Student participation in open source projects (A professor's perspective)

"I must start by thanking Mel Chua for visiting us in Connecticut and for prompting/prodding me to think more deeply about how open source and academia work together to accomplish education. I believe I now have a better picture of student and academic participation in open source projects.

"At first look, student participation in open source projects seems like it should be relatively easy to accomplish. Sure, from a teaching perspective there are issues related to selecting a project, learning curve for the project, finding a mentor, identifying ways that students can participate, figuring out how to grade things, and more. But these things are surmountable.

"But in recent years, some rocks in the river have appeared that make navigating the current of open source involvement trickier than it first seemed."

Complete Story

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