We held (very last-minute) inaugural office hours today. Main topic of discussion was university outreach, and what that looks like. We’re really not sure what University outreach would look like, but it sounds to me like we should participate in existing programs, rather than trying to create our own, since they’re the experts and we’re not. What we could/should do (based on this discussion) is:
1) Document where we are already participating in existing programs, so as to increase awareness, share best practice, and identify opportunities for projects to hook into existing efforts. 2) Have discussions on the mailing list (perhaps using a [University] Subject tag) where people can collaborate/commiserate about their existing efforts, so that people don’t feel alone in their efforts, and where they can share tips and experiences. We could, of course, split this to a separate list if it gets too loud for this one, but my inclination is not to proactively create Yet Another Mailing List to go be invisible and go stale, but rather to increase visibility here first and split if/when it becomes necessary. So … if you’re already doing some kind of University outreach, please do start a thread, using [University] the subject, to tell us about it. I also learned a new phrase — “Desperate Learner” — which I really like. This describes people who are learning something because they see it as their ticket to self improvement, and more specifically to income generation. Open source has always been about “scratching your own itch” and open source participation as a ticket out of poverty is a huge motivator, particularly in University settings where people are looking to create their career and life. I mentioned https://boxofclue.com/comdev-metrics/ which I’ve been running for about a month now, and suggested moving it to one of the ComDev VMs. I’ve mentioned this before, and didn’t hear much feedback other than that it seems like a useful resource. I’m going to try to go ahead and stick it on projects.apache.org <http://projects.apache.org/> at some point, maybe? I don’t expect to have time to get that done this week, but would be delighted to work with anyone else who does have time for that. But I’ll get to it eventually if nobody else does. I’d like to make this a regular thing and have put this on my calendar, weekly, at 10am Eastern US time. If you can drop in a few times a month, that would be fantastic. And I’ll try to post a proposed topics list here a day or two before the meeting. —Rich --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected]
