Building the Student Pipeline to
Open Source Communities
Using HFOSS

Heidi Ellis, Western New England UniversityGreg Hislop, Drexel University

We Are...

Professor, Western New England University

Co-maintainer GNOME MouseTrap

Founding Member HFOSS

Professor, Drexel University

Foss2serve team lead

Software industry veteran

Where Are We Going?

Student Participation in Open Source

Challenges

Helping instructors prepare to teach FOSS

What Can Students Do?

Research Results

Next Steps

STUDENT PARTICIPATION IN OPEN SOURCE

Current Status of FOSS in Education

Open SourceHigher EdIndustry

Students who learn FOSSCompanies that use FOSSIndustry

What Students Know

Open source software exists They can use the stuff without paying for it It's legal to do so

Reason 1: Tenure-track instructors are under pressure to:Publish, publish, publishPeer-reviewed and there is a hierarchy of publication venuesThere is NO venue for open source educationAttract grant funding,

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What Most Students Don't Know

Development FOSS development tools

Processes and techniques

Organization and scale The extent of FOSS number and scale of projects

FOSS career opportunities

Licensing

FOSS culture

Reason 1: Tenure-track instructors are under pressure to:Publish, publish, publishPeer-reviewed and there is a hierarchy of publication venuesThere is NO venue for open source educationAttract grant funding,

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Survey Results

Survey of Junior and Senior students at Drexel Multiple choice and fill in the blank questions

Goal: get a baseline of student familiarity with FOSS concepts

Reason 1: Tenure-track instructors are under pressure to:Publish, publish, publishPeer-reviewed and there is a hierarchy of publication venuesThere is NO venue for open source educationAttract grant funding,

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Survey Results

Less than 10% of students Had ever heard of The Cathedral and the Bazaar

Know that a lot of FOSS is written by people paid to do so No concept of FOSS as a career area

Most students think that the average number of contributors to a FOSS project is > 50

Reason 1: Tenure-track instructors are under pressure to:Publish, publish, publishPeer-reviewed and there is a hierarchy of publication venuesThere is NO venue for open source educationAttract grant funding,

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CHALLENGES

Faculty Reward Structure

Research emphasis Publish or Perish

Education research not always
valued

Peer-review is key

Education innovation Not always welcome

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Faculty Learning Curve

Relatively few CS faculty have significant software engineering experience Large code bases

Active client communities

Product management, evolution, packaging, distribution, and support

Very few CS faculty have FOSS experience Tools and processes

The Open Source Way

Licensing, business models, etc.

Curricular Innovation is Slow

Up to 1 year for new course

Up to 4 years for new curriculum

Warning: School specific:The department (CS or SE) has to create a curriculum that fits together as a whole *and* that students can work through in 4 years. Given that, departments can't afford to add courses that don't fit clearly into a learning path.Schools have a limited resource budget both in terms of instructor hours and in terms of things like available classroom space. There's competition for that time/space.When courses can be added (and the process is documented) it can take years.Bump in enrollments is a plus, but interferes with new course development

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Mismatch in FOSS and Academic Timelines

Fedora Project: Release Cycle: 6 mo

Planning Cycle: ~1 yr

Execution Time: 6-12 mo

Academia Release Cycle: 1-4 yrs

Planning Cycle: 2-5 yrs

Execution Time: 4 yrs

Reason 1: Tenure-track instructors are under pressure to:Publish, publish, publishPeer-reviewed and there is a hierarchy of publication venuesThere is NO venue for open source educationAttract grant funding,

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Pedagogical Expectations

Instructor as expert Difficulty in being productively lost

Meeting course learning outcomes Difficult with unpredictable events in FOSS

Difficult to achieve the same outcomes for all students

Short, fixed time frame of academic courses

Reason 1: Tenure-track instructors are under pressure to:Publish, publish, publishPeer-reviewed and there is a hierarchy of publication venuesThere is NO venue for open source educationAttract grant funding,

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HELPING FACULTY PREPARE

POSSE v1.0

Professors Open Source Summer Experience

Red Hat outreach initiative for college faculty 3-5 days immersive introduction to FOSS

Focus on open source culture, tools, processes etc.

Challenges Funding for travel

Covering instructional issues

POSSE v2.0

Professors Open Source Software Experience

Collaboration of college faculty and Red Hat Plus NSF funding

Coverage of instructional issues along with FOSS introduction

Three stage model

POSSE v2.0

Stage 1: Online Static, factual content

Stage 2: In-person workshop Dynamic, situational,
human-centered content

Stage 3: Small group
collaboration Community building

STUDENT PARTICIPATION

50 Ways to be a FOSSer

Use & Evaluate

FOSS Participants

HFOSS Project Overview

Communication

Tools

Business Model

Philosophy and Politics

Privacy and Security

Documentation

Visual Design

Quality and Testing

Usability

Design

Style

Coding

Localization

Gnome Caribou Keyboard Student Enhancements

Also added: Shift Key

Esc Key

Delete Key (vs backspace)

Page Up, Page Down

OpenMRS Development Environment Instructions

OpenMRS

Development Environment Explore VM's and containers to package demo or development environment

Writing more installation instruction

Translating system messages to multiple languages Updates and additions to French

Additions in Polish

Attempt in Arabic

RESEARCH RESULTS

Research Questions

What is the impact of student participation in HFOSS on: Motivation to study computing

Perceived learning related to computing

Choice of major and career plans

MotivationSW EngineeringMajor and Career

Working on an HFOSS project gives me a better appreciation for the usefulness of computing. I can list the steps in the software process we used in HFOSS projectThe subject matter of this HFOSS project is highly relevant to my future career plans.

Study Context

2006 - 2015 Multiple institutions

Different courses

Additional data collection

Builds on instructor
community Prior attendees at Professors Open Source Software Experience (POSSE) workshops

Study Design

Pre and post anonymous student survey Five-point Likert scale plus open ended questions Strongly disagree, Disagree, Neutral, Agree, Strongly agree; Dont know, Not applicable

Mann-Whitney U used for testing significance

Sample size Pre-course: 115

Post-course: 94

Courses in the Study

TitleTerm(s)StudentsLength of Term

Software Engineering (WNE)Fall 2013,Fall 20146,815 weeks

Software Engineering (URI)Fall 20144015 weeks

Software Engineering (Mor)Spring 20141015 weeks

Software Engineering (TCNJ)Fall 20131915 weeks

Software Engineering (Mac)Winter 20141513 weeks

Open Source Software Development (WOU)Winter 20142010 weeks

Student Profile

Major - 95% computing related

Gender 17% female

8% not identified

75% male

Results Motivation and Career

QDescriptionp-val