GCI mentors, This year's program is about to begin in a few hours. I've published our initial 100+ tasks, but we will need 100 more over the next few days. If anyone has more tasks to add, I've created a form for us all to use:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1l5berjknWtj29zkHJ0q8jLUzPMBYCWYfkv97qAGirZI/viewform I'll send out a schedule later today or tomorrow for review days, but the surge from the first few days will be hectic! So, please respond to as many requests as quickly as possible... Don't let claims and comments go unanswered. Don't wait for someone else to respond. Jump in and help them. :) I believe there is a setting that will let you be notified every time a task is claimed or commented on (or you may have to add yourself to each task as a mentor). Alternatively, you can join the brlcad-tracker mailing list, which will also receive all notifications. I used the tracker mailing list last year as a work queue to ensure no comment or claim went unnoticed. For those of you that are new to this, here is a basic overview of the process and some recommended guidelines: 1) Students first claim a task. Our job is to accept those claims as quickly as possible. They are top priority. The students then work on their task. By default, they are given three days to complete the task. Some will finish in less than an hour, some after several days. 2) Tasks pending review (i.e., they've submitted files and requested a review) are the next highest priority. We must respond, accept or reject, within 24 hours. My goal is within 12 hours if not sooner (within an hour ideally). 3) Give them ample time. If a student asks for more time, always give them 2 more days. If they don't request time, leave a comment asking how they're doing and whether they need more time. You're welcome to give them more time unprompted if it looks like they're working. If not, let their time expire so someone else can try unless they've put in a lot of good effort. 4) Don't hesitate to point out fault on first submissions. Unless it's perfect, kick tasks back for improvement with feedback on how they can improve their work the first time they are submitted for review. On the second and third reviews, if you feel the work is still inadequate, tell them why and add another day of time. Use judgement to determine if they've completed a task adequately, but don't punish them for taking too long. 5) That said, don't make them suffer! If we improperly scoped a task that is clearly more than 2 hours of experienced work, we can break that task up into multiple new tasks for that student to claim incrementally. If they have the requisite knowledge, tasks should take about 2 hours. That said, just because they spent a week trying to find spelling mistakes doesn't mean we're going to break the task up. Figure out how hard the task is by talking to them and reviewing their progress. If it need to be broken up, add them to the form URL above. 6) Remember that these are young children. They are inexperienced. Some are quite capable and smart. Some will need considerable assistance. This is their first introduction to open source so make it a positive experience. By large, every one on the mailing list is capable of giving them good advice that will help them make progress. Talk to them, give them suggestions, answer their questions as quickly as you can. Be understanding that this is probably all new to them. 7) Have fun! The entire program is just six weeks, so this will be over before we know it. Get those new tasks descriptions written up as quickly as you can! Cheers! Sean ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ DreamFactory - Open Source REST & JSON Services for HTML5 & Native Apps OAuth, Users, Roles, SQL, NoSQL, BLOB Storage and External API Access Free app hosting. Or install the open source package on any LAMP server. Sign up and see examples for AngularJS, jQuery, Sencha Touch and Native! http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=63469471&iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk _______________________________________________ BRL-CAD Developer mailing list brlcad-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/brlcad-devel
