[TOS] looking for feedback on ideas for an open source development course

Sebastian Benthall sbenthall at gmail.com
Sun Mar 10 07:01:53 UTC 2013


Thanks for the links and the sound advice!

On Sat, Mar 9, 2013 at 6:23 PM, Heidi Ellis <heidijcellis at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi Seb,****
>
> ** **
>
> I agree with Jim’s comment that having students produce a FOSS project
> from scratch is too large a chunk to take on in a single semester.
> Students would better learn about open source culture and practices by
> joining an existing, on-going project.  This would give them hands-on
> experience with a real FOSS project while learning from the practitioners
> in the field.  Students could easily learn about project management
> infrastructure,  and community self-governance through open source
> participation in this manner, and I have found that their learning can far
> exceed a typical classroom experience.****
>
> ** **
>
> In other words, rather than you trying to create a FOSS environment within
> a single semester in an academic environment, which might not be entirely
> successfully, having students participate in an ongoing, successful project
> would be more exciting and less risky. ****
>
> ** **
>
> Just my two cents. ****
>
> Heidi ****
>
> ** **
>
> Heidi J. C. Ellis****
>
> Chair and Associate Professor****
>
> Department of Computer Science and Information Technology****
>
> Western New England University****
>
> 1215 Wilbraham Road****
>
> Springfield, MA 01119-2684****
>
> ellis at wne.edu****
>
> http://mars.wne.edu/~hellis****
>
> ** **
>
> ** **
>
> ** **
>
> *From:* tos-bounces at teachingopensource.org [mailto:
> tos-bounces at teachingopensource.org] *On Behalf Of *Jim Bowring
> *Sent:* Saturday, March 09, 2013 7:28 PM
> *To:* Discussions about Teaching Open Source
> *Subject:* Re: [TOS] looking for feedback on ideas for an open source
> development course****
>
> ** **
>
> Hi Sebastian -****
>
> ** **
>
> I teach an undergraduate course "Software Engineering Practicum" that has
> students form teams and join existing H/FOSS projects.  I think it not
> practical to have students produce an open source project in a semester as
> the engineering tasks involved in any robust, meaningful, and maintainable
> project take at least a year in an academic setting to provide a serious
> first release.  I recommend having students join a project and learn how to
> participate in an existing community/ecosystem.****
>
> ** **
>
> link to this year: http://csci462-2013.wikispaces.com/****
>
> ** **
>
> link to last year: http://csci462-2012.wikispaces.com/****
>
> ** **
>
> Cheers,****
>
>
> ****
>
> Jim Bowring
> Principal Investigator, www.CIRDLES.org <http://www.CIRDLES.org%20>
>
> Computer Science
> College of Charleston
> 66 George Street
> Charleston, SC 29424
>
> Google Voice: 843.608.1399 (preferred)
> Google Email: bowring at gmail.com
>
> Office:
> JC Long room 222
> 843.953.0805
> http://stono.cs.cofc.edu/~bowring/
> bowringj at cofc.edu
>
> R. Buckminster Fuller (1972):
> If humanity is to survive aboard our planet, it must become universally
> literate and preoccupied with inherently cooperative Comprehensive
> Anticipatory Design Science in which every human is concerned with
> accomplishing the comfortably sustainable well-faring of all other humans.
> ****
>
> ** **
>
> On Sat, Mar 9, 2013 at 6:14 PM, Allen Tucker <allen at bowdoin.edu> wrote:***
> *
>
> Hi Sebastian, ****
>
> ** **
>
> I've been teaching a hands-on FOSS course over the last four years with
> small groups of advanced CS majors.  Check out this site for some ideas
> about resources, projects, and structuring such a course over a semester.
> ****
>
> ** **
>
> http://myopensoftware.org/textbook****
>
> ** **
>
> I'll be teaching this course again in the fall with three new projects
> serving local non-projfit organizations.  Let me know if you want to talk
> more directly about these experiences.  ****
>
> ** **
>
> Best,****
>
> Allen Tucker****
>
> ** **
>
> On Mar 9, 2013, at 5:23 PM, Sebastian Benthall <sbenthall at gmail.com>****
>
>  wrote:****
>
>
>
> ****
>
> Hi list,
>
