[TOS] Fwd: Re: POSSE resources [was: Re: Feedback from your workshop on OSC]

[Mel Chua]

My comments, in brief:

> - how to do this efficiently with limited time resources.

Always a challenge.

> - which topic have priority over the next, sequencial processes are
> not always the more friendly. (i.e. requesting a features is faster
> than building/debugging).

Communication. Communication, communication. Distributed communication 
and the etiquette and cultural norms of FOSS communities as contrasted 
to academia are HUGE. I and others here can point you towards papers on 
the topic if you're interested. (We really ought to make more of these 
papers open access.)

If the only thing they get from the workshop is how to communicate, 
THAT'S GOOD. (and from prior experience, you'll likely need most if not 
all of the time for that.) That gives people the ability to continue 
learning in the future when they go back home.

(This is my highly biased opinion; POSSE alumni may have other things to 
say.)

> - Disrupting a community with a false sense of commitment. (or try to
> encapsulate the 'community experience' avoiding the real community)

Handled correctly, faculty can be a *huge* asset for this -- having a 
random newbie waltz in and say "can I do X?" vs knowing that these 
students are coming in as part of a well-scaffolded course led by a 
faculty member... there's a lot more guarantee that a university course 
will at least stick around, complete the semester, consistently try to 
do useful things. The class *is* running that semester, after all.

> - Interact on IRC with some developers and communicate on mailing lists

http://teachingopensource.org/index.php/IRC_and_wiki_introduction_exercise 
may be useful.