On 25 June 2012 16:23, Katherine Marsden <kmarsdende...@sbcglobal.net> wrote: > On 6/25/2012 5:25 AM, Ross Gardler wrote: >> >> In terms of deliverables from the project think of GSoC where the >> students get credits towards their degree rather than cash (Semester >> of Code rather than Summer of Code). > > > Thanks Ross for driving this effort. I always think it is great to provide > opportunities for students come into open source. It is an important part > of their education that cannot be learned in the classroom. > > I have a question regarding the mechanics.
Please note that these answers are *my* answers as just one of the proposers of the project. Other team members might have different views. The first three months of the project will be used to come to agreement over these items. If a mentor or an associate partner organisation is not satisfied with the mechanics as they are defined at this point then they simply withdraw. > Regarding the student credit, > will it be a simple pass/no pass like GsOC or a grade that the students will > get. I believe that, from a mentors perspective it will be pass/fail while from a tutors perspective I believe it is more likely to be a % grade. Tutors will use the public archives, students reports, delivered patches etc. to assign an actual grade and may overrule the mentors feedback.. > Will the mentor have interaction with the professor regarding the > student's progress/performance. At this stage I'm making it clear to all potential mentoring organisations that their only commitment is the same as they would make to GSoC (i.e. with the student, their own organisation and a couple of simple questionnaire style reports). I expect that some mentors will be happy to engage with the tutors, to an extent but I wouldn't be surprised if the majority don't want to add unproductive work to their day. For this reason there is a funded partner who is tasked with bridging this gap between mentors and academics where necessary (that's me by the way). > Will it be the professor who will assign > the final grade based on the mentors input? In my opinion, yes. I don't think mentors should have any responsibility for this. In my opinion mentors should feel no responsibility to the student other than as a member of their projects community. If a student does not make it worthwhile for a mentor to spend time with them then that is the students/tutors problem, not the mentors. Similarly, the mentor should have no direct input on the students grading, this is unfair on both the mentor (who wants a students future career to depend on them) and for the student (mentors do not have the experience of tutors and thus don't know what to expect from a student). > think it will be important to make sure that appeals are going through the > organization or school rather than the mentor directly. Yes. There is a partner tasked with this activity (again, that's me although in the case of ASF projects it might make sense to defer to another member of the project team). > The matrix nature of the student direction and assessments will be a > challenge we haven't faced with GsOC but one I am sure we can handle if we > give it proper thought up front. Yes. Remember this is a pilot project and the academics involved will take the appropriate precautions to ensure their students don't suffer. Also there will be a period of planning, as described above. I intend to bring this planning to the ComDev list so that interested parties may comment. There is, however, no expectation that the ComDev PMC takes ownership for this part of the project (see above). Ross
