16:22:15 #startmeeting 16:22:15 Meeting started Thu Oct 29 16:22:15 2009 UTC. The chair is mchua. Information about MeetBot at http://wiki.debian.org/MeetBot. 16:22:15 Useful Commands: #action #agreed #halp #info #idea #link #topic. 16:22:27 Logging beginning again after a nice lunch. 16:22:37 humph currently talking about Seneca's programme. 16:24:03 Describing the courses, the options for students, their partnership with Mozilla. 17:05:27 "What we need" list going up on whiteboard 17:05:29 1. 17:05:40 textbook 17:05:40 3. hooks to projects 17:05:40 2. ...? 17:05:55 4. ways to reach beyond CS/CSEE 17:05:58 (and designers) 17:06:01 (and docs) 17:06:17 * mchua --> rsi break brb 17:09:53 5. ways for students to explain their FOSS work to employers via portfolios, etc. 17:10:01 6. pitching at academic conferences 17:10:52 7. funding release time for well-connected folks 17:11:42 amendment, #7 is rewritten 17:12:01 7. "bridge people" with the time to build programs that go (school <--> project) 17:15:52 8. "catalyst people" to make those connections 17:22:28 9. ambassadors - see http://teachingopensource.org/index.php/Conferences 17:22:35 10. "the provost's guide to open source" 17:25:33 Dave points out there is a scarcity mentality among schools - you get resources == I don't 17:26:13 Greg: "how do we use the structures that already exist to further our own goals?" 17:45:43 * mchua blinks. thought just hit. is it that people don't have time... or that we don't tell them how much time they have to clear? 17:46:44 the power of POSSE is that we can say "give us a week of your time; you don't know what you'll be doing during this week, but trust us, after 40 (...more like 60, everyone went overboard ;) hours you will emerge and be able to do X!" 17:46:52 then people can budget their time out. 17:47:28 because right now, getting involved in FOSS... you don't know how deep down what rabbit hole you have to go, the unknown is scary, and in order to mitigate risk, you naturally avoid it. 17:48:30 mchua: say it out loud 17:50:17 ctyler: ok. that, and we should prioritize the What We Need list on the board 17:53:11 ctyler: I'm having a hard time keeping up with the spoken conversation, let me know when I should step in with the "quantify the time investment: needed?" and "let's prioritize that list of projects" stuff 17:53:24 there's so much momentum here I want to make sure we're going to keep channeling things once we all leave 17:54:03 Chris: "How do we make students work on things that are important to the community?" 17:54:10 (the open source project community) 17:55:36 Luis bringing up the point that a lot of times university folks will write software (for research, etc) that could be more broadly useful, possibly, but never sees the light of day. 17:56:15 Chris explaining how FOSS folks create experimental branches, work there, and then (if successful) merge those changes back into the main tree 17:57:24 Dru's comment immediately afterwards pointed out to me that this is analogous to what Seneca is doing with academic programs - they've essentially created a branch from mainline (conventional academia) but it's not clear how to merge back in 17:57:33 * mchua not sure how to summarize Dru's comment though 17:57:50 Prioritizing list of projects now? 17:57:57 ...yep, prioritizing now 17:58:29 ...wait, no, discussion first 18:01:46 (someone please take over transcribing?) 18:10:02 Dave: "community members dont care about research" 18:10:17 Luis: "we need to make our research papers compilable, because otherwise how can people check our work" 18:10:23 Mel: "community members do care about dashboards" 18:10:31 we are taking a break 18:10:36 then we will discuss what the .orgs and .coms are doing 18:10:48 then we will look at the projects 18:34:27 ORG/COM/GOV initiatives... 18:35:33 - BSD Certifications - trying to bridge the gap between projects that need people with skills, employers that need people with skills, and the EDUs 18:35:48 (thanks, chris - my hands are pretty tired right now) 18:36:18 Focusing on skills education (vs. knowledge education) 18:38:20 Based on employer-identified needs 18:42:43 Most interest is outside of NA, though Mohawk has been using their curriculum objectives for the past (2?) years 18:43:30 (can has link to program Dru mentoined?) 