Student Pipeline to Open Source Communities using HFOSS
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The document discusses the challenges and opportunities for increasing student participation in open source software (FOSS) communities, focusing on education, faculty preparation, and student engagement. It highlights survey results indicating low student familiarity with FOSS concepts and presents the Posse initiative aimed at providing immersive FOSS experiences for faculty to ultimately benefit student learning. Key activities for future engagement include additional workshops and the development of teaching materials to integrate FOSS into academic curricula.
Student Pipeline to Open Source Communities using HFOSS
- 1. Building the Student Pipeline to Open Source Communities Using HFOSS Heidi Ellis, Western New England University Greg Hislop, Drexel University
- 2. We Are... ● Professor, Western New England University ● Co-maintainer GNOME MouseTrap ● Founding Member HFOSS ● Professor, Drexel University ● Foss2serve team lead ● Software industry veteran
- 3. Where Are We Going? ● Student Participation in Open Source ● Challenges ● Helping instructors prepare to teach FOSS ● What Can Students Do? ● Research Results ● Next Steps
- 4. STUDENT PARTICIPATION IN OPEN SOURCE
- 5. Current Status of FOSS in Education Open SourceHigher Ed Industry Students who learn FOSS Companies that use FOSS Industry
- 6. What Students Know ● Open source software exists – They can use the stuff without paying for it ● It's legal to do so
- 7. What Most Students Don't Know ● Development – FOSS development tools – Processes and techniques ● Organization and scale – The extent of FOSS – number and scale of projects – FOSS career opportunities – Licensing – FOSS culture
- 8. Survey Results ● Survey of Junior and Senior students at Drexel – Multiple choice and fill in the blank questions – Goal: get a baseline of student familiarity with FOSS concepts
- 9. Survey Results ● Less than 10% of students – Had ever heard of “The Cathedral and the Bazaar” – Know that a lot of FOSS is written by people paid to do so ● No concept of FOSS as a career area ● Most students think that the average number of contributors to a FOSS project is > 50
- 10. CHALLENGES
- 11. Faculty Reward Structure ● Research emphasis – Publish or Perish – Education research not always valued – Peer-review is key ● Education innovation – Not always welcome
- 12. Faculty Learning Curve ● Relatively few CS faculty have significant software engineering experience – Large code bases – Active client communities – Product management, evolution, packaging, distribution, and support ● Very few CS faculty have FOSS experience – Tools and processes – The Open Source Way – Licensing, business models, etc.
- 13. Curricular Innovation is Slow ● Up to 1 year for new course ● Up to 4 years for new curriculum
- 14. Mismatch in FOSS and Academic Timelines Fedora Project: ● Release Cycle: 6 mo ● Planning Cycle: ~1 yr ● Execution Time: 6-12 mo Academia ● Release Cycle: 1-4 yrs ● Planning Cycle: 2-5 yrs ● Execution Time: 4 yrs
- 15. Pedagogical Expectations ● Instructor as expert – Difficulty in being “productively lost” ● Meeting course learning outcomes – Difficult with unpredictable events in FOSS – Difficult to achieve the same outcomes for all students ● Short, fixed time frame of academic courses
- 17. POSSE v1.0 ● Professors Open Source Summer Experience ● Red Hat outreach initiative for college faculty – 3-5 days immersive introduction to FOSS – Focus on open source culture, tools, processes etc. ● Challenges – Funding for travel – Covering instructional issues
- 18. POSSE v2.0 ● Professors Open Source Software Experience ● Collaboration of college faculty and Red Hat – Plus NSF funding ● Coverage of instructional issues along with FOSS introduction ● Three stage model
- 19. POSSE v2.0 ● Stage 1: Online – Static, factual content ● Stage 2: In-person workshop – Dynamic, situational, human-centered content ● Stage 3: Small group collaboration – Community building
- 21. 50 Ways to be a FOSSer ● Use & Evaluate ● FOSS Participants ● HFOSS Project Overview ● Communication ● Tools ● Business Model ● Philosophy and Politics ● Privacy and Security ● Documentation ● Visual Design ● Quality and Testing ● Usability ● Design ● Style ● Coding ● Localization
- 22. Gnome Caribou Keyboard – Student Enhancements ● Also added: – Shift Key – Esc Key – Delete Key (vs backspace) – Page Up, Page Down
- 23. OpenMRS – Development Environment Instructions
- 24. OpenMRS ● Development Environment – Explore VM's and containers to package demo or development environment – Writing more installation instruction ●Translating system messages to multiple languages – Updates and additions to French – Additions in Polish – Attempt in Arabic
- 25. RESEARCH RESULTS
- 26. Research Questions ● What is the impact of student participation in HFOSS on: – Motivation to study computing – Perceived learning related to computing – Choice of major and career plans Motivation SW Engineering Major and Career Working on an HFOSS project gives me a better appreciation for the usefulness of computing. I can list the steps in the software process we used in HFOSS project The subject matter of this HFOSS project is highly relevant to my future career plans.
