19:07:15 <mchua> #startmeeting
19:07:16 <zodbot> Meeting started Tue Apr 13 19:07:15 2010 UTC.  The chair is mchua. Information about MeetBot at http://wiki.debian.org/MeetBot.
19:07:17 <zodbot> Useful Commands: #action #agreed #halp #info #idea #link #topic.
19:08:01 <mchua> #meetingname POSSE meeting
19:08:02 <zodbot> The meeting name has been set to 'posse_meeting'
19:08:04 <mchua> There we go.
19:08:23 <mchua> #topic This summer's POSSEs - admissions count
19:08:36 <mchua> #info We currently have 5 (our minimum size) for POSSE Worcester
19:09:04 <mchua> #info We currently have 9 (maximum 25) for POSSE RIT, but none from non-RIT institutions yet, so need to recruit more there
19:09:30 <mchua> #info We have interest but no hard confirmations for POSSE CA and POSSE CMU; need to step that up
19:10:23 <mchua> #topic POSSE budget
19:10:34 <mchua> We're starting to run the numbers, and they're looking good for the summer, in terms of staying under budget.
19:10:46 <kwurst> Can you let me know (offline) who has applied to POSSE Worcester, so I know who to push?
19:11:09 <mchua> kwurst: Will do.
19:11:18 <mchua> #link http://teachingopensource.org/index.php/POSSE_Worcester_State_planning#Budget
19:11:39 <mchua> That one is all nailed down; the rest are waiting on one or two details (flight preferences, etc.)
19:11:50 <mchua> but we're currently under $6k for all four.
19:11:59 <mchua> Questions about upcoming POSSEs?
19:12:23 <mchua> Thoughts on how we can get attendees? I know now we should be starting earlier (pre-SIGCSE, really) for recruitment.
19:13:29 <kwurst> Well, what I did was look up email addresses of faculty for all schools within about 45 minutes drive.
19:13:56 <kwurst> Next, I'll open up the radius to about 1 hour - which will include all of Boston.
19:14:23 * mchua nods
19:15:02 <mchua> #info kwurst did POSSE Worcester recruitent by looking up email addresses of faculty for all schools within ~45m drive, opening to 1hr.
19:15:08 <mchua> That seems like a good way to do it. :)
19:15:23 <mchua> kwurst: I'd also be happy to go out for a POSSE info session if you think it'd help - we got a lot of RIT interest from that.
19:15:51 <kwurst> #info kwurst emailed the faculty directly, one email per institution, sent to the faculty directly.
19:16:35 <kwurst> #info kwurst emailed faculty directly, rather than Department Chair, because sometimes chairs forget to forward these emails.
19:17:28 <kwurst> #info kwurst sent one email per institution, so recipients could see email addresses and determine if I had missed anyone at their school
19:18:10 <mchua> Awesome. This is all extremely helpful.
19:18:44 <mchua> Curriculum planning for the POSSEs this summer is underway - I'm going to try and ask the people doing that to move those conversations to the TOS list.
19:19:29 <mchua> But there's a lot of work being done in terms of figuring out how to document and streamline the getting-started scaffolding for these communities so that we spend time actually Doing Stuff instead of trying to get people's RSA keys accepted by the git server and such.
19:20:29 <kwurst> Depending on the level of the attendees, that stuff may be useful, since we'll have to help the students do the same things
19:20:33 * mchua nods.
19:20:48 <mchua> Yep, and it's good for the communities in general because it makes their getting-started processes better for everyone.
19:21:36 <kwurst> Seeing the problems that arise, will help us solve them with students/write better instructions for students.
19:22:10 <kwurst> Having no problems with setup may actually be counterproductive ;-)
19:22:55 * mchua grins
19:23:13 <mchua> Well, the idea would be that we solve the setup problems so that neither you nor your students will hit them.
19:23:17 <mchua> Or as many as we can.
19:23:20 <mchua> I'm sure we'll still hit plenty. ;) There always are.
19:24:41 <mchua> Ok. Anything else on this summer's POSSEs?
19:25:06 <kwurst> None for me.
19:25:11 * mchua expects these meetings will become more exciting as we start entering the weeks *right* before the first POSSE starts - so, towards the end of May, since our first one is start of June.
19:25:19 <mchua> #topic Future POSSEs
19:25:42 <mchua> mwhitehea and I talked briefly about kernel hacking this morning, but no concrete plans for that yet - it's next year if not later.
