OpenWISP has been accepted as a mentoring organization for the Google Code-In 2018! https://twitter.com/openWISP/status/1042081968652017667
For those involved: please read below. ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Google Code-in <[email protected]> Date: Tue, Sep 18, 2018 at 6:07 PM Subject: GCI 2018: Important Info for Org Admins - please read carefully To: <[email protected]> [image: Google Code-in] Hi Federico Capoano, Congratulations on being selected as a Google Code-in 2018 mentoring organization! Welcome to the 5 new GCI organizations, and welcome back to our veteran organizations, we're thrilled to have you back with us! You can start entering your tasks now on the site. *Published tasks will not be visible for the public until the contest starts Tuesday, October 23rd at 16:00 UTC*. Please do not wait until the Monday night before the contest starts to upload your tasks -- it makes us nervous. :) We encourage you to upload some tasks as soon as possible to make sure they look the way you expect them to look. You can use the API <https://developers.google.com/open-source/gci/api> or provided CSV Uploader <https://code.googlesource.com/codein/api> to bulk upload tasks. Be sure that the link of sample tasks you sent as part of your application is not public on your page right now. We have a blog post going out today that links to the URL you put for your org and in a couple of cases the orgs might have also had their ideas list on that page. Students may not start working on tasks until the contest starts. Below is a quick summary of the main points to keep in mind as you prepare for GCI 2018. For a more comprehensive list of important details please read our Tips and Guidelines for Org Admins <https://developers.google.com/open-source/gci/help/oa-tips> and FAQs <https://developers.google.com/open-source/gci/faq>. - Mentors must be invited by OA's using the mentor's preferred Google account. - Mentors may be as young as 13. A special Parental Consent form (Mentor Participant) is required and will be sent to any 13-17 year old prospective mentor when they first register with your org. OA's must be 18 years or older. - Consider having multiple "instances" for some tasks (ex: you can have 20 of the same task available for students to work on, rather than making copies of the same task over and over again. This is a good strategy for beginner tasks.) - We strongly encourage you to have a minimum of 50 unique tasks comprising at least 100 task instances available on October 23rd, the start of the contest. The more tasks you have in your queue at the start of the contest, the easier your life will be for the next 7 weeks - trust us on this. - Be sure to have tasks in all 5 categories throughout the contest. - Tasks should range in difficulty from "I'm totally new and have no programming skills" to "I'm a comfortable programmer." Most participants will do easier tasks, but you'll be surprised by how many start easy and work their way towards harder ones. - You do not need to publish all of the tasks on the first day of the contest. We encourage you to publish more tasks every few days during the first few weeks of the contest when demand is particularly high. Fresh tasks help keep students interested! - In 2017, the average number of tasks completed per og was 650. *IMPORTANT- Things to keep in mind when creating your tasks- and information you can not ask for in tasks- this is very important.* - Only Org Admins can publish tasks so you are ultimately responsible for what tasks are available for students. Mentors can create tasks but you (Org Admins) have to publish them (you can do bulk publishing, so don't worry). - *Do not create any tasks that require students to supply personal information*. For example, what country they live in, pictures of the student, hobbies, etc. This is personal information and can not be asked or required of students in any manner. If you are unsure about a task please reach out to [email protected] and we can okay it or say it's not acceptable. - Tasks should have a specific tangible output. Code, graphics, documentation, tests, test verification, etc. - It is not a "task" to require someone to make an account, sign up for a mailing list, or follow you on social media. Some of those things are overhead, some of the others are blatant marketing and don't benefit the student. We understand that sometimes this kind of trivial task is used as a beginner / hook task, but you'll need to find other things that are not trivial and don't violate privacy concerns. - No tasks asking students to write blog posts about themselves. You can ask students to write a blog post about some kind of research related to your org, etc. but not a task asking them to write about their favorite tasks or why they are participating, etc. *Important Notes for your Org Profile page*: - Your *Org Profile* page is currently viewable by anyone coming to the contest site and is editable throughout the contest. - Your *Long Description* is what the public will see - it should tell the students, parents, teachers, etc. what your org does in a clear, and concise way. This is the first, and often only thing, people will read about your org. Make sure it is interesting (without typos) and gives students a quick understanding of what type of work your org does, it essentially is the hook to get them to go and look at your tasks and community. If you opted-in to the GCI-mentor email list, you should be receiving an invitation in the next few days to join the group. If you joined last year you are still on the list and do not need to rejoin. *New contest changes for 2018: * - We have renamed the task category "User Interface" to "Design" - mostly for simplicity - Orgs will be reviewing the top 20 students when determining their winners and finalists - Orgs will be selecting 6 finalists (instead of 5), and 2 of those 6 finalists will be named winners for each org. - Students have to have their Parental Consent form reviewed by Google before they can claim their first task. This means students may grow impatient, particularly the students during the first week of the contest when our team is slammed reviewing thousands of forms in just a couple of days. But it is a requirement for us to continue to run this contest so it is what it is. Veteran GCI Mentors and Org Admins have a wealth of knowledge around best practices and are always ready to help! You can use the gci-mentors <https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/gci-mentors> list to reach them. The archives are also full of useful information. You may also wish to read the "GCI Organization Advice <https://docs.google.com/document/d/1D8I6T50q_o4MYGzQBdjl6o33h8WFRPedeOpJtK7zKwU/edit>" document written by Mentors from RTEMS, BRL-CAD, and others as well as the Deterring and Detecting Cheating <https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/gci-mentors/5ou45f95c30> thread from a couple of years ago to help you prep your mentors. If you have any questions or find any bugs please reach out to us at [email protected]. We're looking forward to the biggest and best Google Code-in yet! Best, Stephanie GCI Program Admin You are receiving this email because of your participation in Google Code-in 2018. https://codein.withgoogle.com To leave the contest and stop receiving all emails, you can go to your profile <https://codein.withgoogle.com/profile/> and request deletion of your contest profile. For any questions, please contact [email protected]. Replies to this message go to an unmonitored mailbox. © 2018 Google LLC, 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, USA <https://maps.google.com/?q=1600+Amphitheatre+Parkway,+Mountain+View,+CA+94043,+USA&entry=gmail&source=g> This message was sent to: [email protected] X-For-Filtering: Type-Custom -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "OpenWISP" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
