Instructor Experiences
Course Name: Data Structures
Level: Freshman to Seniors
HFOSS Project: OpenMRS and Mifos
HFOSS Activity: Students read the source code of open source projects an examples of the "real life" use of the data structures and Java language features that they are learning about. At the beginning of the semester it is very much "hand holding", i.e. look at the line such and such in file such and such and tell me what is there. By the end of the semester they are browsing GitHub repositories on their own searching for use examples of given data structures.
The students do not interact with the community and they do not contribute.
Instructor: Joanna Klukowska
Academic Institution: New York University
Observations: This works great to satisfy the students' requests for connecting the material to the real life situations. It also illustrates the fact that other people also document the code and write input validations, etc. I think that this has been of great educational benefit to my students, even though they sometimes do not even realize that.
Other Comments: It takes more than a few months to a point of using (H)FOSS with students, so be patient.