18:43:36 bsdcertification.org 18:43:47 #link bsdcertification.org 18:44:06 - Mozilla education (EdMo) 18:44:14 #link education.mozilla.org 18:44:49 Grew out of relationship with Seneca, is aimed at reaching out to schools interested in teaching Moz development 18:45:10 Funded by Mozilla Foundation, Dave Humphrey is educational liaison 18:45:33 3 purposes so far: 18:45:46 * to continue the work that Dave is doing and continue it to other colleges 18:46:45 * projects that involve students that don't fit elsewhere in the Mozilla umbrella e.g., processing.js, Mozilla design challenge 18:48:02 * applying technology such as JetPack to the question "How do you learn online?" - JetPack design challenge: use FF addons to support learning online 18:51:52 - Red Hat educational initiatives 18:52:17 The more open source development happens, the healthier RH is as a company. 18:53:10 Greg is concerned that the world of open source developers seems to be flat rather than growing. Concern that academic interest in OS is not growing. 18:54:05 Encouraged that this might be a sign that OS is significant enough that proprietary vendors are fighting it (e.g., Microsoft), but this is leading to backoffice losses in some academic institutions. 18:54:43 One of the best ways to combat this is to get academic institutions to create open source developers. 18:55:40 Focus now is to get more faculty into teaching open source. 18:56:37 POSSE initiative takes a group of professors and introduces them to open source in a bootcamp format. 18:57:29 Next POSSE is in Singapore in 2 weeks' time, projecting 30+ professors participating. 18:58:15 Question from Dave Humphrey: why is the attendance at POSSE Asia so much larger, when a "sweet deal" was offered to NA profs to attend in the summer? 18:59:09 Greg/Mel: RH Singapore office is driving the marketing - very enthusiastic. 18:59:51 Seems to be no shortage of demand for these events. Goal was to determine methodology, then make that available for anyone who wanted to run one. 19:00:37 Locating where there's interest, a cheap space, and a bunch of profs within driving distance. 19:01:31 Q: What kind of profs are you targeting? Greg: Anyone that teaches students who could contribute to open source. Considering including technical writing, QA. 19:04:39 Curriculum? (1) Open source methodology and skills (2) How this fits into the classroom 19:07:16 Mel: you have to be immersed in and *live* open source. One of the objectives is to give the profs a bite-sized piece (1 week) and from there a roadmap to where they can go and what's involved in getting there 19:07:40 Jordan: how do we explain the advantages of teaching open source? 19:08:18 Greg: you want to believe that the coursework that you create is going to prepare a student. Open source can educate students about what real computer engineering is all about. 19:09:47 There's no disadvantage to teaching things such as version control. However, real project-based work is Hard. 19:12:49 Jordan: risks? 19:13:18 Dave H: there's a lot that's hidden/wrapped up in the social aspect of open source. Some students flounder in that. 19:13:32 Andrew: OS is not for all students just as it's not for all professors. 19:13:35 gregdek: http://fpaste.org/DPTW/ seems relevant now 19:14:16 Greg: I like what Fardad's doing now, because students are going to know some of the important basic skills (such as a VCS) -- it's shameful that students graduate without knowing that. 19:14:48 Those are the hard skills; the soft skills are things like working in community. Maybe there should be two types of capstones, and students should self-select. 19:15:49 Dave: I've bought into this hook, line, and sinker. Maybe this should be for every student. 19:15:58 Andrew: It's clearly not for everyone. 19:16:25 Karlie: But everyone takes courses that aren't "them" e.g., PhysEd or Calculus. 19:16:57 How do we make basics that are important to us (as OS people) 19:17:12 a core part of curriculum. 19:17:55 It would be great if there was an OS degree. 19:18:10 Greg: We have to prove the viability of the model. I want to get from N to N+1 19:23:41 ctyler: I kinda want to stand up and say "okay, I'm 18 years old. I'm your student next semester. why do I care about this "FOSS" stuff?" 19:23:56 ctyler: I still remember enough of that mindset that I could probably pull it off. ;) 19:25:11 Steve notes that OS can help differentiate portfolios. 19:25:41 Greg: Outside of CS, I see two types of capstones: industry-driven, and prof-driven. Industry-driven is very similar to OS capstones. 19:29:03 Problem with industry capstones: they're scoped down so small because companies want Something Done, that nobody cares about the problem you are solving.