Improve your project’s on-ramps for new participants
Channel: FOSDEM
Date: 08/02/2019

by Clif Kussmaul

At: FOSDEM 2019
https://video.fosdem.org/2019/UB5.132/community_improve_project_onramp_new_participants.webm


The long-term success of a FOSS project depends on the “on-ramp” experience - the documentation, support, and opportunities available to help new users and participants come up to speed. Students can be a good source of new participants for FOSS projects, which can provide valuable opportunities for students to learn technologies and develop key skills in communication, teamwork, critical thinking, and problem solving. This session will explore the structure and findings of activities designed to help students identify and explore FOSS projects, and consider ways to improve the on-ramp experience for new participants. Active, diverse communities are essential to develop and support FOSS projects. Research shows that most participants start as users and gradually become more engaged, but that only a small fraction of users advance to become active community members. Thus, the long-term success of a FOSS project depends on the “on-ramp” (or “slip road”) experience - the documentation, support, and opportunities available to help new users and participants come up to speed and join the community. This can be particularly important for people who are non-developers or from underrepresented groups (by gender, ethnicity, language, etc) who may experience “imposter syndrome”.
Students can be a good source of new participants for FOSS projects, which can provide valuable opportunities for students to learn technologies and develop key skills in communication, teamwork, critical thinking, and problem solving. However, FOSS is often quite different from traditional academic experiences. Thus, the Professors Open Source Software Experience (POSSE) is a multi-stage program to help faculty understand how FOSS communities work, and how to help students participate effectively in FOSS communities. POSSE includes a “FOSS Field Trip” activity which explores sites like SourceForge and GitHub to discover projects of interest, and a “Project Evaluation” activity which uses a rubric to explore a specific project and assess how welcoming it is for new participants.
In this interactive session, I will briefly present these two activities and summarize what students and faculty experience when they explore unfamiliar FOSS projects. In small groups, participants will consider the strengths and possible improvements of specific FOSS projects. I will then facilitate a discussion of broader insights, and ways that FOSS communities, faculty, and students can work together to improve the on-ramp experience for new participants. 

Room: UB5.132
Scheduled start: 2019-02-03 10:55:00+01