Teaching open source: involving students in free and open source software (FOSS) project communities (abstract only).

Involving students from a wide range of backgrounds in Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) project communities gets them a hands-on, portfolio-building experience in the creation of a real-world project while simultaneously building their institution's public profile. The Teaching Open Source (http://teachingopensource.org) community is an emergent (3 year old) group working on scaffolding to bridge the cultural differences between academic and FOSS communities of practice. Join us to share questions, challenges, and triumphs of incorporating FOSS participation into existing and new curricula as well support resources for doing so. Alumni and current members of the POSSE (Professors' Open Source Summer Experience, http://communityleadershipteam.org/posse) will attend in mentorship roles. Faculty attendance at the SIGCSE 2010 BoF on Teaching Open Source (TOS) indicates that student involvement in FOSS projects is a teaching and learning approach of interest for many faculty members. The transparency of both artifacts and process make FOSS an attractive real-world experience that enhances peer learning and intrinsic motivation for a diversity of courses, from introductory, interdisciplinary, and non-major classes to software engineering core offerings and senior capstones. However, such student participation involves a significant learning curve and effort on the part of the faculty member, and support structures for faculty are still maturing. 2011-2012 marks the 3rd academic year the TOS community has explored this realm together, and the past year has seen the emergence of more best practices, support resources, and curricular material. Community members are starting to design cross-institutional research on the impact of FOSS participation on students. BoF attendees will be encouraged to ask questions, network, and take advantage of the TOS community as a support structure for their own courses and projects. The audience is expected to consist of instructors who 1) are interested in learning how to get started in involving students in FOSS projects; or 2) have involved students in FOSS projects and are looking for better ways to facilitate student learning within FOSS projects.