19:07:15 #startmeeting 19:07:16 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 Useful Commands: #action #agreed #halp #info #idea #link #topic. 19:08:01 #meetingname POSSE meeting 19:08:02 The meeting name has been set to 'posse_meeting' 19:08:04 There we go. 19:08:23 #topic This summer's POSSEs - admissions count 19:08:36 #info We currently have 5 (our minimum size) for POSSE Worcester 19:09:04 #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 #info We have interest but no hard confirmations for POSSE CA and POSSE CMU; need to step that up 19:10:23 #topic POSSE budget 19:10:34 We're starting to run the numbers, and they're looking good for the summer, in terms of staying under budget. 19:10:46 Can you let me know (offline) who has applied to POSSE Worcester, so I know who to push? 19:11:09 kwurst: Will do. 19:11:18 #link http://teachingopensource.org/index.php/POSSE_Worcester_State_planning#Budget 19:11:39 That one is all nailed down; the rest are waiting on one or two details (flight preferences, etc.) 19:11:50 but we're currently under $6k for all four. 19:11:59 Questions about upcoming POSSEs? 19:12:23 Thoughts on how we can get attendees? I know now we should be starting earlier (pre-SIGCSE, really) for recruitment. 19:13:29 Well, what I did was look up email addresses of faculty for all schools within about 45 minutes drive. 19:13:56 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 #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 That seems like a good way to do it. :) 19:15:23 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 #info kwurst emailed the faculty directly, one email per institution, sent to the faculty directly. 19:16:35 #info kwurst emailed faculty directly, rather than Department Chair, because sometimes chairs forget to forward these emails. 19:17:28 #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 Awesome. This is all extremely helpful. 19:18:44 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 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 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 Yep, and it's good for the communities in general because it makes their getting-started processes better for everyone. 19:21:36 Seeing the problems that arise, will help us solve them with students/write better instructions for students. 19:22:10 Having no problems with setup may actually be counterproductive ;-) 19:22:55 * mchua grins 19:23:13 Well, the idea would be that we solve the setup problems so that neither you nor your students will hit them. 19:23:17 Or as many as we can. 19:23:20 I'm sure we'll still hit plenty. ;) There always are. 19:24:41 Ok. Anything else on this summer's POSSEs? 19:25:06 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 #topic Future POSSEs 19:25:42 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 micadeyeye: Any plans/updates on South Africa? What can we do to help? ;) 19:26:44 I spoke with the dean of my faculty today, and he is more than willing to see us have POSSE. 19:27:14 You said we will be discussing the funding. 19:27:41 We already have a venue and a date has been chosen. 19:27:51 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 Oct. 3-8, 2010 19:28:10 * mchua nods 19:28:23 micadeyeye: Ok - so what we'd need to figure out is who's available to teach. 19:28:31 Yes. 19:28:39 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 You are right. 19:29:59 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 Great. 19:30:51 micadeyeye: It might be challenging since that's in the middle of the school year, but we'll see. 19:31:08 Okay. 19:31:32 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 Otherwise, you and any other interested instructor could come over. 19:32:45 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 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 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 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 None. I will let you know if anything crops up. 19:35:13 Ok, thanks micadeyeye! 19:35:22 Any other questions about POSSEs happening beyond this summer? 19:35:34 * mchua can't see anyone here for that yet 19:35:37 Ok, onwards! 19:35:49 #topic Discussion: evaluations 19:36:22 #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 ...that's about it, but I also did want to put forward another idea that's come up, which is: 19:36:50 #topic Discussion: the future of POSSE 19:37:38 #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 That's something that's come up in discussion before, and is mostly in need of a broader faculty sanity-check. 19:38:57 That will depend on the school. I would not get release time. 19:39:29 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 kwurst: In the absence of release time, what could we do to support a professor who was running the POSSE program? 19:42:10 (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 Not sure at this point. I may have a better idea after I've been through one. 19:43:02 At my school, service is a big thing, so organizing something like this counts for tenure and promotion credit. 19:43:22 At more research-oriented schools, probably not as much... 19:43:30 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 Yep. We'd have to make sure it would "count" for you folks in some way. 19:44:15 The conference that I'm most involved in has been running for 15 years in our region. 19:45:00 It has a board that doesn't change much from year to year. The school and chair changes every year. 19:45:52 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 There is a national organization that oversees ~10 regions - each with their own conference and their own regional board. 19:47:19 How many years did it take to get to that steady-state? 19:47:25 (Is it still growing? Or is it steady-state?) 19:48:40 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 so maybe 3-4 years ramp-up? 19:49:24 Is that normal in terms of how annual events in academia (conferences mostly, I suppose) tend to get organized? 19:49:25 POSSE has fewer tasks needed to run one meeting - no paper reviewers, etc. 19:49:52 Looks like on the local end, it's mostly space reservations and advertising. 19:50:30 The central board would be the ones to determine how many POSSEs and where for each year. 19:51:17 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 Yes, it was probably 4 years ramp-up for our local region, but the national board had been around longer. 19:52:21 We'd need a longer planning cycle than 3 months - a year's lead-time seems normal. 19:52:42 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 (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 Actually, for a conference, a year in advance is not long enough. 19:54:08 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 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 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 That said, POSSE shouldn't require that much lead time. 19:56:45 One thing that requires so much time for the conference is the timeline for submission and reviewing of papers. 19:57:44 Papers are due in September, reviewed by end of December, program put together in early Jan, for an April conference. 19:58:51 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 This might be a good idea to take to the list, since we're running out of time for today. 20:00:34 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 #action mchua move POSSE-run-by-profs idea to the list 20:00:38 * mchua nods 20:00:59 kwurst: Wait, really? But there are international conferences all th etime. 20:02:23 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 I think that's all I have to say right now... 20:05:26 * mchua nods 20:05:38 Let's wrap up, and I'll move the logs to the list and we can pick up there. 20:05:45 Thanks, kwurst and micadeyeye! 20:05:51 #endmeeting