Possible Pathways and Learning Activities
From Foss2Serve
Pathways Model - Candidate Paths to HFOSS Contribution
To Do
- revise/refine list for conciseness & clarity – add links to supporting info, examples, etc.
- put people to review, comment, clarify, vote for tasks they'd use if well documented
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
Possible categories / dimensions for tags / taxonomy
- ACM curricular areas & outcomes
- relevant courses
- prereq tools/skills
- time/effort required – for instructor prep, student work, elapsed calendar time
- requires input / effort from FOSS community - how much, what kind
- produces sometime useful to FOSS project - what, how useful
- unreviewed (doc) vs. reviewed (code) contribution
50 Ways by Category
Notes:
- A FOSS could be specified by instructor, selected from a set of choices, or chosen by student, depending on student experience, time available, etc.
- Documentation tasks could apply to:
- a FOSS
- meta sites: http://opensource.com, http://teachingopensource.org,
- other open content sites: Wikipedia, Instructables, eHow, WikiHow, etc.
- Tasks could be done alone, in pairs, teams, etc.
- Tasks could result in:
- blog posts, podcasts, vlogs, wiki pages, etc.
- articles for magazines, newspapers, web sites, etc.
- Results could be:
- Submitted to instructor for evaluation.
- Posted or shared for peer review (with other students in course).
- Presented in class.
- Discussed in class or online, etc.
- See: http://piratenpad.de/softhum-workshop-template-writing
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
- 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 { a | several } 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).
- 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.
- 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/
- 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)
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.
Privacy / Security
- Evaluate security for a FOSS: how many intrusions, severity, etc.
- Compare with commercial products, industry practices
- Write privacy policy //need more detail//
- Develop security guidelines //need more detail//
- Write about implications of software choice for security. //need more detail//
- Diaspora (Facebook clone) and problems w.r.t. privacy/security
- FOSS DBs, etc. (OpenMRS) -- issues, privacy, etc.
Advocacy
- Organize & conduct a { installation festival | tutorial session } for a { FOSS | feature }.
- { Observe | participate in | support | organize } a hackathon.
- Raise money or other resources for an open source project.
- [meta] Promote a project of interest using multiple tools/channels. //other examples?//
Documentation
- Review a page and summarize problems found.
- for existing pages, or proposed changes/additions by other students
- 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 | expert knowledge }.
- Convert written docs to video docs.
- Convert video docs to written docs.
- Develop UML diagram from an existing project. (argouml)
- Generate and review JavaDoc.
- http://www.foss2serve.org/index.php/UML_a_project
Visual Design
- Create a storyboard or paper prototype, evaluate with users, revise, & summarize.
- Clif has paper prototyping references, workshop slides, etc.
- Create instructional comics.
- Create a font or icon set.
- [meta] Become a design ninja //expand / clarify - how does a student do this?//
Quality & Testing
- In teams, students generate test sets for given code and an understanding of the codes purpose, and test that code.
- 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).
- 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.
- http://foss2serve.org/index.php/Writing_a_bug_report
- Brainstorm list of possible enhancements for project, choose a few to document (see above).
- Evaluate usability of a specified { feature | screen } and summarize results & conclusions (in tracker or wiki).
- using formal guidelines or rubric
- using heuristic evaluation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heuristic_evaluation
- Role play / evaluate from other (non-student) perspectives.
- Test documentation.
- Evaluate (and improve) installation instructions.
- Verify (and fix) development environment.
- Develop an { automated test suite | repeatable test script }, contribute code, summarize results.
- 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
- 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.
- 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
- 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.
- 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.
- 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. (possibly commit back depending on project)
- Add comments to a piece of code that has no or poor comments.
Product Packaging and Distribution
- 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.
- Maintain a build host. //needs more detail//
- Understand and identify installation and IT support needs. //needs more detail//