> I'm a PhD student at UC Berkeley's School of Information<http://www.ischool.berkeley.edu/>and have been getting encouragement here to teach a course on open source
> development targeted at students in our Masters program.
>
> Our Masters students come from a variety of backgrounds and are required
> to pick up some coding skills during the program (though some come in with
> more engineering background).  It's a professional degree that culminates
> in a technical project.  Often the emphasis of these projects is on design,
> but many of the students have expressed frustration at not having more of
> an opportunity to hack with constructive supervision.
>
> I'm coming from a background of FOSS development, project management, and
> business, but have never taught a course on this before.  I wanted to send
> out my rough ideas for a course proposal and invite any feedback of any
> kind on it.
>
> I'd be really interested to see any currently existing course syllabi or
> material, but am not sure where to look.
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> *Summary:*
>
> This course is a hands-on exploration of the theory and practice of free
> and open source software (FOSS) development.  Students will collaborate on
> the design, development, and marketing of a new open source software
> project. Practical work will be organized around themes of project
> management infrastructure, community self-governance, and engineering
> education through open source participation.  Supplemental readings will
> explore business models for open source software organizations, the open
> source "ecosystem", and hacker culture.  The (admitted ambitious) goal of
> the class is to launch a broadly usable open source project that can be
> used as part of iSchool Masters projects, faculty-directed research, and
> beyond.
>
> [There's going to be a lot of prep work on my end figuring out what a
> plausible project for this might be.  I'm thinking something along the
> lines of a lightweight pluggable mailing list solution, but I'm open to
> other ideas...]
>
> *Format*:
> The class will meet twice a week: Once in a classroom to discuss readings,
> and once in an IRC channel to discuss progress on development.
>
> *Grading*:
> Grading will be based on X% class participation, Y% on open digital
> participation (blog posts, issues, mailing list participation, commits) and
> Z% on student's assessment of their peers [according to some algorithm I've
> haven't put enough thought into yet].
>
> *Readings and Topics:
> *
> for everything practical and then some:
> Fogel, K. *Producing Open Source Software*
> what else?
>
> governance:
> Freeman, J. The "Tyrrany of Structurelessness"
> Ostrom, E. *Governing the Commons *(*?? haven't read yet, looks good.
> I'm thinking excerpts)
>
> *business models:
> Pentaho's Beekeeper stuff:
> http://wiki.pentaho.com/display/BEEKEEPER/The+Beekeeper
> Asay, M. something by him like
> http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10244853-16.html
> -- stuff about Red Hat?
> -- stuff about Twitter, GitHub?
> -- stuff about Mozilla?
>
> classical (?) texts:
> RMS.  Something.  Or maybe just stuff from here;
> http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/
> ESR. *The Cathedral and the Bazaar*
>
> culture:
> Coleman, G. something?
> Kelty, C. *Two Bits*.  (excerpts)
>
> international participation:
> Tahkteyev, Y. *Coding places*. (excepts)
>
> something on gender in open source?****
>
> _______________________________________________
> tos mailing list
> tos at teachingopensource.org
> http://lists.teachingopensource.org/mailman/listinfo/tos****
>
> ** **
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> tos mailing list
> tos at teachingopensource.org
> http://lists.teachingopensource.org/mailman/listinfo/tos****
>
> ** **
>
> _______________________________________________
> tos mailing list
> tos at teachingopensource.org
> http://lists.teachingopensource.org/mailman/listinfo/tos
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.teachingopensource.org/pipermail/tos/attachments/20130309/619d747f/attachment.html>


More information about the tos mailing list