An approach for evaluating open source projects for student participation
Michelle W. Purcell, Heidi J. C. Ellis, Gregory W. Hislop · Journal of computing sciences in colleges · 2013
Student participation in free and open source software (FOSS) has potential to improve student learning in computing majors. Experiences contributing bug fixes, testing, writing documentation and developing new features can enable students to learn in a more authentic environment developing technical skills as well as teamwork and communication skills. However learning curves related to a large complex code base, use of development tools, understanding of community interactions, and scheduling of class deliverables with the FOSS calendar are only a few of the hurdles to education inherent in learning in a FOSS environment. One major roadblock to instructors desiring to support student involvement in FOSS projects is the difficulty in identifying FOSS projects suitable for student participation. This poster presents one attempt to address this problem by providing a framework of evaluation criteria that can be used to determine approachable FOSS projects for student involvement.