[OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Project ideas for Outreach Project for Women

[Kathy Lussier]

Hi all,

Please excuse the cross-postings.

At its meeting last week, the Executive Oversight Board discussed the 
possibility of participating in the GNOME Outreach Project for Women - 
http://gnome.org/opw/. The goal of OPW is to increase the participation 
of women in FOSS projects by connecting interns with communities that 
need help for specific projects.

It is similar to the Google Summer of Code program in which Evergreen 
has previously participated, but the internships provided through this 
program can extend beyond coding. Interns could also work on user 
experience design, graphic design, documentation, web development, 
marketing, translation, or any other task that would help sustain the 
project.  The EOB agreed to put forth the funds to cover the intern's 
stipend if, as a community, we could come up with some strong project 
ideas that will help the community and mentors willing to commit their 
time to the project

I have started a page at http://wiki.evergreen-ils.org/doku.php?id=opw 
where we can start collecting potential project ideas. I had a couple of 
doc ideas that I have already added to the list. If you can think of 
anything that you think would be a worthwhile project, feel free to add 
it to the page.

Please remember, though, that the projects need to be something that 
serve as an entry point for somebody who is entirely new to Evergreen. 
In talking about how to define a project, OPW suggests starting  with 
smaller tasks (i.e. bugs) with a shared them and progressing over time 
to more complex tasks (i.e. features). They also ask that we select 
projects where the intern is likely to see their contributions 
incorporated in the project before the internship is over.

Also, we need to make sure we have committed mentors on any project that 
is ultimately posted. The next OPW round starts September 8 when the 
names of participating organizations are released. The application 
deadline is October 22. During that application period, mentors may need 
to commit as much as 10 hours per week on the program since you'll be 
working with multiple potential applicants. I expect that it wouldn't be 
10 hours per week for the entire application period, but that it will 
become more demanding as the application deadline approaches.

The internship dates then run from December 9 to March 9, during which 
time you may need to spend up to five hours per week working with the 
intern. Due to the time commitment, I think we should shoot for two 
mentors on each project so that the commitment does not fall on just one 
person.

There is more information for potential mentors at 
https://wiki.gnome.org/OutreachProgramForWomen/Admin/InfoForMentors.

We need to let OPW know by September 8 if we plan on participating, so 
we have about two weeks to see if we can pull together some strong 
projects. However, I think this is doable if we have some willing 
volunteers and good project ideas.

Feel free to let me know if you have any questions!

Kathy


-- 
Kathy Lussier
Project Coordinator
Massachusetts Library Network Cooperative
(508) 343-0128
klussier at masslnc.org
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/kmlussier