install and configure FOSS on a specific system
- Specify version or date when install instructions become obsolete
- Create or update a glossary or vocabulary list for a FOSS
- Translate a page to a different language using automated tools or expert knowledge
- Convert written docs to video docs
- Convert video docs to written docs
- Develop UML diagram from an existing project
- Generate and review Javadoc
- UML_a_project
- Verify Installation instructions (on different platforms) - if it doesn't work, update the install instructions or file as issue, if it does work indicate the platform it works on
- Update installation instructions
- Create/Fix user documentation
- Create/fix developer documentation
- Create release packaging
- Improve onboarding materials: install instructions, how to find issues lists etc.
- Improve globalization / localisation (e.g. translating UI and documentation to different languages)
- Confirm, improve or create install and code setup on different platforms
- Make the project more accessible
- Build a demo server
- Maintain a demo server
- Maintain a download site
- Maintain the project web site
Visual Design
- Create a storyboard or paper prototype, evaluate with users, revise, & summarize, submit to project
- Create instructional comics and submit to project
- Create a font or icon set and submit to project
Quality & Testing
- Choose an open defect or feature request from mailing list / tracker / wiki, verify that it exists, and expand & improve formal report (in tracker or wiki)
- Create a new defect report from mailing list or personal experience
- Find a "bad" report and make it a "good" report
- Writing_a_bug_report
- Brainstorm list of possible enhancements for project, choose a few to document (see above) and submit a feature request
- Evaluate usability of a specified feature and summarize results & conclusions (in tracker or wiki)
- using formal guidelines or rubric
- using heuristic evaluation Wikipedia:Heuristic_evaluation
- Test documentation.
- Evaluate (and improve) installation instructions and submit revision to the project
- Verify (and fix) development environment documentation and submit revision to the project
- Develop an automated test suite or repeatable test script, contribute code, summarize results.
- Test the system
- Verify a bug
- Report a bug
- Add to the explanation of a bug
- Test release candidates
- Test security: can the existing code be compromised?
- Audit security: does the existing code meet security guidelines?
- Improve accessibility: audit app against disability guidelines (e.g. https://www.w3.org/standards/webdesign/accessibility)
- Check app for gender/culture bias in text, images etc
- Evaluate security for a FOSS project and report the results to the project
- Look for common security flaws
- Conduct penetration testing
- Compare with commercial products, industry practices
Learning Activities
- FOSS scavenger hunt: Study a FOSS to answer a set of questions (overview about project and product features)
- Could also look at a forge (# of projects, what application domains, what languages, # added recently)
- In teams, students generate test sets for given code and an understanding of the codes purpose, and test that code.
Privacy / Security
- Evaluate security for a FOSS: how many intrusions, severity, etc.
- Compare with commercial products, industry practices
- Write privacy policy
- Develop security guidelines
- Write about implications of software choice for security.
- Diaspora (Facebook clone) and problems w.r.t. privacy/security
- FOSS DBs, etc. (OpenMRS) -- issues, privacy, etc.
Quality & Testing
- Choose a fixed defect or feature, research its history (when & how reported, when & how fixed), and summarize in a 5 min format (in tracker, wiki, blog post, podcast, vlog, etc).
- Test (perhaps a project that does JUnit testing).
- Trace the execution of some piece of code.
Specification and Design
- Explore a new feature for an existing project
- Discuss how it might be implemented
- Show actual code and implementation
- Identify data structures used in a project.
- Study code & docs, diagram system architecture, evaluate, summarize.
- using guidelines supplied by instructor
Coding & Style
- Analyze the sequence of function calls that produces a specified { feature | page | screen }.
- Identify examples of a given { coding construct | data structure | pattern } in a FOSS.
- could provide teachers with examples to use in other courses
- Given specification & code, provide an itemized list of tasks and describe how each was met.
- Given a problem and 2+ solutions to a problem, compare, summarize, & present.
- naming conventions, coding style, efficiency, etc...
- Given a problem, find 2+ solutions (to same or similar problem) and summarize the differences between the solutions.
- Determine how well a { FOSS | component } meets its specifications.
- Develop a code walkthrough
- In teams of 2-3, students walk through working, uncommented code to determine its purpose.
- Deliverables: A brief summary (1-2 paragraphs) describing the purpose of the code.
- Could be senior level assignment, where students are asked to understand a complicated segement of code from a larger project. CS1-2: students are given a partial implementation of a class as to determine what a specific method does.
- http://piratenpad.de/softhum-workshop-template-walkthrough
- http://foss2serve.org/index.php/Document_code_with_meaningful_comments
- Find/study examples of well & poorly written code - style wise (layout, variable names)
- Look at coding standard for an open source project (Java, Python)
- Reformat code, rename variables, etc.
- Given coding standard & sample code, list the changes needed for code to meet standard.
- Given sample code, infer and document coding standard.
- Analyze existing code to understand what it does and how it works.
- Reformat, document, & refactor existing (others') code to make it more readable & consistent.
- Given a comment, defect, or feature request, study & fix it, and submit as patch.
- FOSS with plugins may be easier for this:
- Drupal (e.g. shopping cart), Firefox, GreaseMonkey, Moodle
- wiki formatting plugins
- Develop UML diagram(s) for a FOSS and submit to the project
- FOSS UML tool: http://argouml.tigris.org/
- PC Clements, & DL Parnas. 1986. “A rational design process: How and why to fake it.” IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering 12 (2): 251-257.
