Possible Pathways and Learning Activities

Latest revision as of 11:18, 6 August 2020

Pathway Model - Candidate Paths to HFOSS Contribution

A Pathway is a sequence of steps that a practitioner would follow to contribute to a humanitarian free and open source (HFOSS) project. Pathway steps are supported by Learning Activities and Learning Modules.

This page contains:

• a list of possible pathways for the HFOSS contribution pathways model
• learning activities that may support a path step
• learning activities that may help students gain general HFOSS knowledge.

See the Glossary for terms used to make the lists more concise and avoid duplication.

Curated Pathways

1. Verify a Bug (Pathway)
   • Examples: Bug Gardening
2. Fix a Bug (Pathway)
   • Examples: Document Code with Meaningful Comments (Activity)
3. Test User Installation Instructions (Pathway)
   • Examples: Test Installation Instructions
4. Test download and installation instructions for the development environment
5. Create Unit Tests (Pathway)
6. Add a Feature (Pathway)
7. Create a new defect report from mailing list or personal experience
   • Examples: Write a Bug Report (Activity)
8. Develop UML diagram from an existing project
9. Identify user roles and write user stories for a feature (Design a feature)
10. Introduce new users to the project
    • Examples:
      • Intro to IRC (Activity)
      • Connect with the Community (Activity)
11. Access security: does the existing code meet security guidelines?

Other Candidate Pathways

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
• 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
  • Test_Installation_Instructions
• 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
  • Write a Bug Report (Activity)
• 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.
  • see http://piratenpad.de/softhum-workshop-template-testsets

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).
  • see http://piratenpad.de/softhum-workshop-write-feature-description
• 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 }.
  • http://piratenpad.de/softhum-workshop-analysis
• 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.
  • http://foss2serve.org/index.php/Document_code_with_meaningful_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.
  • http://piratenpad.de/softhum-workshop-analysis
• 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.
  • http://portableapps.com
• Install FOSS operating system on a flash drive.
  • http://www.pendrivelinux.com/
  • http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/

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.
  • http://foss2serve.org/index.php/Getting_connected_with_the_community
• 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?//
  • see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contributor_License_Agreement
• [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.