[GRASS-dev] We need mentors for Google Code-In

[Veronica Andreo]

Hi Anna,

thanks for your answer... I'll try to clarify as much as possible, though
I'm also rather new in the matter. @Madi & @Helli, please correct me if I'm
wrong

2017-10-04 19:41 GMT+02:00 Anna Petrášová <kratochanna at gmail.com>:

> Hi Vero,
>
> On Wed, Oct 4, 2017 at 11:24 AM, Veronica Andreo <veroandreo at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > Hey devs,
> >
> > As the subject reads: We need more mentors for Google Code-In :)
> >
> > GCI is a competition addressed to high-school students aged 13-17, as an
> > introduction to the open source world. They are supposed to complete as
> much
> > tasks as possible to win the contest. These tasks should be short simple
> > stuff (3-5 hours), but since they have to complete several to win, we
> need
> > to plan lots of them and be available to review what the students submit
> > rather quickly, so they can start with a new one. For that reason, it is
> > better if we are more mentors.
> >
> > Here is the GRASS wiki [0] with more details and a collection of ideas
> for
> > tasks that should then be further explained and developed in the format
> of
> > tasks. I think the ideas are nice and this could be a funny experience.
> > Moreover, we could attract new generations and benefit from their
> creativity
> > ;)
>
> this is probably not very helpful response, but I am little bit
> skeptical about this and maybe you can clarify some things. My main
> problem is that GRASS is not the type of software you just start to
> use and understand it right away. Even making useful screenshots
> requires decent knowledge of the software and geospatial data/models.
>

I partially agree... if we compare GRASS today with GRASS some years ago, I
think it has become more accessible to newcomers. However, it is not the
easiest and most straightforward GIS to start working with. Question for us
could be how to make it friendlier...

On the other hand, we are the ones defining how *decent* screenshots need
to be, for example. Do we want all these screenshots (just to grab one of
the ideas for tasks) to be highly visible in announcements or we are fine
with simple screenshots proving that they were able to install the
software, create a location and display a raster map with legend? The first
would be extremely useful, we always need screenshots for announcements and
so on... but the second option is not bad either, if we want to gain users
and potential developers in the future. Besides, the former might be marked
as a begginer task and the latter as a more advanced one.

In any case, in GCI, the students are the ones that claim the tasks they
want, it's not that we choose them according to their background or
previous knowledge or experience... we might not even be selected by them
:-/


> Do you think these students have any ideas about GIS?


Honestly, I do not know, most probably they don't. But most probably they
(or most of them) do not know about the other OSGeo projects either, nor
about other open source projects in general. That's why it is an intro to
the open source world.

I confess I haven't spent much time thinking about this program yet, but I
> see a
> lot of time spent by mentors defining precise tasks without too much gain.


Could be... if you only think as for now and in terms of new modules or
functionalities... but we don't know how it could go, since this is the
first time OSGeo might participate... If we think a bit more into the
future this might help us grow our user and potential developers community,
and open source community in general

I can see this could be useful for things like designing promotional
> materials, but not much beyond that.


For sure... and IMHO we very much need that. We need screenshots, we need
examples and images in the manuals, we need new tutorial wikis and videos,
and so on...

HTH :)
Vero
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/grass-dev/attachments/20171004/36abf296/attachment.html>