19:26:01 <mchua> micadeyeye: Any plans/updates on South Africa? What can we do to help? ;)
19:26:44 <micadeyeye> I spoke with the dean of my faculty today, and he is more than willing to see us have POSSE.
19:27:14 <micadeyeye> You said we will be discussing the funding.
19:27:41 <micadeyeye> We already have a venue and a date has been chosen.
19:27:51 <mchua> micadeyeye: Could you remind me of the date again?
19:27:56 * mchua looks it up on the wiki, but this may be faster
19:28:02 <micadeyeye> Oct. 3-8, 2010
19:28:10 * mchua nods
19:28:23 <mchua> micadeyeye: Ok - so what we'd need to figure out is who's available to teach.
19:28:31 <micadeyeye> Yes.
19:28:39 <mchua> That way we can figure out how much it will cost to bring them over, and then check out funding sources for that.
19:29:11 <micadeyeye> You are right.
19:29:59 <mchua> micadeyeye: What I'd do is look at the instructors on the list at http://teachingopensource.org/index.php/POSSE_Instructors and see if you can find 2 who'd be available for that week, and willing to come down if their expenses were paid.
19:30:20 <micadeyeye> Great.
19:30:51 <mchua> micadeyeye: It might be challenging since that's in the middle of the school year, but we'll see.
19:31:08 <micadeyeye> Okay.
19:31:32 <mchua> micadeyeye: I'm available that week and willing to come, in case that helps - we'd need to find a professor to be the other instructor, though.
19:31:43 * mchua doesn't need to come, though, if you find 2 people who'd be better instructors. :)
19:32:24 <micadeyeye> Otherwise, you and any other interested instructor could come over.
19:32:45 <mchua> micadeyeye: When you have 2 instructors who would come, and know how much (approximately) it would take to get them there - airfare, expenses, and lodging for the week - then let me know and we'll try to drum up budget for it.
19:33:10 <mchua> micadeyeye: The other thing to think about is the project you'd like to use for the POSSE - I can teach Fedora POSSEs and Sugar Labs POSSEs, for a Mozilla POSSE you may want David, etc.
19:34:19 <micadeyeye> Yes, I want thinking that it would a Mozilla POSSE. If we couldn't get hold of Dave or Tyler, we will settle for the FEDORA POSSE.
19:34:26 <mchua> micadeyeye: Is this a good next-step? Is there anything else we should be working on for POSSE SA at this time?
19:34:30 * mchua nods
19:35:07 <micadeyeye> None. I will let you know if anything crops up.
19:35:13 <mchua> Ok, thanks micadeyeye!
19:35:22 <mchua> Any other questions about POSSEs happening beyond this summer?
19:35:34 * mchua can't see anyone here for that yet
19:35:37 <mchua> Ok, onwards!
19:35:49 <mchua> #topic Discussion: evaluations
19:36:22 <mchua> #info We're doing a minimal IRB process for each of the 4 campuses with POSSEs this summer; the professors working on that will have some news next week
19:36:41 <mchua> ...that's about it, but I also did want to put forward another idea that's come up, which is:
19:36:50 <mchua> #topic Discussion: the future of POSSE
19:37:38 <mchua> #idea Have the POSSE program itself run by faculty members - it's similar to conference organization, and it may be possible to get sponsorship for a course release in order to have the time to do this.
19:38:17 <mchua> That's something that's come up in discussion before, and is mostly in need of a broader faculty sanity-check.
19:38:57 <kwurst> That will depend on the school. I would not get release time.
19:39:29 <kwurst> Not that that would necessarily stop me as I've run conferences before with no release time...
19:40:07 * mchua nods
19:41:50 <mchua> kwurst: In the absence of release time, what could we do to support a professor who was running the POSSE program?
19:42:10 <mchua> (This wouldn't happen for another year, at least - but it's something we've been thinking about in terms of what the ideal steady-state is for this, and how to transition to it.)
19:42:27 <kwurst> Not sure at this point. I may have a better idea after I've been through one.
19:43:02 <kwurst> At my school, service is a big thing, so organizing something like this counts for tenure and promotion credit.
19:43:22 <kwurst> At more research-oriented schools, probably not as much...
