Hi everybody! You all probably have been contacted already for students interested in your project. In case you haven't, the student application in the Google system (called Melange) opens in 4 days and then probably the contact from students with prospective mentors will increase. We would like to share some tips and important information with you about how we want to run the program this year in Debian.
Mentor Acceptance in Melange ======================= If you are mentoring or co-mentoring a project, you need to sign up at http://www.google-melange.com, do a request to mentor Debian and tell us your "linkid" by IRC or email. This is a requirement by Google to be able to fill out student evaluation forms. Sadly there are a lot of scammers signing up and we want to avoid accepting the wrong user. In the past years, we accepted everybody who belonged to the Debian community and asked to be a mentor in Melange just for the sake of transparency, so that they could comment and read the proposals. This year instead, we will encourage that the proposals be put at the same time on the Debian wiki as Melange, so that everybody can read and comment on the proposals instead of having to use Melange that is not public. This means that a mentor will only be accepted if there is a concrete project (suggested by a student or a DD) that is fit for GSoC and the mentor is willing to either mentor or co-mentor it. Student Selection ============= The mentors and co-mentors will have to choose between all the students application to select the student they want to work with. If they do not consider any of the students suitable for the project, it is also possible to not to choose any. In the likely case that Google does not fund all our projects (in previous years we received only 9-10 slots), Debian organization admins (Gergely, Sukhbir and Ana) will choose which projects get the slots. In case a mentor has several students applying for a single project, the mentor is strongly encouraged to have the students complete a small test, or create a patch. Mentors can help guide the student to work on the above test but remember that this a test to gauge the student's competency, so be careful of how much help you extend! Asking Students Weekly Report ======================= Last year, we had the students report on the progress of their project bi-weekly. Based on the feedback from both students and mentors, this worked out really well, because it allowed the students to do a self-assessment of their work and the mentors to get an idea about how the student was progressing. Starting this year, we are going to have the students report on a weekly basis as we feel that this will work to every one's benefit. The report should be send by email to the soc-coordination mailing lists. Of course, students can also publish them in their blogs or CC them to mailing lists related to their projects. In case a student is on holiday or otherwise not able to send a report, it is, of course, allowed to miss a report, but the must to notify the mentors and admins in advance. (We will detail more about this in an email targetted to the students) Application Submission ================= The students should submit their application on Melange [1] when the application period opens (March 26 - April 6) for their proposal to be considered by Google. However, we also want the students to create and submit their application on the wiki [2]. This serves two related purposes: by allowing public access of the application and thus helping the student to make necessary changes that may arise from the feedback of the mentors or other people interested in the project. Of course, students can choose to omit personal information from their application on the wiki. Just add your name and email. To add to this, it's always recommended to discuss your application (on the wiki or a mailing list) with your mentor/ co-mentor before submitting it on Melange. Evaluations ========= There are two evaluations required by Google that must to be completed: Midterm: July 9 - July 13: Mid-term evaluations. Final: August 20 - August 24: If none of the mentors or co-mentors can do it, please mail the org admins in advance and they will do it for you. Usually the questions are available in advance. The GSoC admins in Debian, Gergely Nagy, Sukhbir Singh and Ana Guerrero [1] - http://socghop.appspot.com/ [2] - http://wiki.debian.org/SummerOfCode2012/StudentApplications _______________________________________________ Soc-coordination mailing list [email protected] http://lists.alioth.debian.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/soc-coordination