- 27. Study Context ● 2006 - 2015 – Multiple institutions – Different courses – Additional data collection ● Builds on instructor community – Prior attendees at Professor’s Open Source Software Experience (POSSE) workshops
- 28. Study Design ● Pre and post anonymous student survey – Five-point Likert scale plus open ended questions ● Strongly disagree, Disagree, Neutral, Agree, Strongly agree; Don’t know, Not applicable – Mann-Whitney U used for testing significance – Sample size ● Pre-course: 115 ● Post-course: 94 –
- 29. Courses in the Study Title Term(s) Students Length of Term Software Engineering (WNE)Fall 2013, Fall 2014 6,8 15 weeks Software Engineering (URI) Fall 2014 40 15 weeks Software Engineering (Mor) Spring 2014 10 15 weeks Software Engineering (TCNJ)Fall 2013 19 15 weeks Software Engineering (Mac) Winter 2014 15 13 weeks Open Source Software Development (WOU) Winter 2014 20 10 weeks
- 30. Student Profile ● Major - 95% computing related ● Gender – 17% female – 8% not identified – 75% male
- 31. Results – Motivation and Career Q Description p-val < Diff Post Avg H10 Participating in an HFOSS project made me more comfortable with computing. .001 2.1 3.72 G1 I am confident about working with computing professionals .038 0.24 3.92 G8 I have a high level of experience in the HFOSS subject matter. .000 0.88 2.89
- 32. Results – Computing Learning Q Description p-val < Diff Post Avg SE3 I can use a software process to develop an HFOSS project. .001 0.75 3.90 SE6 I can describe the impact of project complexity on the approaches used to develop software. .001 0.50 3.75 SE10 I can use all tools and techniques employed in my HFOSS project. .001 0.69 3.65 SE11 I can participate in an HFOSS development team’s interactions. .038 0.28 3.83
- 33. Results – Negative Changes Q Description p-val < Diff Post Avg H8 Working on an HFOSS project has increased my interest in computing. .001 -.44 3.69 H9 Working on an HFOSS project has increased my confidence in my computing ability. .009 -.36 3.79
- 34. Results – Gender and Ethnicity ● Comparing post-course scores ● Stronger agreement by the women – H2. I have a greater awareness of the potential for computing to benefit society due to working on an HFOSS project. – p = 0.036, average for males = 4.04; average for females = 4.5
- 35. Next Steps
- 36. Key Activities ● POSSE - More workshops to be offered over the next several years ● Teaching materials – Re-construction of teachingopensource.org – Teaching materials sprints ● Mapping teaching materials to existing curricula
Editor's Notes
- #7: Reason 1: Tenure-track instructors are under pressure to: Publish, publish, publish Peer-reviewed and there is a hierarchy of publication venues There is NO venue for open source education Attract grant funding, Image CC-BY-SA by
- #8: Reason 1: Tenure-track instructors are under pressure to: Publish, publish, publish Peer-reviewed and there is a hierarchy of publication venues There is NO venue for open source education Attract grant funding, Image CC-BY-SA by
- #9: Reason 1: Tenure-track instructors are under pressure to: Publish, publish, publish Peer-reviewed and there is a hierarchy of publication venues There is NO venue for open source education Attract grant funding, Image CC-BY-SA by
- #10: Reason 1: Tenure-track instructors are under pressure to: Publish, publish, publish Peer-reviewed and there is a hierarchy of publication venues There is NO venue for open source education Attract grant funding, Image CC-BY-SA by
- #12: Image CC-BY-SA by https://www.flickr.com/photos/blondinrikard/13927054414/
- #14: Warning: School specific: The department (CS or SE) has to create a curriculum that fits together as a whole *and* that students can work through in 4 years. Given that, departments can&apos;t “afford” to add courses that don&apos;t fit clearly into a learning path. Schools have a limited resource budget – both in terms of instructor hours and in terms of things like available classroom space. There&apos;s competition for that time/space. When courses can be added – (and the process is documented) – it can take years. Bump in enrollments is a plus, but interferes with new course development Image CC-BY-SA by https://www.flickr.com/photos/blondinrikard/13927054414/
- #15: Reason 1: Tenure-track instructors are under pressure to: Publish, publish, publish Peer-reviewed and there is a hierarchy of publication venues There is NO venue for open source education Attract grant funding, Image CC-BY-SA by
- #16: Reason 1: Tenure-track instructors are under pressure to: Publish, publish, publish Peer-reviewed and there is a hierarchy of publication venues There is NO venue for open source education Attract grant funding, Image CC-BY-SA by