19:43:30 <mchua> Conferences are things that academics seem very good at running, and people within academia will know how to serve others within academia better than folks in industry like me. :) Then projects/companies can still contribute as needed in terms of time/expertise/funding/resources, but the program itself would live within the academic space.
19:43:35 * mchua nods
19:43:48 <mchua> Yep. We'd have to make sure it would "count" for you folks in some way.
19:44:15 <kwurst> The conference that I'm most involved in has been running for 15 years in our region.
19:45:00 <kwurst> It has a board that doesn't change much from year to year. The school and chair changes every year.
19:45:52 <kwurst> The committee tends to have some overlap from year to year, but new people come in each year and some stop participating in the planning every year.
19:46:51 <kwurst> There is a national organization that oversees ~10 regions - each with their own conference and their own regional board.
19:47:19 <mchua> How many years did it take to get to that steady-state?
19:47:25 <mchua> (Is it still growing? Or is it steady-state?)
19:48:40 <kwurst> It became big within a few years. The size dropped for a few years recently, but seems to be back up this year.
19:48:58 <mchua> so maybe 3-4 years ramp-up?
19:49:24 <mchua> Is that normal in terms of how annual events in academia (conferences mostly, I suppose) tend to get organized?
19:49:25 <kwurst> POSSE has fewer tasks needed to run one meeting - no paper reviewers, etc.
19:49:52 <kwurst> Looks like on the local end, it's mostly space reservations and advertising.
19:50:30 <kwurst> The central board would be the ones to determine how many POSSEs and where for each year.
19:51:17 <mchua> And manage a budget for that granted to it by various entities (RH almost certainly being one, though I'd hope we'd be able to get more. :)
19:51:50 <kwurst> Yes, it was probably 4 years ramp-up for our local region, but the national board had been around longer.
19:52:21 <mchua> We'd need a longer planning cycle than 3 months - a year's lead-time seems normal.
19:52:42 <mchua> That's pretty far out, but if that's the easiest way to do it, we can shift to that - it means we'd need to start looking at next year's POSSEs starting in June.
19:54:08 <mchua> (Or if everyone in academia thinks a year in advance is an annoyingly long way out to plan, we can stick with the short notice. ;)
19:54:08 <kwurst> Actually, for a conference, a year in advance is not long enough.
19:54:08 <mchua> kwurst: When would you start, then?
19:54:08 * mchua is used to events being planned a few months - or even weeks - in advance in the open source world.
19:54:08 <mchua> It's one of the things we've had to adjust to, and didn't realize we needed to adjust to in the beginning - the longer planning timescale.
19:54:14 * mchua is just beginning to think in the 3-5 year time horizon.
19:55:56 <kwurst> I'm co-chairing our regional conference next April. The site volunteered over 2 years ago (more than 3 years out). I was appointed a year ago. We're putting together the committee now at 1 year out and advertising.
19:56:15 <kwurst> That said, POSSE shouldn't require that much lead time.
19:56:45 <kwurst> One thing that requires so much time for the conference is the timeline for submission and reviewing of papers.
19:57:44 <kwurst> Papers are due in September, reviewed by end of December, program put together in early Jan, for an April conference.
19:58:51 <kwurst> The biggest reason for a longer timeframe for POSSE would be to try to set some sort of rotation/coverage pattern, so that there is a POSSE near people in different parts of the world.
19:59:26 * mchua nods. The different school schedules for different regions is my main concern - that and making sure we have continuity (so overlapping terms of chair/chair-emeritus, etc.)
20:00:26 <mchua> This might be a good idea to take to the list, since we're running out of time for today.
20:00:34 <kwurst> See, you're not used to thinking so far out, I'm not used to thinking of so large a geographical/cultural space...
20:00:35 <mchua> #action mchua move POSSE-run-by-profs idea to the list
20:00:38 * mchua nods
20:00:59 <mchua> kwurst: Wait, really? But there are international conferences all th etime.
20:02:23 <kwurst> Yes, but I don't generally participate in those. My participation is generally limited to a Northeast US regional conference (CCSCNE) and US national conference (SIGCSE). People with larger travel budgets and more research-oriented focus would do more international.
20:04:53 <kwurst> I think that's all I have to say right now...
20:05:26 * mchua nods
20:05:38 <mchua> Let's wrap up, and I'll move the logs to the list and we can pick up there.
20:05:45 <mchua> Thanks, kwurst and micadeyeye!
20:05:51 <mchua> #endmeeting