Google Summer of Code 2015 Administrative

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• Back to the main OSGeo Google Summer of Code 2015 @ OSGeo wiki page.

This is the central page for OSGeo administrative information in Google Summer of Code 2015.

Contacts

• Margherita Di Leo will act as Administrative contact, with support from Anne Ghisla. Feel free to email us with any questions, we're here to help mentor the mentors as much as anything else!

• Would-be mentors and students: you are invited to sign up to the OSGeo SoC mailing list right now. The list is the central communication channel for mentors, students and administrators. It is used for general GSoC announcements, specific OSGeo announcements, and for clarification about the program.

2015

• OSGeo Google Summer of Code Application 2015
• The 2015 GSoC Melange site
• The 2015 OSGeo home at Melange

Previous years

• SoC involvement: 2008 (link?), 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

Learn more

• OSGeo GSoC wiki pages: 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

• OSGeo Applications: 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

Guides, FAQ and mentors information

GSoC general information: timeline, program site, FAQ

• The official timeline
• The official Google Summer of Code program site
• Google's FAQ on the program
• There is also a Google Knowledge Base Wiki about the program (link to mentors' osuosl wiki?)

A Mentor's Responsibilities

Being a mentor can take anywhere from 2-10 hours a week of your time depending on the student (it really is in your best interest to take on the strongest students you can find :). You must have the time to be responsive and an advocate for the student. No matter how cool the project is and how much your team needs the job done, if you can't commit to supporting it, experience shows that the best thing to do is not start it, i.e. even with the best of intentions don't set a student up to fail. Long story short, student projects simply can't go ahead without proper mentoring support.

Every student project will also have a backup mentor, this person should come from your programming team and should at minimum keep up to date with the student's weekly developments. The best way is if the student is well integrated into your development team from the start, it lessens the workload on you and betters the buy-in from the rest of the community once you're ready for the final code merge.

You must be available at some time during the midterm and final evaluation period. If you will be away during these time periods please arrange with the OSGeo org admins and your backup mentor so that one of us can fill in your answers for you. These are hard cutoffs -- evaluations must be filed within these dates.

Guides for mentors

• The GSoC Mentoring Guide - A must. Do get all useful info and tips from many years of experience from GSoC mentors.
• Same thing, different colors
• GNOME GSoC Mentoring HOWTO
• An excellent summary of mentoring, from A. Jesse Jiryu Davis

Melange guides and issue tracker

• Melange User's Guide
• Melange guide for organization administrators
• Melange issue tracker

How to register as a mentor

Please apply to become a mentor today!

The registration procedure requires you to visit three sites:

• OSGeo soc mailing list
• Google Melange soc site
• a Google form for OSGeo mentor registration

Some of the steps are optional (you can be already registered to soc list, and/or have a linkID in Melange from past years). The only step that actually enables you to be an official mentor is the last one, the Melange request. The other steps ensure that we will accept only people interested in mentoring OSGeo GSoC, and that meet the mentoring requirements - therefore, we will reject Melange requests that are not supported by appropriate information on contribution to the OSGeo projects.

Here is the complete procedure:

1. Read the mentoring guide, and ask previous years' mentors about their experience. Mentoring is often quite demanding in terms of time and energies, especially if you didn't work with the student before. If you are aware of that, proceed with the registration.
2. Sign up to the OSGeo SoC mailinglist.
3. Introduce yourself on soc@lists.osgeo.org. Here are some suggested topics:
   • Project you want to/can mentor for
   • Area(s) of interest
   • Feel free to tell more about yourself
4. If you don't have a linkID from past years, register yourself at the Melange site to obtain it.
5. Apply to become a mentor in Melange:
   • Go to Melange homepage. At the bottom of the page go to where it says "Mentors: Apply now!" and if you had registered as a mentor last year(s) login with your old user ID (aka "link_id"), or register as a new mentor. Click the appropriate button and follow the procedure to create the profile, or update your existing one.
   • As the green box on top of profile page tells you that profile is saved, follow the link "You can now apply to Google Summer of Code". Pick up OSGeo from the list of accepted organisations, or follow this link to the accepted organisations. Select OSGeo: you will be redirected to the mentor connection form.
   • Fill up the request form indicating in the message for the admins your project and the name of the idea(s) you are mentoring, together with an email address that you wish to use with communication with the mentoring organization. Such data will be kept private and only handled by GSoC admins. A plus is a link to a mail on public mailing lists, that show that communication with the prospective student has started.
   • Wait for administrator's approval. Mentors will be approved after students' application period opens. Until approval, your dashboard will be empty.
   • Once you've been accepted, you can go to your dashboard (link on left sidebar) and browse the list of student applications.
6. Accepted mentors will be invited to the osgeo-gsoc-mentors mailing list.