- Add comments to a piece of code that has no or poor comments.
Product Packaging and Distribution
- Maintain a build host. //needs more detail//
- Understand and identify installation and IT support needs. //needs more detail//
- Configure FOSS according to given criteria or specification.
- What are good examples of configurable FOSS - Drupal, wiki,
- design & create a custom distribution
- Share custom distribution with the FOSS community.
Learning Activities for General HFOSS Knowledge
Introduction
- Read recent article(s) and { answer questions | summarize | critique | present material }.
- e.g. product reviews, culture of writing software, use within some environment, etc.
- sites: opensource.com,teachingopensource.org
- print: Linux Journal, Linux Magazine
- Interview a FOSS user and find out why they use FOSS, benefits/drawbacks, etc.
- Study a FOSS contributor’s activities over time { week | month | semester } to understand the level of engagement and the type of interactions/contributions the person has made.
- Interview a FOSS contributor to find out how they got involved, their role(s), their background, etc.
- Shadow a FOSS contributor over time to see what they do, & summarize.
FOSS History
- Research the history of a FOSS & summarize.
- When did it start? How many releases? How many users?
- Reading history on the site, talk to people involved, etc.
- Review an archived discussion of a { chat | thread | forum | list } over a { day | week | month } and { summarize | categorize | reflect on } the content.
- e.g. developer list, support list,
- Study a completed defect or feature proposal, and create a concise summary, including details, people involved & their roles, steps taken.
Use & Evaluate
- Search forge(s) or the Internet for FOSS that interests you.
- Use & evaluate a FOSS that has been installed.
- Download, install, use, & evaluate FOSS.
- Read review(s) of FOSS, then download a "good" one, based on different criteria
- e.g. community, features, ease of maintenance
- Evaluate how good a FOSS would be to { use | contribute to} based on:
- Size, maturity, level of activity, size of community, etc.
- Features described in documentation or demos.
- How easy it is to set up for use: e.g., download, install, customize, apply updates.
- Compare and contrast 2+ FOSS to determine which to { use | contribute to }.
- criteria from instructor, student, or target user
- Install (help others install) one or more FOSS and/or FOSS plugins.
- Install PortableApps on a flash drive, along with several portable FOSS for later use.
- Install FOSS operating system on a flash drive.
Communication & Tools
- Choose, investigate, and report on a forge. //what is the motivation or LO?//
- View newest FOSS on a forge, then see how many new FOSS are created in a { day | week }.
- Choose a (FOSS) RSS client, subscribe to RSS feeds for FOSS, read, and summarize.
- RSS clients: Google Reader, RSSOwl
- RSS feeds: any planet (feed aggregator), FOSS
- Define IRC, determine why IRC is an appropriate means of communication within a community - what are the benefits, drawbacks?
- Subscribe to an IRC channel, listen to a meeting, write summary of the content of the meeting and any observations about the mode of communication/type of communication.
- Study IRC meetings: lurk; participate; write minutes or summary; plan agenda; run meeting.
- Work remotely (using IRC, email, twitter, whatever) with another student to develop profiles for each other. (a web-page about you and your tech skills and interests).
- Ask, comment on, answer, respond to question (on web forum, mailing list, IRC).
- Study the social norms of communication within a FOSS community. (i.e. how to ask questions, respond, etc.)
- Become familiar with public/private keys. //what is the motivation or LO?//
- Generate public and private keys for use with SSH.
- Install public key on remote server for passwordless access via SSH.
- Exchange public keys with another student.
- Use exchanged keys to send signs and/or encrypted messages.
- Sign another student's public key
- Get your public key signed by another student.
- Sign a Contributors License Agreement (CLA) for a FOSS. //what is the motivation or LO?//
- [meta] Learn to interact with the community by using various tools such as blogs, wiki changesets, ticketing systems, etc. // expand to specific tasks with specific tools //
- [meta] Learn a tool, and teach others how to use it.
- [meta] Learn that a text editor is a text editor, regardless of what it is. //how to do this?//
- [meta] Learn how to choose a set of tools to use for a FOSS.
Culture, Intellectual Property
See: http://piratenpad.de/softhum-workshop-template-culture
- Research how a FOSS is organized, summarize findings, & reflect.
- How many people are employed, who is employed, how they get paid.
- Business model - how is the project funded, who is in charge, etc.
- Select a FOSS, identity primary contributors (no more than 10), find their educational and work experiences, and summarize.
- Understand why a major company (like IBM for example) contributes to FOSS.
- What are the market pressures involved from an economic point of view?
- Study software licensing (in general) and then discuss FOSS intellectual property issues.
- Why is it OK to download & install some software but not other?
- Why would developers give up their rights?
- Compare & contrast 2+ FOSS licenses (e.g. in a matrix).
Philosophy / Politics
- Study why people choose to use FOSS as opposed to other software.
- Read "Little Brother" (by Cory Doctorow) //what is the motivation or LO?//
- Study the international influence in FOSS projects, both as contributors and consumers.
- cultural perspectives – freedom from multinationals companies (e.g. China, India)
- Study cultural/policy implications of CC, GPL, etc.
- Implications for pre-health, pre-law, etc.
- Explore implications of philosophy/culture of FOSS for public policy.
- Uber database of FOSS public policy decisions. Linked from Mel's blog.
