POSSE 2013-06 Feedback

What worked, what didn’t

Stage 1

Timing:

• Timing of having POSSE Stage 2 right at end of semester seemed to be tough for some people.
• Provide access to materials 8 weeks in advance so that people who want to get a jump on activities can do so.
• Add more accountability to stage 1.
  • Have more frequent/small deadlines
  • Have participants (and foss2serve community) review and comment

Activities:

• Need to refine some of the activities so that they are more focused.
  • In particular the Project Evaluation, FOSS Field Trip and FOSS in Courses Planning activities
    • FOSS Field Trip needs more information about how to find information on SourceForge
  • Also clarify the depth required and indicate that participants shouldn't spend more than 2 hours on any one activity unless they want to.
  • Do we even need the Project Evaluation activity as the projects have already been "vetted"?
  • Better to revamp the Project Evaluation activity to walk through a single example and only have participants comment on pieces rather than try to carry out the evaluation themselves.
    • Seems that participants need the experience in Stage 2 to be able to find and understand all of the information.
  • Or, since the projects are already selected, how about a more direct comparison, rather than evaluation?

• Clarify the mission/purpose of the Stage 1 activities with respect to Stage 2.
  • Make it clear what participants should be getting out of stage 1
    1. Get up to speed in working on HFOSS projects
    2. Get up to speed evaluating an HFOSS project for use
• Shift some content from Stage 2 to Stage 1:
  • Examples of HFOSS in Education, HFOSS in the Curriculum, Understanding Open Source Communities, Pedagogy and Course Management.
  • Idea: Create short video of these topics and ask participants to create list of questions on wiki (group list) that form the basis of interactive activity in Stage 2.

Other:

• It would be helpful to have some sort of visual introductions during Stage 1.
  • Ask folks to post their pictures on foss2serve wiki?
  • Video skype?

Stage 2

• Reorganize to spend more time in small groups.
• Add another day purely for small groups?
  • How would we combat fatigue? Would this be productive?
• Combine the face-to-face with a hackathon or other FOSS activity.
  • Host a hackathon the day before or the day after? With students from the local institution?
  • Host a Random Hacks of Kindness?
  • Some other student event?
• Have more representatives from the HFOSS projects present.
  • Or Skype in.

Other Thoughts

• Could we incentivize people to share a room to stretch the funds?
• Host a hack-a-thon perhaps over the summer? NCC has a budget for shorter workshops and follow-up events to foster and expand the relationship that began at a POSSE.
• We need a way to connect everyone involved, not just our small groups.
  • Google hangout?
  • TeachingOpenSource IRC?
  • How do we integrate participants back into teachingopensource?